Pa

What words come to mind when you think of the Italian culture? For me I think: family, food, wine, etc. I haven’t quite gotten that from much of Florence, as it tends to cater to its largely American population. I’ve heard, however, that there are plenty of places characterized by the Italian charm that brings people here in the first place- its just a matter of finding them. And last night I was lucky enough to find one.

As chance would have it, it was a charming little restaurant not ten feet from my apartment. My roommates had gone there the night before and raved about the ravioli, so we thought we’d go back for round two.
The meal begins with your standard sourdough bread slices, but when the server recognizes my roommates, she takes it back and brings it out again grilled and drizzled in olive oil. Sophia and I start by sharing a caprese salad, which was a piece of art, and contained absolutely the freshest mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil I have ever tasted. Then, for our main dish we split spinach risotto.

I was expecting pasta, and had to be a good sport when they brought out balls of steamed balls of creamy spinach topped with huge slices of reggiano cheese in butter sauce. Where were my carbs? Once I got over my disappointment, and manned up enough to try it, I found that it was absolutely delicious, if not still...spinachy.

I can't really complain, either, because I got to try the other girls' food, and although it gets old saying how amazing everything is, I swear this place has the best ravioli I have ever had in my entire life. What the hell do they do to make it THAT good, I wonder? Extra love? Magic? It came out in individual ceramic bowls, bubbling and obviously straight out of…Heaven, I guess.

Enter, Pa. Because we couldn’t pronounce his actual name, the restaurant owner tells us to call him “Pa”, what his “historical friends” call him. He asks us everything about home, our program, our school, and is genuinely interested. We invite him to sit after 15 minutes of chatting, "aww thank you thank you," he says like we'd never ask, collapsing into a chair.

“We laugh,” he confides in us, leaning forward, his hands out in front of his face, emphasizing the point. “When you say ‘Grazie’. I mean, we really laugh.”
We look at each other, confused. Isn’t that how you say ‘thank you’?
“It’s ‘gratzi-ay’, not ‘gratz-eee’,” he explains, enunciating the ending. “With you Americans it’s gratzeee, gratzeeee, gratzeeee. And we laugh at you."

Oops.

He continues on, teaching us all the secrets of blending into our cultural surroundings. We even teach him a thing or two, such as what it means when you get shivers and bumps on your arms- “Goosebumps”, and where you can find the best deserts in America- his favorite geographical location as he is not partial to the bustle of Los Angeles.

At some point he summons shots of Limoncello (after two bottles of wine with dinner we were already feeling very cozy in this little place). Throughout all of this the restaurant has filled up and others are eager to take our table. We decide to make room for them by quickly taking our shots and leaving, but Pa is shocked, insisting that we drink them at our leisure. “This is not America”, he says. “Enjoy it.”

So we slowly finish our little lemon shots, laughing and joking with Pa some more. We accidentally overpay and insist they keep the extra as a tip, but Pa pushes it back at us. There is a short battle of “no, you take it”s, and then Pa’s face gets serious. “We want you to feel like this is your home and we are your family.” Then keep it and take it off our next bill, we say, because we will be back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after. :)