This was posted in my trip review from Italy, but I thought this portion of it was worth sharing with those FDB posters that don't venture to the TB often. This thread is in no way meant to be a subtle brag, it's a flat out brag.

But mostly it was just an incredible experience and I thought there would be some people here who love food and would be interested in it as well. A while back when I got the reservation some posters also asked for a review, so here it is as promised.

I realize it's a long post and very photo heavy, so please feel free to just skip to the bottom and downvote me if you don't want to read it all.

We were fortunate enough to eat at the Number 1 Restaurant in the World while in Modena: Chef Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana. Again, if you’ve watched the first episode of Season One of Chef’s Table, you know of this restaurant. He was also featured in Master of None.

This was absolutely the highlight of the entire trip. We actually planned our entire trip around getting a reservation, which must be done 4 months in advance. We woke up at 3:45am on June 1st and desperately and frantically tried to secure a reservation. At one point, I was about 1,100 in the queue. But, we got lucky, and got a table for the exact date we were hoping for. We even booked our AirBnB based on it’s location about 50ft away from the restaurant. Here’s the now-famous gold plate sign with the pink wall backdrop:

The entire experience was beyond our wildest expectations. Everything from the food, the service, the atmosphere, all perfect. There are only 12 tables in the restaurant, and they only have one seating per evening. We may or may not have been so eager to get in that we were the first people to be seated.

But that gave us a chance to grab a quick picture without disturbing any other guests:

Before I post each course from our meal, let me be clear that we spoke with the maître d’ at the beginning of the meal to make sure they were comfortable with us discretely taking photos of our dishes, and they could not have been more accommodating. They told us that they actually encourage it and offered numerous times to take photos for us. Again, if you don’t care about food, skip ahead because it was a 12 course tasting menu.

Amuse bouche/aperitif snacks: Fish and chips re-idealized: fishy cracker with malt vinegar ice cream. Very unexpected but one of the night’s best bites. The second amuse bouche were foie gras macarons and a parmeggiano Reggiano crisp cracker. The third: eel chips made to look like sardines and popovers with local rabbit:

Course 1: Insalata di mare: Lettuce salad with seafood (fish, octopus, caviar, etc.), beet chips, seaweed chips

Course 2: Burnt: Cracker made from burnt sardines and a soup made from squid ink and sardines with lemongrass and chili. Weird and unexpected. The soup had a freshness that was really surprising.

Course 3: Mediterranean Sole: representative of two styles of cooking sole: parchment paper (the paper looking stuff here tasted like baked fish and was completely edible) and the Italian traditional way which is pan seared with tomatoes, capers, and olive oil. All of this and a big piece of sole under the paper

Course 4: Autumn in NY, Summer in Modena. The constant in this dish is that it’s always “Autumn in NY” and always the shape of apple. As seasons in Modena change, so does the ingredients, so for the Summer in Modena portion it was: green tomato gelatin, roasted tomatoes, tomato confit, dots of mozzarella and anchovies, with ham broth – another standout dish.

Course 5: Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano. This was the dish I was most excited to try, and it lived up to the hype -- absolute favorite of the meal. Cream sauce, Foam, Crisp, Semifreddo, Mousse (hiding behind the cream sauce). Ages 6-60 months

Course 6: In the Country side. Under a bed of greens is green raviolis with rabbit and bourguignon style snails cooked in a deep red wine sauce. My wife was not a fan of snails so I got extra. :lol:

Course 7: Fallow Deer. Roasted and seared venison with blueberry sauce and mango cream lettuce with peanuts, and mints with parsley sauce.

Palate Cleanser: Summer tart with marinated tomatoes, lemon, and melon with mint.

Course 8: Wagyu no wagyu. Looks like wagyu beef cured and sliced but no beef at all. All fresh and local pork, including the ponzu style sauce

Course 9: Eggplant between Noto and Instanbul. Pickled eggplant with mango and mint plus some ricotta ice cream and mousse with a Lambrusco sauce.

Course 10: Massimo’s famous Oops I dropped the lemon tart!

Course 11: Baba, traditional dessert from naples... ricotta-filled spongecake with strawberry sauce and marinated tomatoes and oregano with grated burnt orange zest

Course 12: Complimentary goodbye bites. 1. Chocolate with sour cherry liquid center; 2. Looks like an ice cream bar, actually foie gras with balsamic gel inside and walnut outside, 3. Chocolate camo with truffle and mushroom

To say we enjoyed the meal is an extreme understatement. Unfortunately, Massimo was not there that evening and so our one regret was that we didn’t get a chance to meet him. However, the next morning we were walking by the restaurant and our sommelier happened to recognize us. He knew we were hoping to meet the chef, so he let us go back into the restaurant and through the kitchen to find him! We ended up chatting with Massimo for a few minutes, got to take a photo with him, and he even signed our menu. He was every bit as nice as he comes across on TV. It was truly a special and once-in-a-lifetime moment. We love food so he’s a celebrity to us. :lol: Here’s our signed menu: “Cooking is our act of love”