Venue: Ambience Mall, Gurgaon
Date: 28 February, 2015

Italian food is an all time favourite among diners. However it is a rather recent concept that there is more to this cuisine than pizzas and pastas. Zanotta at the Leela has imported chef Christian Cabera Rubio from Italy who has arrived with his Italian recipes and ingredients. We recently had a taste of his fresh style of cooking.

We went for dinner and ordered French Duck Panzerotti with Truffle Duck Sauce followed by Chicken Scaollopini with Marsala and mashed potatoes. The Panzerotti is like a dumpling and with its saffron hue in a dark brown truffle sauce looked amazing. Garnished with truffle shavings that the chef very kindly came to our table and grated directly on the dish (which we think was an ultimate Italian twist) and truffle oil, the dish tasted even better. The taste was subtle and slightly sweet and seemed a perfect combination of the texture of duck meat as well as the smoothness of truffle sauce.

The main course chicken dish was cooked with the wine Marsala and served with a generous serving of mashed potatoes. After the subtle Panzerotti, the strong flavour of Marsala was a welcome progression. The bread basket with assorted breads and breadsticks was probably one of the finest we ever had.
From one heaven to another, our dinner reached its pinnacle with the dessert platter. The platter contained moderate servings of blueberry panna cotta (Italian dessert made by blending cream, eggs etc.), Tiramisu and chocolate fondue cake with vanilla ice cream. While every dessert was a hero, for us the star was the panna cotta which was light on sweetness with the blueberries in the blueberry sauce adding a lot of oomph.

As sides we were served fresh pineapple and orange juices.

We were seated beside the glass wall that overlooks National Highway 8. With the car lights zipping by, the view from this sixth floor location was surreal. We could not have asked for more.