Any recent visits to Milan's Cracco?

[shekamoo]

I am seeing more mixed reviews online recently, and they had a free fall on the Pellegrino list (I know, the Pellegrino list is not necessarily meaningful at all, but still). We had to cancel our dinner last time we could have had a chance to be in the area, and this time around we have only time for a single meal in Milan, for lunch. Any input will be most appreciated.

[chloes]

Bumping this because I am also interested in Cracco.

Any eaters? :)

[Dustin_E]

I'd also love to hear some suggestions of Cracco's best dishes / what to order.

In any case, i've got a reservation in two weeks -- i'll report back then.

[chloes]

Thanks Dustin. I've heard wonderful things around the web and look forward to your report back.

[Dustin_E]

I had dinner at Cracco last friday. All in all, it was a great meal. I ordered the "more modern" tasting menu for 160 euro.

It consisted of (if i remember everything correctly):

dried vegetables
fried oysters
red mullet dish
salmon with foie gras
uni in a parsley salad
marinated scallop
sea snail
a pasta with egg and asparagus
another pasta with shrimp and asian flavor
pigeon with baby vegetables
cheese of 3 colors
avocado mousse dessert
some chocolate pudding thing
various cakes / cookies / etc.

i didn't love the second pasta, the cheese dish, or the chocolate dessert, but everything else was very solid.

I can't compare to any other michelin-stared meals in italy, but compared to the spots i've been in the us, france, and japan, I'd put it as a strong 2* restaurant, perhaps comparable in quality to manresa or le bernardin in the us. while it was modern, it was _way_ less experimental than pierre gagnaire in paris (and probably even less experimental than french laundry in napa), and the dishes certainly weren't as simple-yet-genius as arpege in paris. ingredient quality was very high, which allowed the chef to serve minimalist dishes, but perhaps not as much so as kanda in tokyo. i thought it was better than most 2-star meals i've had, but it was pretty expensive, so probably wouldn't return very often if it were local to me. so if you are in milan and want an expensive meal, i'd definitely recommend it, but wouldn't choose it over the top spots in tokyo or paris.

i can't put my finger on how exactly, but i could tell the food was distinctly milanese (or at least a lot different from the michelin starred italian restaurants on the us west coast), so i don't think i'd be able to find something exactly similar anywhere else. i'd be very curious to hear how cracco compares to the other two-star restaurants in milan.

[DistendedBelly]

Ah, Cracco. We tried getting a reservation here last year. No one picked up. We tried three times (no, it wasn't during a holiday period), still no answer, so we gave up.

Had a fantastic meal at il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia instead - http://www.aimoenadia.com/
It's not molecular, but all in all a very nice meal with updated classics (there was even a risotto Milanese on our tasting menu).

All subsequent reviews I've read of Cracco seem to imply that the restaurant isn't what it used to be (since Peck disassociated perhaps?).. and there was some outcry when a more recent article exposed Crack for using frozen rabbit/hare.

At any rate, I'm still curious about Cracco, and will await latest reports!

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Aimo e Nadia
Via Privata Raimondo Montecuccoli, 6, Milan, Lombardia 20147, IT