Rosso has been established for only a year, but the restaurant has been famous amongst Italian food lovers in Jakarta. Rosso in Italian means “red” represents the color of passion, heat, and everything exciting in life, and Rosso prides itself with presenting authentic northern Italian cuisine with a fiery Italian vibe.
The difference between northern and southern Italian cuisine is the chosen ingredients and the types of pastas used. For example, people from northern Italy use butter, cream, polenta, mascarpone and parmigiano cheese, risotto and pastas made from fresh eggs, while Southern Italians rely heavily on tomato paste, use dried pasta and caciovallo or pecorino cheeses, and prepare creamier sauces for dressings.
Given that pizza is actually a southern Italian dish, it is not included on Rosso menu. The Rosso menu includes ravioli, risotto, spaghetti, and an array of antipasti and delicious homemade sorbet and gelato treats. The richness and high quality of the butter, cream and cheeses used, and the elegant methods of stewing, slow-braising, and using wine or broth is the key to Rosso’s fabulous and authentic northern Italy cuisine.
But the most interesting ingredient in all menu of Rosso is some of them use truffle mushroom. We can identify truffle easily with our senses since this type of mushroom has a very strong scent each time we put the food inside our mouth. Although it is not yet proven scientifically, many people believe that truffle has aphrodisiac impact to those eating it.
Truffle is a type of mushroom that grows 5 – 40 cm below the ground in certain places. According to Chef Alessandro Santi, white truffle (Tuber Magnatum), the type of truffle that has even stronger scent compared to Black Truffle (Tuber Melanosporum), has been used by Italian people to spice up their food since hundreds of years ago. Not long after that, the mushroom has become famous to countries around the world.
Truffle can only grow in the wild and lives with Oak tree. This type of mushroom also has very short living period. People collect truffle between the month of October to mid of December. We cannot find white truffle before or after those period, which makes this type of mushroom very rare and expensive. Per kilogram, truffle is sold for US$3,500 or around Rp 31.5 million. Quite a number. In the place where truffle originally grew, the plant strongly related with Christmas. For such reason, Rosso can only provide menu with white truffle only in November and December.
Rosso Restaurant & Lounge
Shangri-La Jakarta
Jl. Jenderal Sudirman Kav. 1
Jakarta 10220
Ph. (021) 5707440 ext. 6030, 6031, 6032
Fax: (021) 21 2511258
