Short Week, Long Table.

This week is a short one, and all the better for it. Monday 11 to Wednesday 13 May, three days of proper Italian cooking before a long weekend that begins on Thursday 14 May, a public holiday when MyCaffé will be closed.

And then Friday 15 May brings something special: a unique menu offered at 50% for one morning and afternoon only, with the kitchen closing its doors at 16:00. A rare occasion, and a generous one.

But first, the three days that lead there.

The week opens with Tagliolini con Straccetti di Manzo al Pepe Verde. Tagliolini, those fine, delicate strands of egg pasta, are among the most refined shapes in the Italian repertoire, thin enough to require a sauce of precision and elegance. Here they meet beef strips and green pepper, a pairing with roots in the grand French tradition of steak au poivre that Italy has long adopted and quietly made its own. Green pepper, milder and more aromatic than its dried black counterpart, brings fragrance rather than fire, a warmth that wraps itself around the pasta without overwhelming it.

Next, the Risotto con Crema di Asparagi e Scampi announces spring in the most direct way possible. Asparagus is one of the great Italian seasonal ingredients, celebrated from April onwards in markets across the north, from the famous white asparagus of Bassano del Grappa to the wild green shoots of the countryside. Here the asparagus becomes a cream, silky and deeply flavoured, beneath which the prawns bring sweetness and the sea. A risotto that tastes like the season at its most generous, even on a cool and cloudy May morning.

The Eliche Farcite di Caciocavallo e Capocollo su Crema di Stracciatella e Granella di Pistacchio are the dish of the week, and they demand attention. Eliche, those spiral propeller-shaped pasta, are here filled with two of southern Italy’s proudest products. Caciocavallo, a stretched-curd cheese aged to a firm, slightly tangy intensity, and Capocollo, the cured neck and shoulder of the pork, one of the most aromatic salumi in the Italian tradition. They rest on a stracciatella cream — stracciatella being the soft, creamy heart of burrata, pulled into shreds and bathed in cream, one of the purest pleasures of Puglian cheese-making — and finished with a pistachio crumble. The pistachio adds colour, crunch and a faintly sweet nuttiness that pulls the whole dish into balance. This is cooking that shows its workings and makes them beautiful.

And the Lasagna Vegetariana closes the quartet with the kind of quiet generosity that a well-made lasagna always delivers. Layers of pasta, sauce and filling, baked until the edges catch and the centre yields: it is one of the oldest forms of comfort in Italian cooking, and it needs no embellishment beyond the care with which it is made.

Come any morning this week for your cappuccino before the day begins. Three days, a special Friday, and then a long weekend. Make the most of every one.

Carpe diem, a tavola. 🌿