Mancini – a taste of Italy in Stockholm

The second restaurant we visited on our little jaunt to Sweden provided quality Italian food. Once again I was impressed that Stockholm could reach such culinary peaks.

The dining room was pleasingly elegant, and I am always happy to see a large ham in a restaurant ready to be carved. We skipped the offer of the tasting menu as the a la carte options sounded so good. We were right to do so.

We all chose the same first course, veal carpaccio. This consisted of little rolls of raw veal stuffed with grated parmesan and rocket. Quite, quite delicious; meaty enough with a brilliant parmesan character. This really made me think we were in for a good time.

We then had a pasta course. Daniel had some ravioli filled with scallops. They had a good scallop character but were a tad under-cooked. Leena’s seafood risotto was a slightly over-cooked, but it was so bursting with fishy goodness that this didn’t really matter. I stole quite a lot of it from her plate. My cannelloni stuffed with veal, Parma ham and spinach was totally faultless. It had a great meaty character, wasn’t dominated by the spinach (who wants to eat plants anyway?) and was cooked to perfection. I really enjoyed it, so much so that it was painful to pass on forkfuls for Daniel and Leena to try.

The option of a grilled veal chop for the main course was too tempting for Daniel and I to turn down, so we both had it. It was cooked very well, properly grilled on the outside and moist in the middle. Most enjoyable. Leena had saltimbocca, veal escalope with Parma ham, which was buttery, tasty and tender. Good stuff!

For dessert Daniel had a a hazelnut ice cream truffle, Leena chose a chocolate delice. The considered opinion about these is that they were perfectly good but not the most stellar of desserts

The wine list leaned quite heavily toward the expensive side, but all wines lists do in Stockholm. We had an agreeable bottle of Primitivo, from a producer whose name escapes me, and a great bottle of Tignanello 1999 which didn’t seem so outrageously priced. They had an interesting selection of Italian sweet wines by the glass to have with dessert. We tried three different ones and were entertained by their weirdly pleasurable characters.

The meal was quite satisfying, by the end we all felt we had done well. What more can you ask from a restaurant? Clearly a worth a visit if you need good Italian food in Stockholm.

Contact details: Mancini, Tunnelgatan 1, 11137 Stockholm, Sweden. Telephone (+46) 8 21 53 10.