Meat market

La Finestra's owners, who also run the Vinohrady Italian standout Aromi, know how to sell their menu. Aromi's stellar service includes a tour of the Mediterranean, delivered via a platter presented table-side of the whole, fresh fish available that evening. An up-close look at specially imported fish does wonders in pushing prices and distracting sauces to the back of a discerning diner's mind.

While Aromi highlights fresh seafood from Italy, La Finestra was opened in April of this year to focus on meats. The Old Town space is decorated tastefully with brick, mirrors and muted colors that are all warmed by ambient lighting.

Ambience has been proved to be a serious forte for the company. But food remains their focus, and they take it very, very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that diners are presented with whole sections of cows atop the enormous platter that gives ordering at La Finestra the feel of a trip to the butcher's counter. The rest of the evening feels like a trip to a top restaurant.

The attentive gentleman who served our party dropped a bombshell before the platter even appeared: He's a vegetarian. It was unclear if he was joking, or maybe a masochist, but he quickly followed that statement with a recommendation for the beef tartare, as if overcompensating. "My friends tell me it's very good."

But vicarious recommendations are a world apart from manhandling raw beef and veal cuts, and, when he brought the mountain of meat, I eyed him uneasily; surely, his politically minded stomach must have been turning violently as he handled a rope of filet, explaining with a smile that the meat imported from Italy is aged for six weeks. And what was he going to think of me ordering a whole kilo's worth of bone-in strip steak? To be honest, I wasn't sure what to think about that myself. But the platter presented a challenge I wasn't about to pass up.

After placing our order for entrees, we turned our attention to the relatively humble appetizers, which displayed the attention to top-of-the-line ingredients that Aromi has become known for. Salt cod, an Italian specialty of salted, dried cod reconstituted in water, was fried in a gauzy potato flour batter that lightly encased the firm, white flesh, and served accompanied by a garlic mayonnaise.

Truffles are a luxurious delicacy, prized for their rarity and distinctive flavor of fresh earth and mushrooms. Finestra name-drops the star ingredient all over its menu; in the beef tartare appetizer, a veal chop, risotto and even in a dessert. We tried our first incarnation in the beef tartare - ruby red, almost translucent minced beef mixed with chopped onions, capers and anchovies. The aforementioned ingredients are all pungent, and may have been too strong a match for the truffles, which were hardly noticed.

As at Aromi, pasta dishes are available as either starters or mains. A starter of gnocchi with burrata cheese and tomato sauce restored the potato dumpling firmly back into my good graces. The gnocchi I've eaten in Prague have generally been knobby, rubbery little things that repel any flavor or sauce they're forced into. La Finestra's were ethereal, pillowy dumplings that cuddled the tart cream of the cheese, similar to mozzarella, and the bright tomato sauce.

The star attractions of the night arrived at a perfect pace after our appetizers had been cleared. Our kilo's worth of "I-bone," essentially a bone-in striploin, was more than enough for me and a companion, with whom I split the dish. The meat was served sliced off and placed next to the bone, with slices cooked between medium and rare. The meat was simply seasoned and heavenly, with a rich taste balanced by a delicate tenderness. It was exactly as a steak should be - perfectly cooked, and of a quality that can stand on its own.

A veal chop was lightly fragranced with white truffle, which perfumed the buttery pink meat. The kitchen had cooked the delicate chop adeptly; not a single bite approached dryness, and a light marbling of fat hadn't been entirely rendered. I found myself wanting to gnaw on the bone, but good training and good manners prevailed.

Dessert was a strange experience, and reminded me of the reason my mother hates rhubarb. As a young woman, she excitedly bit into what she though was cherry pie, her favorite dessert. It turned out to be rhubarb. She was so injured by the deception that, to this day, she will not stand the offending ingredient in any form.

When I first read "truffled chocolate cake" on Finestra's dessert menu, the immediate association that came to mind was the chocolate confection known as a truffle, which, although decadent, doesn't actually contain or taste like truffles. Imagine my surprise when the first forkful of the dense, dark chocolate dessert carried with it the unmistakable aroma of black truffle. It was a flavor pairing so unexpected that I experienced a moment of culinary cognitive dissonance.

Unlike my mother, I recovered and quickly dove back in to get my fair share before my companions could wolf it down themselves. I'm happy to be different from her in this sense, because a lifelong aversion to black truffle would be a tragedy.

Claire Compton can be reached at
ccompton@praguepost.com