Fettuccine is more than a one-night stand at Paparazzi.photo: Ján Svrček
Paparazzi
Where: Laurinská 1
Open11:00 - 01:00
Tel: (02) 54 64 79 71
Menu: Italian/Slovak/English
Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
THE SHORT day fled and falling night pursued relentlessly as I wandered aimlessly across the cobblestones of Old Town square.
I turned a corner and pulled my trench coat tight as the wind whistled past my ear. Squinting, I brushed past a stoic man with a camera and ducked under a thick curtain into blackness and warmth. Waiting for a table in the cocktail lounge, I dawdled over a gin and tonic (100Sk) wondering where the young lad behind the bar had learned his trade.
From the candles and drifting smoke of the cocktail lounge I walked to a lovely window table in the restaurant area. The place was full. The waiters bustled and the smell of basil and rosemary seemed to be faintly whispering above the din of plates and knives and trailing voices.
The waitress brought fresh bread and a small dish of grated Parmesan cheese to which she added olive oil. She placed a menu before me, took my jacket to the cloakroom. The light shades, the brick ceiling, no, maybe it was just the gin talking. I started to feel light headed. I sauntered through the extensive menu and then gazed at the sidewalk as pedestrians passed. When the waitress returned, she smiled. I ordered the minestrone (60Sk) and Fettuccina alle Italiana (180Sk).
The minestrone made me wonder, but it did not make me sing. Full bodied and well tended certainly, but it was short on salt and there isn't a soup in the world with enough personality to recover from that. Young couples clutched paws and shared entrees. Businessmen emptied carafes of red wine muttering and whispering as businessmen do.
The fettuccine arrived promptly along with a bowl of grated cheese. At this point I can't say for how long I was away or what brought me back. I only know that when I returned her riveting eyes were trained on mine. She was the most beautiful fettuccine I had ever laid eyes on. Sensuous in egg white, a surrounding white halo and delicate patches of tomato clinging to her bosom. She sang lightly, in melodic tones to the heavens, but she sang for no one but me. Lightly sprinkled with melting Parmesan and herbs whose origin only magicians know she was everything to me. She was nothing to me. She was gone, if she ever was. I gazed at where her sweet strands had lain I begged the waitress to let the plate be. But alas, my plate was whisked away and I was brought a cappuccino (40Sk) instead.
Over this sweet cappuccino I pondered what might have been but for hunger and desire. No, not gluttony, it was nothing so low as that. Never that. Oh, my sweet, for you the ocean! The stars! An ode to fettuccine. Yes, I could see it now. My composition, my life's work had begun at last!
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