Moulin Rouge - MAMMOLA

We were travelling around Calabria and read that Mammola is known for its gastronomy (we saw this on Wikpedia) and arrived there on a Sunday noon looking for a place to eat lunch. The first two restaurants we tried were already fully booked. We then found the Moulin Rouge. The name didn 't sound too promising, but we had the meal of our dreams there. We were greeted by the owner (I assume) who did all of the serving, while his wife (I assume) worked the kitchen. There is no menu. We don 't speak Italian and he didn 't speak English. Also, we don 't eat meat or shellfish. He asked us Pesce? and we said Yes! and that was the begining of a seven course, three hour meal that we will never forget. I won 't go into the details, just to say that most of the dishes were tomato based and spiced with pepperoncini a red pepper that could be both sweet and hot (but not too hot)and is a Calabrian specialty. The meal included all of the wine we could drink (straight form the barrel) and the owner plied us with food and drink until we almost had to beg him to stop. Also the restaurant was full of Italian families out for Sunday dinner and what seemed like a big family gathering birthday. So it was a great atmosphere and we had a wonderful time. It was amazing watch the owner serve the whole restaurant by himself (we counted about 40 people), which he did with great efficiency. But don 't go if you are in a hurry. Since there was no menu we didn 't know the price until the very end which came out to 30 Euro per person!! You should probably reserve in advance. This was the off season, so we were lucky.