This week's menu in Belval, 28 September to 3 October: a risotto that crosses Italy

This is the last week of September. On Thursday we move into October, and we will not be doing anything about it.

There is, however, a risotto on this week’s card that covers the entire country on its own.

Monday 28 September to Saturday 3 October

Chitarra al Manzo · 22,80 €
Halal beef, tomato sauce and green pepper. (1.3.7.12)

Orecchiette ai Funghi di Bosco · 20,80 €
Wild mushrooms and porcini, fresh cherry tomatoes and Primo Sale. (1.7)

Risotto allo Zafferano · 21,80 €
Buffalo stracciatella, pistachio pesto and tarallo powder. (1.7)

Tortelloni alla Rana Pescatrice · 23,90 €
Filled with monkfish and scampi, on an asparagus cream. (1.3.7)

Puccia al Polipo · 23,80 €
Grilled octopus tentacles, spinach, stracciatella and cherry tomatoes. (1.7.14)

Tagliata di Pollo · 24,90 €
Halal chicken fillet, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach salad and homemade yoghurt sauce. (7)

A thousand kilometres on one plate

Take the risotto and look at where each thing comes from.

The saffron is Milan. The yellow risotto belongs to that city and has not shifted an inch in generations. The buffalo stracciatella comes from Puglia, the other end of the country: it is the creamy shreds you find inside a burrata. The pistachio you picture first in Sicily.

And scattered over the top, a tarallo ground to powder.

A tarallo is a small hard ring of bread from Puglia, boiled and then baked. There is a jar of them on a counter somewhere, people eat them while talking and nobody thinks about it. Here one has been crushed and thrown over the rice for the crunch.

Taking the thing people nibble without noticing and turning it into a seasoning is what a kitchen does once it has stopped copying out of books.

The frog that fishes

The tortelloni are filled with monkfish. In Italian that fish has two names and neither does it any favours.

The first is coda di rospo, toad’s tail. It was on our card a fortnight ago. The second is rana pescatrice, the fishing frog, and that is this week’s. Same fish, two weeks apart, two pond animals.

The second name is earned. The monkfish carries a thin rod on its head, tipped with a soft flap it waves in front of its mouth. Small fish come over to look. That is the whole of the work.

Here it comes with scampi, on an asparagus cream. The ugliest fish in the sea always ends up in the best dishes, and there is no explanation for that.

The woods

This week’s orecchiette come with wild mushrooms and porcini.

This is the short stretch of the year when those are worth eating, and it does not last. A few weeks, then nothing until next autumn.

And this week the week does not stop on Friday evening.

Saturday, the Nuit de la Culture

On Saturday we are not closing at 14:00 the way we usually do. The Nuit de la Culture takes over Belval, it starts at 18:00, it is free, and we stay open from 9:00 to 23:00.

This edition is called OVNI, for oser vivre de nouveaux imaginaires, daring to live new imaginaries. There will be light installations, music, performances, and flying saucers parked at the foot of the blast furnaces.

In Italy there is a word for the moment when a whole town goes out walking in the evening, with no purpose beyond being outdoors at the same time as everyone else. It is the passeggiata. On Saturday the quarter will be doing precisely that.

A passeggiata needs somewhere to stop halfway. We are at 6 Rue de la Fonte, and we will be there until 23:00.

Coming in

Eat in or takeaway, Monday to Friday from 6:30. Saturday 3 October, from 9:00 to 23:00.

The numbers refer to allergens, the full list is on mycaffe.lu.

MyCaffé, 6 Rue de la Fonte, Belval.

Buon ottobre.