Perhaps it was watching the dining room scene of Beauty and the Beast over and over during the flight over to Italy that had that song ‘Be our guest’ in the background of my head for most of the trip. I don’t know why, but that scene always makes me smile and feel joy to the deepest part of my core to imagine a dinner being served up like that one. It is the scene that starts with Lumiere saying ‘Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents…your dinner.’
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that kind of unexpected dinner would come to life for me – and on this trip, no less. As you’ll recall, my last blog entry had me saying yes to a 2-scoop gelato at 4:15pm (with an 8pm dinner reservation), which made Dana a little nervous. She was so concerned that I wouldn’t spoil my appetite on this day – like she had never been on the whole trip. I assured her I would be up for her special surprise and be ready to go by 7pm to give us an hour to walk to the destination (which was only about a 15 minute walk). But we always had to allow time to get lost – especially on this night.
I spent the time in-between gelato and 6pm, blogging while Dana rested and tried to figure out the washing machine. The washing machines in Europe are so counter intuitive – they make no sense. Even if someone shows you how to use it, as the lady who gave us the orientation did just the day before, you somehow forget and you just have to keep pressing buttons and finally something starts happening. Happy to say we figured it out.
It was 6pm and I still hadn’t made a move to get ready. I was in the sweet spot of wrapping up my blog and knew that if I didn’t finish, it would take me so much longer to pick up later. And time for blogging was always scarce. Dana reminded me that we needed to leave by 7pm. I assured her I would be ready, even as I doubted a little myself that I would be ready. However, I knew it was important to her and she had made a special plan for tonight, so soon enough I was in the shower and getting ready.
We walked out of the apartment door by 7pm, and laughed again at all of the crazy locks on the door that went every which way. You definitely felt like NOBODY was going to get in there once you locked the door, which felt over the top, but I knew my mom would be happy to know we were so locked into our rooms at night.
Dana had toyed with the idea of getting a taxi to take us to the restaurant so that we wouldn’t be sweaty when we arrived and I told her I thought we could just walk slow and the walk would be nice. She agreed. I’ll never forget the way she took charge of the evening – had the map folded in a special way and marked up to make sure we were headed in the right direction. We stopped at every intersection and looked up at the street names and she would say, ‘Okay, I want this street to be….’ And it always was, it was the magic green light to keep going in the direction that we were headed.
Once we were about two-thirds of the way there, I could see her relaxing a bit and she would say ‘we have time, we can window-shop as we go.’ Which we did. It was really a fun walk and the day was cooling down. All of the while the anticipation was building in my head thinking and wondering – just where are we going? We hadn’t been in this direction yet and we were definitely walking through neighborhoods and locals walking home from work, etc.
At last, I see ahead a building that looks like a mini-palace from the side. Then I see a man come down steps in coat-tails and fancy white gloves. We get to the front and the building is the Four Seasons in Florence. She says, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be nice to have dinner here?’ I say, ‘Yah, that would be fantastic.’ Then she says, ‘I have a confession, I didn’t plan this surprise tonight, someone else did.’ And she hands me envelope to open. I was confused and a little stunned, as in, ‘Huh? someone else thought ahead to coordinate with you for this?’
I opened the envelope to see an outrageous Gift Certificate from my boss, Jay, which read ‘To the best partner I could imagine, for your birthday of birthdays.’ The Gift Certificate was good for a chef’s special 8-course dinner and wine tasting at the one Michelin star rated Il Palagio, inside the Four Seasons. I sat there stunned while I was trying to absorb that this was really happening. Was I really about to be Belle in my own Beauty of the Beast dining scene? Was my boss so awesome as to know exactly what would knock my socks off and say I appreciate you and find a way to do that in Italy?
All of these thoughts were flooding through my mind, as we went inside. The property was truly stunning. Again, I was standing around still in shock and happy to have Dana in-charge and understanding exactly where we needed to go – even once we got inside as I was still a little bit in a state of shock. Before we entered the dining area I wanted to text Jay to thank him in advance for what was about to be the dinner of a lifetime. So we stopped for me to do that and also to take a few pictures in the beautiful lobby.
Once inside the restaurant, they escorted us to our beautiful table in the corner and again, I sat there stunned for a good part of the first hour. Dana could see this and said, “Lisa, you need to snap out of it and move from stunned to present and appreciating this dinner that is so deserved and clearly designed to celebrate you!” She was right, what was I thinking? I needed to ‘Snap out of it!’
From that moment on, I was incredibly present and giddy – right along with Dana. She was also thrilled to be a part of this dinner and equally appreciative of Jay’s generosity extended towards both of us. They offered two chef tasting menus – a regular and a vegetarian menu. We ordered one each so that we could sample and see all of the offerings throughout the course of the evening.
Every course offered exceptional Italian wine as an accompaniment and the complementary tasting on your palette was complete perfection. They also made sure that the portion sizes were not overdone so that you could actually eat an 8-course meal. Also each wine tasting pour was perfect to complement the current dish, but not so much that you would walk out of there stumbling and slurring your words.
I kept thinking as they brought out each course and wine and other details – a 5 blended organic extra virgin olive oil, scrumptious bread in silver trays, a cookie tower, a little special chair for my tacky Rick Steve’s travel bag – wow, this IS my Belle moment. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as throughout the evening I was still in a little bit in shock over all of the detail and planning that went into this night.
We were living every bit of the Beauty and the Beast dining scene and what they sing near the end of that song, ‘While the candlelight’s still glowing, let us help you, we’ll keep going. Course by course, one by one, ’til you shout, ‘Enough I’m done!’ Then we’ll sing you off to sleep while you digest, tonight you’ll prop your feet up, but for now let’s eat up, be our guest, be our guest, be our guest, please be our guest.’
After four hours (and after midnight), we finally had our ‘Enough I’m done!’ moment when we’d finished three dessert courses and decaf cappuccinos. We even had to take the majority of the berry tart (3rd course dessert) to-go as we just couldn’t fit another bite in our stomachs. The night was complete when the maître d’ came by our table after we asked for the check and said with an adorable thick Italian accent, ‘Your boss has taken care of everything, Happy Birthday and Buona Sera.’
Wow. Just wow. That’s how we walked out of there – floating on a cloud. After a little walk-about on their outdoor grounds that were beautifully lit up and perfect for outdoor strolling, we headed to the door. The front door man called us a cab and soon enough these two ‘Belles’ living a fairy tale evening were chauffeured back to our apartment near Duomo, well past the stroke of midnight.