Can we escape to Firenze? Even if it’s just for a few moments? If you’ve ever told me that you’re going to Florence, I’ve likely shared my favorite restaurant recommendation, La Giostra! And if I’ve told you to go to La Giostra, I’ve certainly told you to get the pear and gorgonzola ravioli. So, in an effort to bring Italy into our home (my mission at Via Benincasa), Joe and I attempted to make the homemade pear and gorgonzola ravioli, inspired by our favorite, La Giostra. Turns out, we had a happy accident, that afforded us two pear pasta dishes!!
We first went to La Giostra in 2013, the day after we got engaged in Venice. We took the train to Florence and were only able to see a few sights before it start to pour. That’s when we decided to go to the restaurant we had planned to go to for dinner for a nice long lunch instead! We walked in to a dark, magical room, with twinkle lights on the ceiling, filled with pictures of celebrities on the walls. An eccentric guy with roughly 20 bracelets stacked on each arm, along with three large rings and strings of chains around his neck, greeted us and brought us to our table. We could have sat anywhere, the restaurant was nearly empty since we were there at such a random time. As we looked around with awe (likely sensory overload), our new friend brought over two complimentary glasses of Prosecco, along with a small plate of meat and cheese. At this point, we were already sold. We later learned that his father founded the restaurant. He’s a Habsburg-Lorraine prince, of Tuscan and Austrian descent. The cuisine are his family’s recipes from the countryside of Chianti. He told us stories of all the famous people who ate at La Giostra and about the time he sat backstage with Bon Jovi! The brick archways of the restaurant once housed carousel horses in the sixteenth century. This inspired the name La Giostra, meaning “the carousel.” For our meals, I ordered the spinach gnocchi, which was delicious, but Joe’s dish won the prize. The homemade pear and pecorino ravioli.
You read that right–pecorino, not gorgonzola. I don’t know why this entire time I was under the impression that it was pear and gorgonzola ravioli. I’m thinking the spinach gnocchi was in a gorgonzola sauce and I confused the two. When we decided we wanted to make this, I didn’t even consult the menu, I just had it in my head that it was pear and gorgonzola. So after Joe had bought all the ingredients and I found a recipe that I thought would suffice, we got to the cooking and I sliced my finger on the food processor. OUCH. Of course we stopped to butterfly stitch my finger, the pasta dough dried up and we couldn’t make the ravioli. Plan B, use the pear and gorgonzola filling as a sauce with some penne we already had in our cabinet. WOW. This was our happy accident.
Turns out, pear and gorgonzola PENNE is on the La Giostra menu! Incredulous. So after discovering that pear and gorgonzola penne was actually on the menu at La Giostra, we decided to go for round 2, and make the pear and PECORINO ravioli. We used the Lidia Bastianich recipe for the ravioli, but her recipe calls for a cacio e peppe sauce, which is not how La Giostra serves it, so we opted for a sage/butter sauce to mimic our favorite. Including both recipes below, in the case that you’d like to make it yourself. Lesson learned here: sometimes accidents lead to happy surprises.
Pear and gorgonzola filling that we used as sauce for the penne:
Pear and Pecorino Ravioli (without the cacio e peppe sauce): PBS written recipe link HERE
