With Valentino Valtulina in his wine cellar that in quick glance, shows his passion for remarkable passito wines such as Amarone and rare Italian specialties.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012
I have often written about Italian hospitality and how their spontaneous generosity has the ability to grab and wrap you as a warm blanket. Just a few days ago I found myself back at what I have to admit is one of my all time favourite Italian restaurants in Singapore, and was hardly out of the taxi when I met the first of the Valtulinas outside of their restaurant at Jalan Bingka.
In an instant I was properly greeted Italian style, and promptly whisked into Perla Valtulina’s next door pastry boutique for a peek at her latest creations for their upcoming new restaurant and pastry boutique, to be located at 200 Turf Club Rd (#01-19) in Singapore.
Having not been back in Singapore for a while it felt I had missed quite some happenings on their side, not in the least that there is now a sit-in dining possibility at the pastry boutique – an option I thought brilliant for a chocolate addict such as myself – with the equally delightful possibility of takeaway gelato.
Perla’s pampering of the guests.
A selection of antipasti, a brilliantly perfect buffalo mozzarella cheese with sun sweetened cherry tomatoes with a few drops of virgin olive oil, parma ham, cheese baked wrapped with smoked ham, all directly flown in from Italy to Singapore.
With Italian Ambassador to Singapore, Anacleto Felicani.
Filipino diplomat and former Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from 1998 to 2002, Rodolfo Severino.
Gianpiero Valtulina with a bottle grappa – a finishing touch to the gorgeous meal and an alternative choice for guests to an equally enticing bottle of frozen limoncello!
The meal was rounded off by a choice of either grappa or limoncello. In this instance, the ordering of a couple of cups of extra strong espresso made Gianpiero Valtulina miraculously produce a glass of dark amber colored Vin Santo as a digestif, served with biscotti cookies to be dunked into the wine. What can you say? Assolutamente fantastico! Molto bene and grazie mille, just barely covers it.
The Valtulina family also with Ambassador Jørgen Ørstrøm Møller and Swedish Ambassador to Singapore, Ingemar Dolfe (pictured far right).
Capuccino.
The end of the afternoon was spent at the table with the Valtulina family, with a long cup of cappuccino, exchanging stories about life in general and listening to their latest travel adventures, the acknowledgment being that even with today’s more sophisticated travel and communication infrastructure, there still remains plenty to be seen and explored out there – a grand salute! to that – and of course my toast came too, with a small scoop of chocolate gelato on the side, simply too tempting to pass on in the hot tropics.