La Rocca

We set out with the best intentions and—important—the highest hopes when heading to La Rocca. I had read praise after praise and looked forward to spending a night at the dinner table with friends in a beautifully appointed old house in Makryianni, in the shadow of the Parthenon. The house took the owner around 4 years to renovate, according to our waiter. La Rocca promised to be delicious.

We had a small balcony with just one table, which made the atmosphere cozy and intimate. The Acropolis, visible upon twisting one’s head slightly and tilting back in the chair, helped fix the mood. Memories of a recent trip to the fabulous new museum made the whole thing seem somehow propitious. Our waiters, especially, helped the mood by being two of the most accommodating, polite, and enthusiastic servers I’d encountered in a long time. The main one recommended dishes that were “excellent,” an adjective we dared not question as they mentioned with near adulation the chef-owner Giorgio Muskens and his considerable culinary talents.

The classic Italian menu made our mouth water. Unfortunately, most of what we ordered made our veins clog, though, because almost everything came either drenched, swimming, or drowned in butter. Pools of it, glowing yellow like the moon over the Parthenon.

Vitello tonnato, thin slices of boiled veal in a smooth, creamy tuna sauce with capers, is one of my favorite Italian dishes and here it lived up to expectations, nicely presented and, despite the richness of the sauce, the lightest thing we ate. Another favorite Italian dish of mine is arancini, deep-fried risotto balls stuffed with mozzarella, which oozes out irresistibly when you bite into the ball. You might be thinking that anyone inclined to order such a thing is numb to the notion of light food. Not so. These, however, had no flavor. In fact, the most overriding flavor was the oil—old?—into which they had been dropped and abandoned.

We stuck to fish, risotto, and pasta for the rest of our meal, and none of them was great. The best dish we sampled was the pasta and pesto, one of the day’s specials. Indeed, as the waiter promised, the pesto tasted homemade. A classic risotto ala Milanese was OK, not too strong and a tad too bland. We could hardly taste the saffron. But it was heavy, heavy, heavy on the butter, which coated tongues, palates, throats, and God knows what else after the first few bites. A seemingly simple sfirida (grouper) fillet arrived having swum first in the sea before being trapped in the freezer, whence it arrived with its full panoply of scales intact and which no one had bothered to carefully remove. From freezer, this sad fish ended it up in a shallow lake of butter on my dining companion’s plate. Finally, the plate that seemed the most classic, aristocratic and refined came drowned in the flood of butter: delicate sole cooked in a crust of almonds (also fatty).

I rarely meet an Italian dish I don’t like, and even more rarely leave food unfinished on my plate. Sadly for this beautiful restaurant with its excellent wait staff and promising aura, I put my fork down long before the wine was over. That, a delicious semi sparkling Italian white, went down with ease. So did the desserts: a chocolate crème brûlée and homemade ice cream.

Alora, what to say about La Rocca. I want to like it, I want to go back and enjoy my favorite Athens neighborhood, I want to taste la dolce vita and dream of a trip to Roma. But I cannot.

Cuisine: Italian classics
Athens Area: Under the Acropolis Decor-Atmosphere: Beautifully renovated house in Makriyanni
Service: Enthusiastic, accomodating, informed Wine List: Viva Italia
Prices: 45-65 euro a person
Address: 1, Aggelikara str. & Ratzieri str., Acropolis, tel. 210-9223620