Ristorante Borgo San Jacopo 1 was our special michelin star experience we had planned for in Florence. There are three star restaurants as well in Florence but we have done quite a bit of this dining in 2016 so we were a bit conservative. The service was quite impeccable as you would expect and the ambience was lovely. They do have two balconies overlooking the ponte vecchio bridge. However the were closed because of the weather, however they arranged really good table for us by the window.
The started off with amuse bouche of thin crackers but we have seen these at too many places and were not remarkable in that way. However the complementary trout with coconut foam served in sea urchin shell was divine. the quality of the fish was superb and the foam light and silky, reminding you of being on a beach.
So was my first course. It was a dish called 5 layers of onion using everything from the onion – parmesan icecream and foam of 24, 36 and 52 month aged parmesan. The pureed, cooked, roasted, fried textures of onion were focusing also on the sweet, pungent flavors of onion contrasting it with the cold and warm temperatures of parmesan icecream and foam respectively adding their sharp cutting flavors.
The first course for Meg was an interpretation of the traditional tuscan soup Pappa al pomodoro. It had pure gold leaf, olive crumble, olive oil power, basil, tomatoes and tuscan bread. It looked stunning and flavors were good but it was quite heavy for a first course.
The ravioli course was not very impressive having had excellent pasta throughout the week, this fell short in textures and flavors for us.
However the risotto made up for this. It looked stunning and had all qualities a good risotto should have. Creamy and having a bite this was quite satisfying. It was made from 7 year old acquarello rice, cappucio lettuce water, truffle crumble, trout.
The Ribolitta which is also a traditional Tuscan soup was again quite heavy. It kept happening that i would order the light portions and Meg the heavier ones throughout the meal.
The cheese course had many things on it, however as a whole was nothing remarkable.
As we were underwhelmed by the last two courses the desserts were outstanding and lifted the meal to another level. First up was the raspberry sorbet with ginger foam – refreshing palate cleanser reminding us of a glass of sugarcane juice because of the ginger.
This was followed by dessert called My Solera. Solera is a popular candy icecream with vanilla icecream coated in mango glaze. This was a take on this summer treat and this was one of the best desserts we had in 2016. The flavors and textures blended so well and balanced each other. With Coconut mousse, yogurt mousse mango and passionfruit it was playful and delicious and we wish we had ordered another one of these. In fact we almost did.