Restaurant "Il Rosmarino", Garlenda, Liguria, Northwest Italy.

Although based on the country cooking, no one's grandmother would or could have produced this cuisine. Caldino has brought enormous refinement to the cooking without ever loosing touch with the essence of the local food. This restaurant certainly deserves a Michelin star. The Michelin reviewers must be asleep at the wheel or too busy taking stars from deserving chefs in France. Personally, I tend to think the Michelin crew thinks in terms only of Haute products such as foie gras, truffles etc. rather than sophisticated tastes that a truly fine chef can elicit from even the lowliest of vegetables and herbs.

Here you will find marvelous dishes straight from the family table and others using the same ingredients and tastes as used in family kitchens but elevated to a much more refined level. Rich vegetable and seafood soups, local pasta called "tropie" and "corsetti" (short strands just 1" long) basted with a heavenly rendition of pesto that will make pasta lovers toes curl will be followed by or preceded by a marvelous layered eggplant with tomato sauce or a pasta of flat noodles with jumbo shrimp and tomatoes. The wonderful fresh fish and seafood from Albenga just down the road at the coast give zest to the menu.

Chef Caldino served us a simple lunch that was superb in its tastes, yet the ultimate in simplicity in its ingredients. He started us with the local "tropie" pesto pasta that makes you sigh if you love pesto as we do. This was followed by a seafood dish "en papillotte". The chef had placed a fillet of Rouget (a Mediterranean small red fish), small and medium clams, some mussels, a couple of shrimp, black olives, green beans, the flesh of tomato, olive oil and a little local white wine plus a drop of fish stock and let them all cook slowly together sealed in first foil then parchment. The flavors mingled together. The cooking was just right so that the ingredients did not become a homogeneous mass but exchanged flavors and yet kept their individuality. With the crusty, moist bread baked in the kitchen, it was impossible if not criminal not to shed all refinement and soak up the broth with a crust. (The maître de restaurant informed us that this process is described in Italy as "Scarpetti"). Truly a dish of the sea and the land.

That evening our meal started with a couple of palate teasers; a purée of artichoke hearts with garlic and olive oil and another purée of sundried tomatoes with olive oil. Coarse, country bread was both spoon and ingredient. Then came a rustic country legume soup with hints of ham, touches of tomato and several clams resting on top. In its turn, came a small turbot fish cake and sweet basil. The fish mousse sitting in a puddle of chopped tomatoes, puréed zucchini and olive oil was light as air in a texture contrast to the tempura of zucchini blossom. The pasta with butterflied shrimp was al dente and well balanced as was the linguini with clams and chickpeas. The lightly grilled sea bass arrived with a covering of of mussels, olives, green beans and a bevy of baby clams. A little fluffy cappuccino mouse finished off the meal.

Their menu changes with the seasons. January through April, the artichokes, the violet asparagus, the first big, long zucchinis of the region (long and thin, over a foot and slightly curved with a light green skin) and the peaches arrive as do the large, meaty beef steak tomatoes. Summer is a veritable harvest of all things marvelous and the fall sees game with boar, rabbit, porchinni mushrooms and herb omelets. The sea, of course, is always there, although Albenga does not have a fishing harbor, nearby Allisso does.

We were served a number of delicious local wines. A light and dry white, not at all unassuming was the Pigato 1998. It was perfectly matched with the many seafood dishes we had. Made with a grape of the same name, it is mainly produced just down the road in Ortovero near Albenga. Other wines featured in their cellars are Rossese, Vermentino, Ormeasco and Ormeasco Sciac-trà. The Rossese is a light red that went very well with a rabbit dish.

The hotel publishes and leaves in each room a very useful booklet "Things to do around La Meridiana". It is filled with activities, trips, descriptions of the local villages and beaches, places to drop the kids for a few hours as well as a very helpful section on the local wines. We always find that the wine waiter is more than interested in introducing guests to the local wines of the region whether we are in a small restaurant or in the finest 3 Michelin star establishment. They take great pleasure, without exception in our experience, in sharing their own personal passions for local wines with you. After all, most of them on their days off, can only go just so far, so tend to have the local wineries well checked out. The cellars of La Meridiana have over 7,000 bottles of local and vintage Italian wines from famous producers.

Our waiter was also more than pleased to give us directions to their olive oil producer, Renzo Bronda, up in the hills across the valley in the village of Vendone. We bought 5 liters of their unfiltered for $30 US and brought it back home with us. They even have a web site http://www.liguriafoods.it and will deliver all over Europe within 48 hours.

The dining room is broken up into several sections, some large and other small and intimate. In fine weather they serve outside and many dishes are cooked on the large external barbecue.