Middle of

NOWHERE

Trattoria La Madia, Brione, Lombardia

BACKROAD BACCHANALIA

Matt Goulding

To get to La Madia, you’ll need to peel off the A4 midway between Milan and Venice, wind your way along the SP19, slicing through villages and Franciacorta vines, until a final series of dramatic switchbacks brings you to the three-street village of Aquilini, where one of Italy’s great rural restaurants waits as your reward. Be prepared, because the food comes fast and frequent: a table-swallowing antipasti spread—polenta swaddled in creamy mountain cheese, roast beef with charcoal salt, chicken liver parfait; boundary-pushing pastas, like spaghetti theatrically dressed with molten bone marrow sawed and scooped tableside; and a series of genre-bending secondi and dolci that will leave you deliriously happy. From dry-aged meats to housemade salumi to an over-the-top coffee service, all of this is way better than it needs to be, way better (and cheaper) than it has any right to be.

Matt Goulding