Trang Quynh

Full address: 1 Rue Colonel Denfert Rochereau, 38000 Grenoble 

(Photo: Internet) 

This summer, we (my boyfriend and I), came up with the ideas of trying new restaurants in our cities (and other cities as well if we have chance ^^), because we realized that we only have a few address that we kept going over and over again. That has been an amazing experience, we got to try many new dishes, discover our cities and spend a lot of time wandering and talking about food, of course 😉

For this time, our stop is La Gazzetta, a well-known Italian restaurant and coffee shop in Grenoble. A little side story (as always on my Tasty Wanderings posts :D): earlier that day, my boyfriend got one of his teeth out and the doctor said he should avoid tough, chewy or spicy food, at least for one day. We planned to go to this restaurant that night, but when I knew that, I offered to cook for him at home, congee, soup, anything that won’t hurt him. Because let’s thing about an Italian restaurant: Pizza? Crunchy and chewy. Pasta? Chewy, and isn’t it adorable having your girl taking care of you 😉 But no, he was so stubborn and convinced me that he could definitely find something to eat there, and even if it hurts, it’s worth it. Well, sounds logical (it’s his tooth anw haha), so here we go, straight to La Gazzetta !

We were served these while waiting for our dishes, some tiny slices of bread with a side of salsa. I’m not gonna lie, the salsa was great, simple, well seasoned and definitely boosted our appetite. On the other hand, I wish the bread was toasted a little bit before serving, or they could switch up to normal baguette slices, a little crunch would be so much better.

We also ordered a glass of white wine, it was quite pricey though, 8 euros for this one glass, so we did expect a great quality. But the wine was average, we couldn’t find any difference between this and other cheaper options or even normal white wine bottles you can find in supermarkets.

Finally the main dishes came in !! My boyfriend ordered the special Gazetta Beef Tartare, served with salad and a side of mashed potatoes. And look at his plate, isn’t it gorgeous? The hero of the dish was definitely the beef tartare, excellent quality beef, extremely tender and aromatic, and the mixture tasted just amazing. I have to admit that this was the first time I’ve tasted beef tartare, and I’ve been loving it so far !! The beef literally melted in your mouth, and I needed that recipe for the marinade in my life !

The side dishes, on the other hand, weren’t that impressive. Mixed green salad with cherry tomatoes and vinagrette, we expected something more unique: chopped nuts, a different dressing, a little bit of grated cheese maybe? Mashed potatoes definitely lacked some flavors, salt, pepper, butter, a dash of cream, there were so many ways to turn it awesome, because here it just tasted like boiled potatoes with tiny bit of salt. I may be a little harsh on this but mashed potatoes, after all, wasn’t something that difficult to nail.

For myself, I went for their Seafood Risotto. Later in my summer break, we visited Venice, Italy and we were also on the hunt of a good risotto, just so you how I got excited and all ordering this dish in an Italian restaurant ^^ So at first, when I saw this plate, I was like “That’s it? This is such a tiny portion and will never fill my hungry belly !”, but apparently I was wrong. The portion was enough to make you full without feeling guilty all the way back home thinking about exercise and stuff 😉

And plus, their risotto tasted great, aromatic, flavorful and filled with seafood: shrimps, clams, squid… so you don’t have to feel like being on a treasure hunting haha I said that because in some restaurants I visited, my seafood dishes had like… 2 or 3 teeny tiny pieces of seafood and I felt guitly eating them in the first bite because there was no more left for the rest of the plate T.T Anw, I really enjoyed my risotto and even had a containter of grated parmesan cheese by my side, now speaking of how amazing it would be to sprinkle as much as you like parmesan cheese on your plate 😉 At the end of the meal, I got a little help from my boyfriend to finish the dish, I definitely under estimated the portion they serve here, in La Gazzetta.

We hesitated in a good 5 minutes for our dessert because they had so many delicious things on their menu: tiramisu, panna cotta, fruit soup, sorbet, chocolate lava cake,… And here came the best choice: a plate with everything on in a smaller sizes 😉 So we got a coffee, fruit soup with berries, mint and a hint of lime, tiramisu with speculoos crumbs, panna cotta with strawberry sauce and whipped cream. Nothing got me excited like stunning desserts, and they were !!

I also saw their real portion of dessert and wow, you can surely satisfy your sweet tooth with that 😉

Overall, I think La Gazzetta deserves a 7/10 for this visit, although there were some misses, their dishes tasted good and their desserts were bomb !

So if you’re craving Italian food, La Gazzetta would be a great choice, they have a full menu of pizzas, pastas, bruschettas and other delicious dishes. And feel free to share with me in the comment section below your experience, that will help other people as well 😉

And I will see you in my next post,

Trang Quynh