Restaurant Review Il Cherubino

Think about what they’ve cooked, your friends and family. Think about how happy it made you feel. Think about those cold days when your toes were frozen through your damp shoes and you got a big bowl of stew, or potage, lentils, or whatever you want to call it, and savoured every scalding, flavoursome moment. People say that you shouldn’t expect the quality that you get at home when you eat in a family restaurant. Well why the hell not??? I’m sorry, but that’s the least I expect.That’s the bloody reason I came out to eat in your restaurant. So I could eat better and not have to clean up.

If, in my case, you were to log them all by most frequented/nationality, end to end, of the restaurants that I’ve eaten in, I’d be very surprised if the Italians didn’t come out on top. I love Italian food, of course I prefer Spanish, but I love Italian food. Probably two of the five greatest meals I’ve had, have been Italian. One was a major family affair when a ‘mamma’ of a friend of mine produced four courses that I can still remember now, thirty years later. Another was in a bakery in Tuscany. Normal shop, but they made lunch for something like 9 Euros. To them it was the ‘Menu of the Day’. To me it was sensational. Ok. The bar has been set.

Forward now to an Italian shop in the centre of town with something of a reputation. I’d gone past Il Cherubino many times before. If only I’d kept on going. Once, with some good Spanish friends we’d peeked in the window on some crazy day, like say, a Monday, only to find it closed. Tsch. I’d love to say that Il Cherubino was where we had set out to go that particular night, but it wasn’t. We’d gone out with the idea of going to a Japanese restaurant just up the road. But those Japanese blighters, keeping with their penchant for all things miniaturised, had created a restaurant which was, in fact, built for midgets. Small then, and no seats until 2020, but judging by the food that I saw, it might be worth the wait.

Back to Il Cherubino, unfortunately.

It was a weekend night, but the place was half full. Without a reservation, we sat down at our table, and were given our tombstone shaped menus. About ten minutes later, with much glancing around we managed to order a beer. It said Bofferding on the menu, but we got the dreaded Peroni. If you’ve ever wondered why the Italians drink wine, try a Peroni.

To be honest, I actually fancied a pizza. But with only something like half a dozen pizzas on the menu, I thought this might not be the place. Meat. No, too heavy and it was about 25C outside. Fish. Had it for lunch. In the end we decided, well actually an over-anxious waiter decided, what we would have. This is the kind of guy who if you ask for a translation of something on the menu, ends up ordering your meal for you. “Whaddya wannna eat? You wanna fish? Meat? Vegetables? Ok, I fix you something nice.”

In the end we did manage to order what sounded like a promising choice. The ‘Assaggini del Cherubino’ was a kind of selection box of the anti-pasti dishes and was by and large vegetarian. It sounded like a good way to check out a few things at the same time. After another not inconsiderable wait, it arrived. Ok, so we had pickled onions (good), some kind of pickled mushrooms (truly awful, with the texture of cardboard and about as much flavour), grilled green peppers (the highlight of the night as it turned out), baby octopus out of a can (without comment) which came with a side order of sun-dried tomatoes (curious combination, but the tomatoes were really delicious) and finally a kind of bruschetta. Ok, it wasn’t really a bruschetta, just a slice of some dull and bland cheese sat atop of some not very fresh bread, marshalled by a bunch of rocket. The rocket was good. All of these little dishes came in generous enough portions, but the onions, the mushrooms, the peppers and the tomato and squid all came saturated in, a not very good, olive oil and were seriously over-salted, perhaps in an effort to revive them.

“One, two, three, clear….TZZZZZZZZZ…The patient is dead doctor.”

The cracked and chipped plates which we were presented with for the anti-pasti, were starting to look less like a bit of considered homeliness, and more like carelessness.

I had an uncle-in-law who, when ordering wine in a restaurant, would always ask the waiter for a half bottle of the worst wine he had in the cellar. I had thought this an eccentricity to begin with, and believe me eccentric was his middle name, but he explained his logic thus: Any restaurant can buy in a case of good wine without knowing anything about wine, but try their everyday, common-or-garden house wine and you will learn a great deal about the restaurant. He was quite mad, but in this regard his logic was flawless. We ordered a demi of the house rose. It was cold, which was a start, but utterly flavourless and to a quite remarkable degree. I started to get a sinking feeling.

The main course arrived.

I’d ordered the Pappardelle ai Porcini, which is basically fat noodles with mushrooms. Safe enough you might think, not much you could do wrong with that you might say. Think again. The pasta was grossly overcooked, the mushrooms, flavourless, the whole thing had been salted to within an inch of its life and left to float in a puddle of cheap olive oil. I ate about four or five forkfuls and could feel it in my stomach the next morning. My beautiful dining companion had gone along with the waiters recommendation and ordered a kind of pasta duo, one was meat with pasta shells and a not very convincing tomato sauce, the other shellfish with what looked like Orzo or barley shaped pasta. It was alright, just about. Il Cherubino is not cheap. It’s got a good location in the centre of town, but I’ve eaten in better Italian restaurants here in Luxembourg which cost half as much and the food was twice as good, as was the service, and don’t even get me started on the décor. Il Cherubino is old, tired and in need of a plug in the socket, which is more or less how I felt after my visit.

Il Cherubino5.0105