A day of shopping at the Bariblu shopping center in Bari and we were captured by the perfumes of the Da Giovanni restaurant, an important brand in the Italian food sector that in recent years has also decided to open several restaurants throughout the territory promoting the quality of local products. It is a restaurant where the main food is pasta, in different shapes and sizes, prepared on the same day and it is possible to see the work of the chefs through a large window.
The pasta is worked by hand and not using industrial machinery, the result is an imperfect product in its shape but it has a taste and a scent that cannot be reached with the mixer. The menu is short because the availability of pasta is limited to the daily production which can vary. In addition, the chef prepares his specialties based on the food purchased on the day, following the logic of the fresh product and therefore there is not always the guarantee that some ingredients are available daily.
We started to taste appetizers such as cheeses, salami and mozzarella, all products of excellent quality. Personally I chose the pasta with pesto, a really abundant portion and the unique freshness of the pasta prepared recently. My wife instead chose the tortellini stuffed with ricotta and spinach with tomato sauce. The handcrafted pasta is much softer and more tender than the industrial one and we literally devoured our portion in no time. Another characteristic of hand-made pasta, being free of preservatives, is its ease of digestion: for the same weight, artisanal pasta is lighter to digest than industrial pasta.
The Italian lunch cannot end without a good dessert: the menu featured four different types of desserts and I brought for a cake with cream and a thin layer of chocolate, a traditional cake in these places, with a layer of processed and transformed sugar. in soft snow. My wife, on the other hand, a chocolate lover, did not miss an excellent chocolate profiteroles, covered with chocolate and filled with a chocolate cream, an explosion of calories for the body but if you do not have weight problems it is an idyllic end of the meal , it helps you face the rest of the day with great energy!
The Da Giovanni restaurant is very well structured and tidy, a mixture of elegance but also local tradition. The most beautiful part of the restaurant is the long kitchen, separated from the dining room by a glass and allows customers to observe all the maneuvers of the chefs as they cook and prepare the dishes. The pots are the recurring theme and a scent of fresh pasta hangs in the air constantly.
The bill at the end is about 25 euros each: an appetizer, a meal dish and a dessert, in addition to the bottle of water. It costs a little higher than the average but you pay for the quality and for a lunch like this it is definitely a fundamental element. An excellent restaurant in which to spend a pleasant lunch with friends or even alone