Frankfurt Germany: Piccola Cucina

I'm in Frankfurt this week on business, and most of the week has been quite ordinary: hotel buffet, a biergarten where the bratwurst was ordinary, but the mashed potatoes were outstanding (and I liked the maultaschensuppe quite a bit) but I forget the name -- it was in the old town in Oberursel, can't be too hard to find.

So tonight the whole group went to a place called Piccola Cucina,
Schwarzburgstrasse 78, 60318 Frankfurt am Main, 069-51 70 09 51
pinolino@vodaphone.de

The owner and chef, Marco, was extremely friendly, he'd been a chef elsewhere, and is happy to serve a small clientele the best possible food, rather than work for someone else or have others cooking for him.
We were served a predetermined menu, but if the general fare is anything like this, it's outstanding overall.

Antipasti included prosciutto & melon, smoked salmon, roasted vegetables, buffalo mozz, and others. All very fine.
The primi was a crespelle filled with cheese and spinach with a cream sauce, outstanding, and penne arrabiata, nicely spicy.

The segundi was either monkfish wih olives and tomatoes, or a filet with a mushroom cream sauce. I had the latter, and it was fantastic: rich, highly umami, just what the doctor ordered.

Dessert was tiramisu, better than average, but not a show-stopper.

I'd highly recommend this place. The kind of place we'd be calling a Great Neighborhood Restaurant.

Thanks for the info.

It's been a while, and I know you didn't ask for any recommendations, but I had some very nice meals at Gargantua. This was some time ago, but it seems to be still well-regarded and better publicized these days.

http://gargantua.de/

Do you otherwise find Goethe's hometown to be as charmless as I remember it?

I didn't ask for recc's because I knew I'd have no choices: it's all been company events except for tonight (yes, it's Saturday night here already), where I just grabbed a sandwich at a cafe with two other people, rather than sit-down fare for 20 as it's been since Wednesday.

I can't say much about charm or lack thereof in Frankfurt, most of my time has been out in Oberursel in a two-block range from the hotel to the restaurant that's hosted our meetings. This evening we wandered up and down the pedestrian mall in Frankfurt, and it's got all the charm State Street. Starbucks, 3 H&M's, T-Punkt (a much better name than T-Mobile if you ask me)... it's pretty dull, although the Gummi Bear store was a hoot -- I'm bringing back Sour Cherry Colas and Red Hot Chili Pepper gummis. I got my sons a couple "Dark Wave" (it's a sub-genre) CDs at outrageous prices (17.99E each), but eh, nothing much I want to buy.