The week the menu does the talking

Some weeks arrive with a story already written. This is one of them.

Monday opens cool and grey, the kind of May morning that smells of damp stone and fresh coffee. By Thursday the temperature has climbed to 22°C and the light is the warm, generous kind that makes everything look like it was always meant to be this way. In between, four dishes that carry the week from one end to the other without needing any help.

The Orecchiette con Crema di Zucchine, Salsiccia e Cipolla Croccante are the right opening. Those small ear-shaped pasta from the heel of Italy’s boot are engineered to hold: their cupped shape gathers whatever it meets and refuses to let go. Here they meet a zucchini cream that is gentle and slightly sweet, sausage that brings depth and warmth, and crispy onion. The crispy onion is the move. In a bowl that could have been soft all the way through, it introduces something caramelised and textured that changes every mouthful. In Italian cooking, texture is never decoration. It is argument.

The Risotto con Polipo e Crema di Peperoni is a dish of two temperatures and two cultures meeting on the same spoon. Octopus has fed people on Italian coastlines since before there were words to describe it: it appears in Pompeii’s frescoes, in medieval fishing records, in the Sunday kitchens of every coastal town from Sicily to Liguria. Its firm, subtly oceanic character finds its foil in the pepper cream, which is sweet where the octopus is saline, warm where it is cool, smooth where it resists. A risotto that does not need explanation. It needs eating.

Then the Ravioli Farciti di Funghi Porcini con Pomodorino Fresco e Primo Sale. Porcini are the mushroom Italy reaches for when it wants to be serious. Their earthy, almost meaty depth transforms whatever they enter, and inside a ravioli, sealed and patient, they concentrate into something that fills the whole mouth. The fresh cherry tomato alongside is acid and bright, a deliberate counterpoint. And Primo Sale, that youngest of Italian cheeses, barely a few days old, brings a clean milky softness that rounds everything without smoothing it flat. Three ingredients. One intention. Perfect execution.

And then the Fusilli alla Carbonara. Here is a dish that has been argued over, imitated, ruined and redeemed more times than any other in the Roman repertoire. The rules are not arbitrary: no cream, no onion, no peas. Eggs, Pecorino Romano, guanciale, black pepper, pasta water, heat and patience. The sauce is created off the flame, emulsified slowly, coaxed into a silk that no addition can replicate and no shortcut can approximate. Its origins are Roman, its technique is exacting and its result, when done with honesty and skill, is one of the most satisfying things Italian cooking has ever produced. Fusilli, with their spiralled ridges that grip and gather the sauce into every groove, are an inspired vessel for something this precise.

Come any morning this week for your cappuccino before the day begins. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings until 19:00, Alessandro will be at the bar with MyAperitivo: a salumi board, tarallini and a glass chosen with the kind of care that makes the end of the working day worth arriving at.

A note for Saturday: MyCaffé will be closed on 23 May. The team is celebrating a birthday in Kayl. A reminder that behind every good plate there are people with lives worth celebrating.

Il cibo parla. Noi ascoltiamo. ☕