Article by Francesco Pattacini | Photos by Francesco Pattacini | Published October 9, 2024
The dining rooms are always in movement at Arnaldo’s. The rhythm of every act of hands, mouths, and cutleries seems to be arranged by the coming and going of the metal carts that transport a selection of appetizers, main courses, and desserts from one table to another.
The menu is rich in regional dishes made by hand every morning, but I am here especially for one cart, for a dish based on rich and poor cuts of meat sliced on the spot, dripping juices, and tradition. On my plate arrive pieces of veal’s head, beef’s tongue and tail, hen, stewed ham, pig’s Cotechino, and Zampone. Six sauces accompany them, including a fruit compote, the Salsa Verde made with parsley and eggs, and the unique horseradish-tomato-bone marrow, all of which enriches the meat with sweetness, spiciness, or acidity based on the tone you want to give to the meat.
These are the essential and sacred ingredients of the Bollito Emiliano (Emilian Boiled Meat, in English), the original recipe of these lands in northern Italy. It is a living celebration that speaks of peasant roots, of a philosophy based on a continuous give and take so that nothing is wasted. The meat, boiling for hours, gives fat and flavor to the broth - the main element of fresh regional pasta (tortellini, cappelletti, and passatelli) - while the water softens the fibers making them melt when they reach the palate.
Savoring History: Why Arnaldo’s Boiled Meat is More Than a Dish
The tradition of Boiled Meat began long ago and still lives in every family of Emilia Romagna, like in Arnaldo’s, who opened his restaurant in Rubiera, a small village between Reggio Emilia and Modena, in 1936. Inside the restaurant, everything remained as it was: the conviviality of homemade dishes made every morning, the old hanging menus, the bottles of wine, the books, and the photos of Enzo Ferrari dining in a private room, just a few steps from my table. What, at first glance, gives off the air of a classic trattoria hides a long and celebrated history. Arnaldo is, in fact, the restaurant with the oldest Michelin star in Italy, which came from the first guide published in 1959 and, except for a couple of years in the mid-90s, has always been maintained.
Family is at the core of this restaurant — it’s where Boiled Meat has been prepared and enjoyed for generations, and it remains a family-run establishment to this day.There is Roberto Bottero, grandson of Arnaldo, who leads the kitchen together with his wife Ramona Astolfi and one of the sons who work in the dining room, and they continue the path started by their grandfather in the mid-1900s. The menu and philosophy have not changed; rather, they work carefully to search for the best raw materials to preserve the authentic taste of these recipes.
"This kitchen is part of my childhood," Roberto Bottero tells me before the service begins, "My parents worked here all their lives, as did my grandfather. I didn't go to a culinary school, but I learned directly from them through the recipes they passed down to me and the practice through which I gained the knowledge needed to treat and cook the products we serve. Nowadays, the major problem is finding raw materials due to animals’ different diets and climates, because we are looking for something very specific. We need a series of important qualities for the meat to respond well to the long cooking times we subject them to, to give them that flavor we have always served."
For these distinctive features and their deep characterization, very far from the research and innovation we are used to when we refer to starred restaurants, the work done by Arnaldo goes in a direction that celebrates stability and bonds, even those that are formed between customers who, just like Bottero's family, continue to frequent it for generations: "Unlike other starred restaurants, where research and experimentation are done, here we have always wanted to focus on a traditional, rich and abundant proposal. I have a deep respect for tradition because it is important to me; memories are important, and what we do every day means taking care of it, not only because they are part of my family. Boiled Meat is the image of Emilian homes that gather around the table, on holidays like Christmas, or simply to be together, and, providing a place to do it, is a responsibility. We have many customers who came here from all over Italy perhaps with their grandparents, and continue to do so with the following generations. This is also a responsibility because these people, through our food, search for those memories, those moments in which they felt good, which are deeply connected to the flavors and dishes we prepare."
Even if my plate is almost empty, I couldn’t be fuller. You don’t necessarily need personal memories to find feelings and values in Arnaldo’s Boiled Meat. That of time, for example, past and future, the sense of a dish that takes hours and hours to cook in an era that rarely has time for anything, turns into a reason to sit at the table collectively. A meaning, and a means, that could be lost, as Ramona Astolfi tells me: «The core is precisely tradition, that is, making our customers remember what it was like with their grandparents, what it was like with their parents. When the customer comes to us and tells me that the dishes are like their grandmother used to make them, that’s the goal we have achieved. Today it is difficult to find the time to prepare those dishes like they used to in the past, which is why our work has become even more important: don’t lose those feelings and those memories around a table».
For something completely different, the Gado-Gado provided a welcome contrast. This robust vegetable salad, topped with tofu, seitan, and eggs is a treasure trove in a dish. The peanut sauce, which ties the dish together, was creamy without being cloying, allowing the freshness of the vegetables to come through. It’s an introduction to Indonesian cuisine that doesn’t rely on overwhelming the senses but is rich in color and texture.
