Menu of the Week: MyCaffé Belval, 20–25 July 2026

Truffle, Yellow Plums and a Bread That Won’t Leave the Menu.

Menu of the Week, 20–25 July 2026

High summer has settled over Belval this week, warm and steady, the kind of heat that makes shade and a cold glass feel like small luxuries. The menu at MyCaffé answers with six dishes that range from the playfully unexpected to the genuinely luxurious, with one guest who has now stayed long enough to be considered part of the family.

The Fusilli su Crema di Peperoni, Funghi Cardoncelli e Rucola open the week with a sauce built for summer’s most generous vegetable. Bell peppers, slow-roasted until their sugars concentrate and their flesh softens into something close to velvet, become a cream that carries real depth. Cardoncelli mushrooms, native to the dry grasslands of southern Italy and among the most prized fungi in the Puglian kitchen, bring a firm, meaty texture that holds up against the sweetness of the pepper. Rocket, peppery and slightly bitter, finishes the dish with the kind of green lift that keeps a rich sauce from becoming heavy.

The Tagliolini con Scampi e Asparagi are the week’s lightest and most precise plate. Tagliolini, those fine ribbons of egg pasta, ask for restraint rather than abundance, and here they get exactly that: prawns whose sweetness needs no embellishment, and asparagus, still carrying the last of its late-season character, adding a gentle bitterness and a bright green freshness. A dish that trusts two good ingredients to do the work.

Then the Risotto con Prugne Gialle e Speck, which is this week’s most surprising and most rewarding decision. Yellow plums in a risotto is not a combination most people expect, but it belongs to a genuine Italian instinct: pairing stone fruit with cured meat and rice is a tradition found across the north, where the sweetness of ripe fruit has long been used to balance the salt and fat of speck, prosciutto and other cured products. Yellow plums, at their juiciest and most fragrant in July, bring a delicate sweetness and a faint acidity that lifts the whole bowl. Speck, that smoked, cured ham from the Alto Adige, provides the salt and the smoke that the fruit needs as a counterpoint. Together, they create a risotto that tastes like summer and winter meeting in the same spoon.

The Lasagna con Spinaci Profumati al Tartufo is the most quietly luxurious dish on the menu, and deserves to be recognised as such. Truffle is one of the most prized ingredients in all of Italian cooking, its aroma unmistakable and its presence transformative even in small quantities. Central Italy, particularly Umbria and the area around Norcia, has cultivated a centuries-old relationship with both black and white truffle, foraged from the earth beneath oak and hazel trees with the help of trained dogs. Here, truffle scents fresh spinach layered into a lasagna, its earthy, almost musky perfume permeating every layer without overwhelming the dish. This is lasagna elevated into something that feels genuinely special.

The Puccia Polipo returns for its fourth consecutive week, and by now it has stopped being a special guest and become something closer to a resident. The soft Salento bread filled with grilled octopus tentacles, turnip tops, stracciatella and cherry tomatoes has, over the course of this summer, quietly established itself as one of the dishes most associated with MyCaffé. If you have somehow not tried it yet, this is the fourth invitation.

The Tagliata di Filetto di Pollo con Pomodori Secchi, Insalata di Spinaci e Salsa Yogurt Fatto in Casa closes the week with the same reliable elegance it has brought all season. Halal chicken fillet, sliced across the grain, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh spinach and a homemade yoghurt sauce. A plate that never disappoints and never needs to try too hard.

Come any morning from 06:30 for your cappuccino before the heat of the day settles in. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings until 19:00, Alessandro will be at the bar with MyAperitivo: a salumi board, tarallini and a glass chosen for a July evening at its warmest.

Il tartufo non chiede permesso. 🍄