Perche

Liberati owns a maccelleria, or butcher shop, that also has a counter where they cook and serve meat, is my understanding.

At the opening of Mercado Centrale in Rome, they had some festivities. I think Liberati was there and cooked meat, although I doubt it was steak, and Bonci made the bread. But I'm pretty sure Liberati never had a booth at Centrale. Even at the opening, according to the pictures, I think he was just making hamburgers.

Perche

I agree with most of your post, but I wouldn't agree with the part, "steak in Italy will taste different than most American steaks because the Italian beef is grass finished, rather than corn finished." I say this because there is no such thing as steak in Italy.

I agree with this because food in Venice, Torino, Puglia, Napoli, Palermo, Le Marche is fundamentally different food. All of it can't be gathered under an "Italian" umbrella.

They use different sub-species of cows, feed them differently, raise them at different altitudes, etc. The difference between a steak in Tuscany and a steak in Piemonte is probably greater than a steak from Le March and a steak from Boston.

I'm no expert in this, but it's not so much what they feed them, but what is the race of the cow? In Tuscany, Chianina is a type of cow that became popular 4-5 years ago. Too popular. You even find it in fast food burgers at McDonalds in Florence. It is a fairly small and weak looking cow. Now there barely enough of these cows left to just feed Tuscans.

In Piemonte you eat a different type of steak. It's going to taste different from chianina because it's a different type of cow. It is a fassona. A male fassona. A chianina standing next to a fassona looks like a baby. Fassone are extremely muscular, almost like a bull. The only scandal is that sometimes unscrupulous venders sell a female, but it must be a male to be fassona, because you are really eating a giant muscular cow in Piemonte. About 10-15% are counterfeit, because they are female fassone, and a Piemontese can taste the difference.

The difference between the way these two cows taste has more to do with the fact that they are different "races" than whether they are fed corn or grass. Again, there is really no such thing as Italian food. Just regions.

And now, the hot steak in Italy is Angus. If you order it, it probably comes in a cellophane packet packaged in Scotland, and you don't know how it was raised or fed.

So I still question referring to things as Italian. The bread in Siena, the pasta in Siena, is not the same as the bread and pasta in Le Marche, just as the pizza in Venice and the pizza in Naples are not the same.

A Chianina is not a Fassona, a Romagnola, a Marchegiani, grigio alpina, maremanna, etc, because these are all different races of cows that are used for steak in Italy, and that has more impact than whether they eat grass or corn. What also has more impact than race/breed, grass/corn, is the quality of the breeder.

Between breeder, race of the animal, and how the breeder raises the animals (in large by what they feed them). Breeder is the most important. No matter what they feed the animal, if it comes from a bad breeder, you're getting a bad steak.

Also factor in the vendor. Does the vendor have access to the best bred animals?

There are three rules for meats; "Da dove viene, qui ha levata, come ha levata." Where did the meat come from (race), who raised it, and how was it raised.

Those factors vary from region to region, and cannot be put into one tent as, "Italian steak." A fatty Tuscan chianina is not going to taste anything like a densely muscled fassona.

It other words, there isn't much you can say about Italian steak, because there is no such thing. You can only talk about the steaks eaten in different regions. I don't think there are enough people in Rome going out for steak that there is particular high breeding culture there, although there will be a few since it's the capital.

mromalley

So let me get this straight.

You who was not there has decided that my friend who lives in Rome (and who knows Roberto Liberati) was lying when they wrote about Roberto cooking them a steak. I've seen the pictures. It was not at the opening it was a week or so later. But you (again who was not there) is pretty sure that Roberto Liberati never had a stall in Mercato Centrale.

You are knowledgeable about a lot of things relating to Italy, but even when you DON'T know, you still try to put down others that do know. And in this instance, you are flat out wrong. PWMTrav also said further upthread that when they were at Mercato Centrale Roberto Liberati had a butcher stall. But you don't call them a liar.

From Roberto's own FB page. Pictures of his stall at Mercato Centrale
You'll note that the canopy says Roberto Liberati e Fausto Savigni. However, since the website only lists Savigni, it is possible that Liberati is no longer involved in it.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater

Perche

So far this year I've lived in Rome for at least two months, as I did last year. I ate at the Mercato maybe 5-6 times this past July.

I said I'm, "pretty sure that Liberati did not have a stall in the Mercato." Let me rephrase that. I am 100% sure that Liberati does not have a stall in the Mercato.

When the Mercato opened Liberati, who is a butcher, not a chef, briefly co-managed a butcher shop in it that primarily sold sausage and salami. It was a butcher shop, not a restaurant, like the the butcher shop he owns in the outskirts of Rome, where he doesn't give lessons on how to cook, he gives lessons on things like how to carve a chicken.

At the stall he briefly participated in for what mainly seems like opening week publicity, they did serve some food, mainly kabab and hamburgers, although it was possible they had steak. Since it was a butcher shop and not a restaurant you could carry your hamburger to one of the common picnic tables in the market and eat it there.

Scroll down to the video: https://www.scattidigusto.it/2016/04...liberati-roma/

http://www.agrodolce.it/2017/02/01/c...nare-un-pollo/

https://www.scattidigusto.it/wp-cont...o-Liberati.jpg

It is against Flyertalk terms of service to engage in personal attacks.

bigguyinpasadena

We had a VERY late dinner last Sunday night at Dal Tuscano. The meat dishes were all very good as were a few of the other dishes but quite a few of the non meat dishes were very sloppy. I don't know if that was because we showed up so late at night on a Sunday (they are closed on Monday) or if it is just a mixrd bag as far as restaurants go.

firecracker725

You could always hop on a train and head to Florence.

Perche

It wasn't because it was a Sunday. Sunday is probably one of the busiest, if not the busiest night for restaurants in Rome. For that reason most restaurants in Rome are open on Sunday, and close on either Monday or Wednesday.

"Very late" is a relative term in Italy. Most of the restaurants don't open until around seven thirty or eight at night, and most don't close until around 11 PM, or even midnight. It's very different from the USA. In Italy, most people don't start thinking about dinner until around 9PM. That is one of the reasons why they don't eat breakfast in Italy: because they just finished eating.

The message, which many hinted at upthread, is to eat local. Eating local is the whole key to eating in Italy. Don't go to Rome to eat food from Tuscany. Don't eat pizza in Venice. Don't order spaghetti with clams in Modena. Don't ask for carbonara in Palermo. Don't ask for polenta in Naples. Don't ask for marsala in Torino. Don't order osso bucco in Lecce. These things would just scare the waiter. Eat the local food.

You wouldn't go to New Orleans and order Boston Baked Beans, just like you wouldn't go to Boston and order New Orleans alligator sausage.

I think you encountered what many gave subtle warnings about upthread, and that KLouis wisely summarized as, "This thread, to me, is a good proof for Perche's idea of there being no "Italian" cuisine as such but, rather, a collection of excellent regional ones...

Romans don't eat much steak. Save that for when you get to Omaha, Houston, LA, NY or places like that, or as firecracker725 said, it's not a long train ride from Rome to Florence, where they specialize in steak.

As was said in Latin centuries ago, "Latin si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi." I don't remember most of the latin I learned as a child but I do remember that one, and it translates into something like, "if you are in Rome, live as the Romans do. If you happen to be somewhere else, do what they do there." It has been abbreviated into, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," and even further reduced to, "follow the locals."

Your friend who loves steak might have discovered that he or she likes coda alla vaccinara, abbachio alla cacciatora, saltimbocca alla romana, and other Roman meat dishes that you cannot get in the USA even more than he/she likes steak.

bigguyinpasadena

The steak (from Chianina cattle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chianina ) was the BEST thing about this place!