Prosecco East

Flora
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)
c.1515-1520. Oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

My friend Sofia grew up with her extended family, in a fabulous house on the Grand Canal in Venice. With her fair complexion and luxuriant red hair, she could easily have stepped out of a painting by Titian or Tintoretto, or any of the great Venetian painters of the Renaissance.

Sofia and I have known each other for twenty years, and even though you can know somebody for so long, sometimes it is easy to forget what they are actually like. Sofia has always called the shots in terms of food, where we should eat. Usually, I don’t mind because I know how much she loves Asian food, for example. But when I asked her to join me for a Bellini, I assumed she’d understand it would have to be a restaurant that actually served a Bellini.



As it was a rainy night, we decided to go local. We tried a well known Italian restaurant off of Portman Square, but alas, they didn’t have a bar. Or they did, but not for people just having drinks. I was trying to negotiate with the hostess, it was just a Bellini after all, that we were after, ‘isn’t that right Sofia?’ I turned to find that Sofia was already out the door of the restaurant, and heading back to the car.

We parked on Dorset Street, and walked to a few places I suggested, which might serve Bellinis. Sofia glanced at them, didn’t say a word, and moved on. ‘There is a newish Indian restaurant further down the road,’ I muttered unenthusiastically. ‘Let’s try that!’ She replied, adding, ‘oh, but then you won’t get your Bellini.’ It was more of a statement of fact, rather than of apology or regret. ‘That’s okay, we can always go out for a Bellini another night,’ I answered truthfully. My back was still aching from my undiagnosed back pain, and drinking was not a good idea. The Bellini would just have to wait.

The Indian restaurant with its warm grey, minimalist interior, was a lovely choice for getting out of the rain. And there was a free table, even better, as Sofia wanted to eat. We asked for a drinks menu, and to my delight, of the 6 or so cocktails listed, there it was… a Cinnamon Bellini with a ‘dash of Goldschlager.’ We ordered two.

We talked about the usual stuff, kids, schools, and so on, and then Sofia asked me ‘why Bellinis? They have brandy in them, right?’ She said, ‘just a splash of brandy.’ I hadn’t heard about the brandy before, maybe it was a Venetian thing, but I was happy to hear about it, and made a mental note to try my own recipe with brandy. I told her the story of the first, delicious, but too expensive Bellini, and how there had to be a good Bellini in London that didn’t cost a fortune, and then I mentioned her old friend, Barto Sanuto.

‘His family made prosecco, didn’t they?’ I asked Sofia. Yes, they did, she said. ‘Do you remember what kind, or the name?’ I asked. No, she said. ‘He had a lot of brothers and sisters,’ I added. Sofia shook her head yes. ‘Did they ever discover how he died? Was it suicide?’ Sofia shrugged her shoulders and kept eating. Clearly, this was a subject Sofia did not want to discuss, or just found too boring to talk about. I can never tell which with her, and attribute that to her ‘Italianess,’ the lack of curiosity maybe being a cultural thing, which I know isn’t fair, but there it is. Or maybe it just wasn’t polite to speak of the dead, I wasn’t sure which.

Sofia had introduced me to Barto Sanuto the summer I spent in Venice working for the crazy, elderly NY art collectors, and Barto introduced me to Prosecco and my first Bellini. I’d like to say that Barto and I fell madly in love, and had a great summer romance, but it wasn’t like that at all. Barto was a very nice person, extremely kind, and introduced me to many of his friends, but there were no sparks of romance. In fact, I think I had a boyfriend I left in NY at the time. Yes, I did, but that’s another story.

Anyway, Barto lived alone on a whole floor of a house, which overlooked Piazza San Stefano. His aunt lived below him, and his uncle lived above. His apartment was like a small museum, with its collection of paintings (small portraits of Venetian women), his collection of elephant lighters, and another room full of Venetian fans and giant copper cauldrons. His bedroom, he showed me his bedroom with some amount of awkwardness, had a large canopied bed, with ornate, damask drapes, and a giant tasseled pull-cord which hung from the ceiling, left over from the days when they had servants in the house, I supposed. He lived in that big flat by himself, and though he was a sort of jolly person with loads of friends, always making small jokes, and thinking of others, there was perhaps, a well of loneliness there too. He died two years later, found dead in his bed at home, from ‘unknown causes.’

Our Bellinis came, and they were nice to look at, with a shaving of curled cinnamon on the rim of each glass. The first sip was unusual, a bit heavy, but tasty. The prosecco was of a good quality. The cinnamon taste was refreshing, but only for the first ten minutes or so. These Bellinis clearly fell into the category of being ‘merrily downed,’ and so I drank mine quickly. Sofia let hers sit for a while, a mistake, we realized, as by the end of the meal, the taste was not merely unfortunate, but absolutely disgusting. She left hers unfinished, by the side of her plate.

Cinnamon Bellini    £8.50

Trishna

15-17 Blanford Street

London

W1U 3DG

Tel 0207 935 5624