Circo

A few weeks ago, Ken and I had dinner together with a group of wonderful people in the food and beverage world. We were celebrating Ceretto Wines of Piedmont and Alba truffles and Circo was the restaurant kind enough to host the event. I’ve never been to Circo, but a few years ago, I was lucky enough to have dinner at Le Cirque (Circo is also owned by Sirio Maccioni and family). The restaurant is so popular that they opened an outpost in Las Vegas at the Bellagio hotel! The restaurant is very whimsical and has a fun decor:

We started the meal with passed canapes and Ceretto, Lange DOC Arneis “Blange”, a 2012 wine:

The bacala, a lightly fried codfish, was delicate and paired with a tomato chutney:

For our first course, we had Quaglia in pasta sfoglia, fegato d’Anatra, Cipolla Carammellata, insalatina al Tartufo:

The quail, foie gras, caramelized onion frisee salad and Perigourdine sauce was paired with a Ceretto wine; Barbaresco DOCG “Asij”, a 2009 wine that brought out the beautiful creaminess of the foie gras and was very crisp.

For our pasta course, we had the housemade procini mushroom tortelli, butternut squash, chestnut and white truffle:

My favorite course from the event; the tortelli was handmade in the kitchen by the very talented chef, Chef Alfio Longo, and was blessed with lots of truffles:

The white truffles was shipped directly from Italy THAT MORNING and the purveyor was actually at the restaurant – here he is showing us the fragrant white truffles:

The truffles that Circo uses are picked by beagles instead of pigs because the dogs don’t eat the truffles the way the pigs do. The purveyor was telling us how cutthroat it is in the truffle business; some people even poison the beagles to put companies out of business.

One of my favorite indulgences – the bread basket:

My favorite was the long breadstick that was homemade and had a rosemary flavor. We dipped it in olive oil that was very fragrant!

For our main course, we had the braised Wagyu beef cheek, shaved white truffle, mashed potato, Tuscan kale, and smoked ham:

All of the Ceretto wines were delicious – here’s all of the bottles from our dinner:

For the pasta course, we had the Ceretto Bricco Asili, Barbaresco DOCG “Bernardot” 2008 and for the beef cheek course, we had the Ceretto Bricco Rocche, Barolo DOCG “Brunate” 2007. The “Bernardot” was the female version of the wine and the “Brunate” was the male version; much more full-bodied and a response to the female version that we had with the lighter dish.

For dessert, we were all incredibly stuffed but I found a little space for their dessert, a chocolate sphere with hazelnut cream, vanilla and mixed berries:

More chocolate to open the sphere:

Hazelnut cream inside:

After dinner, we had the house made biscotti and petit fours:

The meal at Circo was entertaining, delicious, and a wonderful way to start the holiday season. The restaurant is very close to our offices and the food was so good that Ken wants to return for a work lunch soon!