Yesterday I promised to devote today’s post to laying out the week’s Cucinapalooza itinerary. I lied.

Got sidetracked is perhaps a bit nicer way of putting it. “Lie” seems so intentional, so harsh. When I wrote that I would describe our upcoming daily cooking activities for the next week, I intended to do so. It’s just that it wouldn’t be right not to write about last night.

We are in the strange position of owning a villa in Umbria but not being able to stay there tonight. Or tomorrow. It’s actually a nice problem to have, as the villa is currently rented by a terrific group who are experiencing the wonders of Umbria. Nice for them and nice for us.

So for the two days in Italy before we move to the villa to begin our Cucinapalooza cooking tour, we have had to find a place to stay, some place close to Rome but also close to Terni, where we have scheduled some meetings to go over some business plans with colleagues of ours. Looking at a map of the area around Terni Suzy and I both independently and at the same moment turned to one another and said, “what about il Re Beve?”

Il Re Beve (the king who drinks) is a marvelous restaurant we have dined at twice, the first time with our good friend Lodovico who had taken us on a tour of his native region, the second time with our friends Pete and Nancy (who are rejoining us for Cucinapalooza) at the end of a visit to the villa and on our way to Rome. The restaurant, we recalled, was excellent and the setting, overlooking the hills south of Todi, spectacular. And, as we recalled, on our previous visit the waiter had showed us a special banquet hall for weddings and told us there were rooms for rent in the castello (castle for those who don’t speak Italian). The proximity to Terni (15 minutes), the setting (magical), the restaurant (fabulous), along with a special rate for a package called “Io & Te in una “Fuga d’amore” which translates roughly into the “You and me in a ‘fuga’ of love” package made it all the more irresistable. I was afraid to look up the translation of “fuga,” deciding instead to see where it took us.

The Fuga package, by the way, included a “romantica cena” (romantic dinner) “a lume di candela” (by candlight) “nel nostro reservato e romantico prive” (in our reserved and romantic “prive” (again no translation dared)). This sounded too good to pass up, especially when considering that the room was both “suggestiva” and “preziosa.” So we took the plunge.

I can honestly say that plunging can sometimes lead to death, but other times, like last night it can result in immersing yourself in something completely special. And the cena romantica was nothing short of special. We started our dinner hour (or four, despite a touch of jetlag) with a glass of local wine on the outdoor terrace, the temperatures here in Umbria being unseasonably high for this time of year, something in the neighborhood of 75 degrees. And over the course of the cocktail we began building a rapport with our waiter and romantic guide for the evening. Finally when we decided to tear ourselves from the terrace he showed us to our “prive.” Down a long, narrow passageway, just barely my height and completely darkened save a few very dim candles we walked until we emerged in an enormous banquet hall, a 15th century room that no doubt served as a stable back in the day but which in this day overwhelmed with its 30 foot arched stone ceilings, uneven stone floor and a sea of candles that illuminated the room in dozens of discrete patches. Set at one end of one of the banquet table were two placesettings. One for me and one for my queen. And filling the room was the haunting sound of Diana Krall, one of our favorite singers who happens to be opening the Umbria Jazz Festival this year.

Over the next three hours we were virtually left alone in this hall, with our waiter making the occasional trek from the main restaurant to bring us food and wine, discretely making heavy footfall as he made his way down the passageway before entering our sanctum. Each time he entered, however, he was well received, as he brought us fabulous dishes, wonderful wine and even more so as he provided us an audience on which to shower praise for the wonderful evening.

Dinner in your own private banquet hall is something that should be on everyone’s bucket list. And although we crossed it off our bucket list we enjoyed it so much we’re going to spend our second and last night at the Castello in another fuga d’amore. We may not exactly know what a fuga is, but it sure is a lot of fun trying to figure it out.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy