La Favola

Dans une rue un peu l’écart, au coeur de la vieille ville de Genève, la favola charme par son joli décor. Pas de menu à l’extérieur, on entre tout de même.
L’équipe est sans aucun doute italienne, et les plats proposés en témoignent. On se fie à l’inspiration du jour du chef. Risotto au saint Jacques et au courgette, bon mais sans être incroyable: la cuisson du riz est incomplète; les saint Jacques sont probablement plutôt des pétoncles ou des saint Jacques péruviennes, et leur saveur est très effacée; la portion n’est pas non plus gargantuesque. En dessert, panna cotta au café, plutôt bonne elle aussi, mais sans grand éclat. Le décor et les dressages sont d’un niveau un peu supérieurs à ceux de l’assiette…
Côté cave, gare: si la sélection de vins est assez remarquable, elle est tarifée de manière incroyablement salée, y compris pour Genève. Du coup, on est alléché par les noms, mais on refuse de payer 130 chf pour une bouteille bue en Italie sur table pour 19 € il y a quatre mois de ça. Bön café (6CHF tout de même, mais bon).
Au final, pas une mauvaise adresse dans ce centre historique de Genève, mais une cuisine pas au niveau du lieu et de ses tarifs. Dommage.

Dès la réservation au téléphone (conseillé vu la taille du resto), le charme latin opère !!! L’accueil est chaleureux, le cadre magnifique, autant l’extérieur que l’intérieur et ce sur deux étages ! J’ai trouvé l’adaptation de la chasse à la cuisine italienne très originale (pappardelles au jus de sanglier). La suggestion du vin était la bienvenue et à la hauteur du repas ! Enfin le sorbet citron était juste parfait !
Les prix grimpent vite suivant les plats et les vins choisis mais la qualité, le cadre et le service les justifient amplement. A refaire prochainement !

I thought the food here was pretty good… the service was great, we got some free Grappa. but it’s not really my thing. Plates were a little bit small but a great wine selection.
Make sure you get a reservation, because this place can fill up awfully quickly.

Juste parfait !

We stumbled into this place looking for an Italian fix and based on Unilocal reviews gave it a try. It is so tiny and tucked away, we’d never have gone in save the good reviews. The staff are friendly and the food was awesome. The prices are quite up there, but this is Geneva.

Small quaint setting for about a dozen tables on two floors, which is accessed via a rickety old spiral staircase. We had the two mushroom dishes and both were spectacular, particularly the flan. Service was very friendly.

This was simply good food, and I feel like no matter what you order, there wouldn’t be a bad dish on the menu.
We started out with a bang. For appetizers, the tables were piled with carpaccio with truffles, ham with that whipped avocado cream thing I keep seeing pop up around Geneva restaurants, a dish that had artichoke hearts, a magnificent seafood dish with scallop and plump shrimp in a bed of veggies, and a baked crab. With so much food on the table, it’s hard to keep track of what each dish actually tasted like, but going from the gut, I seem to remember thinking both the carpaccio and ham would have been better if it wasn’t a bit dry. I remember enjoying the crab, but when you have crab meat in a thick soup of cheesy goodness, you can’t go wrong.
If the appetizers had me a bit overwhelmed, our next course of beef ravioli topped with a generous layer of truffles brought everything together perfectly. The smoky, woody scent of truffles wafted into our noses, taunting us as we waited for the rest of the table to be served. And the taste did not betray the wonderful aroma – the beef inside the ravioli was creamed almost to a pasty texture that melted in your mouth with the light sauce. The truffles were piled high and simply amazing, and we were even brought a handful of fresh truffles and a grater to further abuse this delicacy. And boy, did we take advantage of it! The truffles added a wonderful texture, flavor, and taste, and I FINALLY understood what the whole truffle craze was about.
It turns out, Italians eat multiple, multiple courses, and I found myself staring down at a beautiful rack of lamb, glazed in the perfect shade of brown sitting atop a mountain of mashed potatoes topped with – you guessed it – fresh truffles. The lamb was so tender and juicy with the perfect level of red in the center, that it would almost have been difficult to discern what kind of meat it was hadn’t it been for the telltale slight stiffness of lamb. The mashed potatoes were the creamiest that I have ever tasted in my life, and I desperately wished that I actually liked mashed potatoes.
The chocolate fondant I had for dessert was just the right amount of sweet without ruining the wonderful dinner we just had, but it had a slightly rubbery exterior, which seemed to be intentional but not particularly appreciated by me. The flan was a marvelous shiny mountain, and I hear the lemon sorbet is amazing.
You pay the price for the food. But in Geneva, you pay the price even for bad food. So while I probably wouldn’t be coming here on my own wallet, you will not be disappointed if you’re willing to pay a little extra for an exceptional dining experience. My only regret is that it was a semi-​formal setting and I was unable to take photo documentation of what has so far been my best meal in Geneva!