The Italian Summer: Golf, Food, and Family at Lake Como - Hardcover

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LA BAITA

From several different sources we had heard about a restaurant called La Baita, and one night in July, when we'd been at the lake for a while, we decided to have dinner there. La Baita was difficult to get to, our sources said, reachable only by a road that was not for the timid, tucked into a high valley above the Menaggio and Cadenabbia Golf Club -- my home course during that summer -- with a view of a piece of Lake Como and of the alpine landscape near the lake's northern end.

We were advised to make reservations and to arrive hungry. We had also been advised to hire a taxi driver to take us to La Baita because we'd heard -- and would later learn firsthand -- that there were roads climbing into those hills that connected to other roads, that turned into dirt tracks with steep drop-offs, no lights, and no guardrails, and wandered so far into the high valleys, so deep into the rugged landscape between Italy and Switzerland, that the idea of heading out in the evening, without a taxi driver leading the way, or an Italian friend familiar with the terrain, with two young children in the car, without provisions, weapons, first-aid kit, or at least a few days' supply of fresh water...

I'm exaggerating, of course. And yet it was true that an American acquaintance who'd lived on the lake for twenty-five years, and knew we'd have a rental car, had given us the names of several restaurants back in the hills and suggested we let a cabdriver take us to them. Later in the summer, we would discover how easy it was to get lost up there, and how treacherous the roads could be. As we came to know the high country behind our house, we found it surprising that there were any roads up there at all, given the steepness of the grade; and next to unbelievable that people had decided to make their homes in such places and start restaurants in those remote hills and hollows, when there was plenty of perfectly good and much flatter land just a few miles north along the lake.

Still, we wanted to try La Baita and we decided it was worth the risk. On that warm July evening, Amanda and the girls put on nice dresses. I changed from sneakers to shoes, T-shirt into short-sleeve dress shirt. With an old emergency kit and a bottle of water but no weapons or provisions or guide, we headed out, in our rented Renault, in search of dinner.

From our house on the slanted western shore of the lake, we started out north along a side road called Via Pola. This unlined street, with weedy fields and orchards and a few houses to either side, brought us past the spot, marked by a simple black cross, where Benito Mussolini had been killed in 1945, then dropped us down to the statale, the lakeside road. We turned north on the statale, with the lake to our right, and to our left a brief parade of old stone buildings standing shoulder to shoulder. There were shops and small eateries on the street floor of these buildings -- including a place called Bar Roma, where I liked to go for cappuccino before an early-morning round of golf -- shuttered windows and doors above. On the small balconies there you might see a man in a white T-shirt that looked as though it had been carefully washed and ironed, and he would be watering the tomatoes in his flower boxes. Or you might see an elderly woman wearing a flower-print dress, leaning her fleshy arms on the railing and staring down and across the road at men fishing from the promenade with long poles, a few small boats at anchor, then the expanse of blue water, the green hills and gray cliffs beyond.

It was just after seven p.m. Though it would still be several hours before darkness settled around the lake, the sun had already fallen behind the hills on the western shore, our shore, and huge, looping shadows were reaching across toward the famous resort town of Bellagio on the other side. As always, Bellagio sparkled in the last sunlight, as if it were proud of itself, set apart there on the triangular spit of land that separated Como's two spindly legs. And as always the more plebeian statale was lively with evening traffic: blue German tour buses with pale-complected retirees gazing out the windows at the chaotic Italian roadway. Driving like that, how can they survive long enough to raise a family? you imagined the Germans and Swiss and Dutch visitors asking themselves, because, like so many Italian roads, the statale was a crazy Roller Derby of motorcycles cutting from lane to lane with the drivers leaning hard into the curves and the passengers holding on tight; BMWs, Porsches, Fiats, and Peugeots zipping along so fast you would have thought the ancient road were lined, or wide, or straight; cyclists in professional-looking shirts and shorts pumping the pedals in a bright yellow or blue line with a foot or so to spare between their knees and the buses' big wheels. How do they do it? Why do they do it? We'd asked ourselves the same thing so many times and come up with a dozen answers: for fun, to show off, to test the machines they drove, to test their own nerve, because they did everything else in such a relaxed fashion. After a while, we stopped asking and started having some fun ourselves.

Past the row of tourist hotels we went, past an elegant villa set back behind a grand lawn of palms and flower gardens, past another sprinkling of restaurants, a ferry dock, a favorite swimming spot, then into the shadows and through a short tunnel that spilled us out on the edges of the town of Menaggio. At the Bank of San Paolo, where the road split, we took the left fork, away from downtown, away from the lake, made the hairpin turn in front of Pizzeria Lugano, then started to climb the switchback road that led, if you followed it farther than we would on that night, across the border and into Switzerland.

This was a true mountain road, a test of nerves, skill, and patience. On the first mile alone, there were eight hairpin turns. Between those turns lay straight stretches where the Italians liked to pass with great stylishness and daring. Once we had successfully navigated this first winding uphill stretch, we reached the village of Croce, near the Caff è Peace. There a sign on the wall said simply golf, and we cut across the highway, carefully, choosing our moment, and zigged and zagged up a much narrower road -- Level II of the La Baita driving test -- in first gear mostly, sounding the horn three times as we neared each corner and watching for whatever might be coming the other way. Bicycles, Audi Quattros, cement mixers. Seven more harrowing turns and we arrived at the edge of the golf course property, which called to me, as always. But on that evening, instead of passing through the tall wrought-iron gates and up toward the clubhouse restaurant, we veered left, onto a road wide enough for a single car -- Level III. This road soon turned to rutted dirt and offered, every fifty yards or so, like a series of apologies, small cutouts where you could pull over and let another vehicle squeeze past.

Up and up we went, dust powdering the roadside leaves behind us. And then, at the crest of a hill, the climb abruptly ended and we turned sharply right, and down, following two dirt tracks that snaked through the trees. No cutouts here, no guardrails, no streetlamps, no signs. In another minute this road cast us forward into a gravel parking lot next to a two-and-a-half-story, white stucco and gray stone house that seemed to have been set there, on its small promontory, by helicopter. There was nothing to indicate we had arrived at a restaurant. No sign. Apparently no entrance door. I brought the Renault to a stop, turned off the engine, and looked across the seat at Amanda. "The food must be spectacular here," I said in a hopeful way, "or else who would ever come?"

It took us a minute to figure out how to gain entrance to La Baita -- up a set of stone steps at the side of the house, then onto a covered porch that looked out over treetops to a fresh view of the folding mountains and a small piece of the lake. A fluttering of buona seras filled the air around us, as if, in crossing the threshold that separated the stone landing from the wooden porch, we had startled a small covey of happy birds and they were brushing our ears with their soft, warm wings. This feathery greeting came from the owner of the place, a sturdy, middle-aged woman named Marissa, who had reddish blond hair and a smile like sunlight.

A warm welcome is the first step in eating well away from home. The Italians understand this principle of the culinary science in the same way they seem instinctively to understand everything else that has to do with food: growing it, preparing it, serving it, accompanying it with the proper wine, eating and digesting it, and talking about it: You can't expect to fully enjoy a meal, they seem to say, if your first moments in a dining establishment consist of a welcome that is short on eye contact and long on surliness. In the chain restaurants back home (Italy has yet to be overrun by them) this essential first step has not been forgotten, but it has mutated into a standardized greeting: Good evening and welcome to Mickleford's. Hi, I'm Brent and I'll be your server tonight. Can I start you folks off with something to drink? As sincere as some of these pleasant offerings might be, you still have the feelingthey've been written up by a management consultant somewhere in Orlando or San Jose, and that they're delivered under I-might-lose-my-job duress.

Marissa had no management consultants and was in no danger of being fired. She seemed genuinely happy to see us, and, a minute later, to welcome our friends Andrus and Elsa. She had started La Baita twenty-one years earlier after the sudden death of her husband, turning the family home into a restaurant as a means of making a living. Now she kept it open six days a week, year-round, serving mainly tourists and vacation-home owners in the warmer months, and mainly locals in winter, when the cool rains came, the tops of the surrounding mountains were clothed in white, and the ...