For years, in fact each time I’ve left town by car, I’ve driven past what I supposed to be a stables/riding school. It’s the Cascina Sesmones on the outskirts of Lodi. It’s a very tidy and pretty set up seen from the road, with well groomed healthy looking horses in the paddocks.
Recently a friend mentioned this same place in connection with a restaurant that he thought we might find interesting. How could it be, that after nearly 8 years of living here, there could be a restaurant I hadn’t even heard of and in any case I’d thought was simply a horsey place. Obviously a visit to explore it was necessary…
Sure enough the restaurant, Spazio Molino, is located within the Cascina Sesmones. Parking in the car park, the first sight was of the horses in their stalls. The complex also includes a conference centre and hotel. Anyone who has visited the winelands outside Cape Town, South Africa, will be familiar with the manicured beauty of their principal buildings and the inevitability of finding a nice place to eat. So it was with Cascina Sesmones. Everything is very well cared for and maintained, there isn’t a weed visible in the gravel, the paintwork is immaculate and the lighting superb.
The menu here is something quite innovative and even the reading of it gets the taste buds tingling. We sat and looked at the long list of dishes, any of which might be more than acceptable. We ordered water while we thought about food and wine. We chose the food and narrowed down the wine choice. Twenty minutes passed and still no water arrived, no order was taken and no-one checked as to whether or not we had any questions. By now we were thirsty – very thirsty! This was a dinner on a hot summer’s evening to celebrate the end of a working life of some 40 years. What promised to be a really good find was turning into an irritation.
When eventually we were given some water we ordered our food and an Argentinian Malbec wine. New world wines being a bit of a rarity here this was a real treat.
Starters were without doubt delicious, even if mine, seared beef with French oyster mayonnaise and gossamer thin shavings of Raspadura (the local grana cheese), appeared to all intents and purposes to be a main course.
Main courses didn’t quite live up to either the excitement promised by their menu descriptions or the excitement of the first courses. I had suckling pig which had a lovely crispy skin and a buttery jus contrasted with bitter spinach. It was nice but not special in the way the starter had been.
We decided to have puddings and waited to see the menu so as to order them. We waited and we waited and we waited. To this day no one ever came to take our order, so it was that we left, paying at the desk on the way out and giving our feedback. A reasonable discount was given for the lack of service.
Overall the menu here attracts me very much but the service puts me off to a very high degree. I will give it another go but am not hopeful that the service will be any better, having heard form others that they experienced something similar. If they sort this out, I’d be very happy to make Spazio Molina a regular haunt, not least because I’d love to visit Dafne and the other horses again.
My Kind of Food 