Try this with your friends: say the name of a city they’ve been to and most likely, they’ll come up with a one-word, sensory delight that sums the place up for them. For example, Lisbon—“Oh, the fish”; Munich—“Ah, the beer”; Paris—“Ooh, the croissants.” Well, here are a few of my own favorites, in no particular order, as television judges say. These are things that make me get dreamy-eyed at the mere mention of that place’s name. And yes, they are all food-related, so … what of it?
What I Love About Nice, France
Ice cream. Not the first thing I expected to find when I recently went to the south of France. And yes, the views are nice, the water really is very blue, the people are stylish, the city is pretty, there is art everywhere, and so on and so on. But the real jewel we uncovered was Fenocchio, an ice cream place.
We found two branches in the old town, one quite close to our apartment (luckily or unluckily, depending whether you side with saving shoe leather or calories: we would have walked a fair distance for this ice cream, I assure you). There were about ninety flavors, seriously. My first night I had a scoop of violet and one of jasmine. Yes, I ate flower-flavored, purple food. And wow!
After that we began referring to each day as either a one scoop or two scoop day, depending on how far we had walked so how much we thought we deserved. Most days, strangely, we deserved two scoops. In five days, we worked our way through fig, cinnamon, chocolate peppermint, ginger, rose, lemon meringue … I have to stop before I book another trip to Nice. (One word of warning: avoid the crepes at Fennocio; definitely not their specialty.)
What I Love About Salzburg, AustriaSachertorte. This world-famous chocolate cake was developed in Vienna in 1832 by the second-year apprentice chef Franz Sacher. He worked in the court kitchens of Prince Metternich and on the day of an important dinner the head chef was ill, so Sacher whipped up the first Sachertorte. In 1876, his son Eduard began the first Hotel Sacher and registered a trademark on the Sachertorte.
I visited Salzburg to indulge a childhood whim to be a von Trapp for a day and stumbled over the Hotel Sacher almost by accident: it had a nice terrace overlooking the river, the old town, and, oh, a bridge made famous in The Sound of Music. On the table was a history of the Sachertorte, so we thought we’d best try it. Sublime! Truly amazing—even if you’re not a complete chocoholic. And the tea they served, simply named Sacher Tea, was also great. A combination of bergamot (earl grey), jasmine, and black tea, it had me heading around to the hotel’s shop to buy a tin. Apart from the tea, the shop sold cake. Lots and lots of Sachertorte, shipping it all over the world.
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