Torino is the capital city of the Piemonte region of northwestern Italy

Javier, and I, with my parents, took a little trip to good ole Warrenton, VA this weekend. Several of our wedding attendees called Warrenton home for the better part of their lives and some even knew Cafe Torino when we mentioned it! As you can see from the picture I swiped off their website its not exactly something you'd write home about from the outside. But it wasn't their decor that we were after - it was their food!

Andrea Ferrero, chef and owner with wife Amber of Cafe Torino, had catered one of my mother's sorority sister's daughter's weddings (I know that seemed distant, but its not that far I swear...and we will now refer to her as Kathy) and gave us the recommendation. Kathy's daughter had her wedding at Kathy's gorgeous home in Lexington, VA last October.

So after repeated recounts of the delicious food from Kathy, we walked into the cafe with a flurry of expectations and concerns. #1 being that Ash Lawn does not have a kitchen available on site for caterers. (yeah, I know.) We were all fairly certain that after sharing this detail with Andrea, he would kindly show us the door amid a shower of laughter. But the knowledge of his successful wedding at Kathy's country home gave us courage and hope when describing the conditions in which he would be cooking at Ash Lawn. After some rather entertaining exclamations and sighs he assured us that 'we can do it.' Victory! Well a small one at least.

Next came an hour of questions about our ideas for the wedding and menu discussion. (We learned quickly that Andrea had no trouble letting us know which of our ideas for the day he disagreed with immensely including, but not limited to, serving pie instead of cake, seating our guests at rectangular tables instead of round and omitting a champagne toast from our agenda.)

But finally, he served us one of the most exquisite lunches I've had in a long time. If I've neglected to share it with you, let me say now, that Andrea is Italian. So for our family-style reception he suggested tables set with fresh made focaccia bread, a salad course (with either house Italian dressing or *rolled eyes* Caesar dressing), a pasta course with both white and red sauced pasta and then chicken and tilapia.

He brought us out the two pasta suggestions, chicken marsala and tilapia with a lemon caper sauce. We did a 'take a bite and pass' which quickly became a 'take several bites until someone yells at you for not passing' because everything was just SO good! The red pasta (pictured to the left-Pasta Arabiata-which apparently means angry pasta) looks like a typical penne with marinara sauce, but typical it was not! The sauce had bacon, onions and tomatoes and a little spicy, kick that totally surprised you when you took a bite! The white sauce pasta (Penne Torino) had mushrooms and parm with a truffle oil. It was so rich (and yet oddly light) I think Javier could have eaten the whole thing without even looking up if we had let him!

I had been looking forward to trying the chicken marsala (pictured to the right) and it absolutely did not disappoint! I think my quote was 'if you put this sauce in a pitcher I think I would pour it over everything.' Again, so rich, but somehow light! (how does he do that?) The tilapia was no one's favorite which did not please Andrea, so he made us a new salmon dish with a mustard based sauce and sauerkraut (we were a little skeptical). But it was awesome :) Our menu (if we go with Cafe Torino) was set!

But with our awesome venue and this delish caterer come some complications (of course). Since Ash Lawn provides no cooking facilities, it is the caterer that must bring in their own burners/ovens, serving platters, flatware, linens, etc and Cafe Torino does not provide these things : / which means that we would need to find yet another vendor in Charlottesville to provide the above if we go with Andrea. *negative for Cafe Torino* Many of the Charlottesville caterers that we are also looking at do provide their own equipment. *positive for other caterers*

I really liked that Andrea obviously cared about his food. I have no doubt that he would never send something out of the kitchen that he wasn't 100% proud of. He focuses on having fresh ingredients and promised that the quality that we tasted at his restaurant would be the quality he served our 200+ guests on October 13th. I also think his menu is somewhat 'different' than a lot of wedding food and would probably not be what our guests ate at the other 10+ weddings they attend in 2012. Pasta is also Javier's favorite food so I know he'd be a happy and well feed man on our special day :) - I just don't know if I can handle adding one more vendor to our ever growing list of suppliers to coordinate...

Javier and I get to visit Harvest Moon in Charlottesville this Saturday to investigate another catering option. I'll share with you their pros and cons next week so we can start making that all important FOOD decision!