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R E C E N T L Y

The craziest road race of all
By Craig Bromberg
Deep dunes,wild wadis and grenade-wielding rebels enliven the Paris-Dakar Rally
(03/31/98)

Introduction to Beijing
By Carrie Kirby
A resident's primer on the city's daily pleasures
(03/30/98)

Longboard surfing women
By Lisa Palac
Bonding with a brave new breed
(03/27/98)

Passages
By Marie Winn
A wildlife adventure in Central Park
(03/26/98)

Foie gras dreams
By Melinda Bergman Burgener
Foie gras: Tastes great, but you don't want to see how it gets that way
(03/25/98)

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__________in Geneva
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CHEZ ROBERTO'S EXTRAORDINARY DELICACIES ENCOMPASS THE SAVORY SPECTRUM OF ITALIAN FARE -- AND THE HAUNTING SOUL OF THE SWISS CITY.

BY DAVID DOWNIE | Mist cloaked the snow-shagged Alps around Geneva. By the leafless lakeside promenade, steamers and swans slept their winter sleep, ignored by the polyglot bankers and U.N. personnel bustling among glassy offices nearby.

Swiss chocolates, cuckoo clocks, swans; gold, secret accounts and frenzied diplomacy to save distant peoples: It was a perfect Geneva day. Morpheus and Mammon cheek-by-jowl.

Geneva is an odd, wistful place. It seems to be inhabited exclusively by migratory Italians, Turks, French, Germans, British, Dutch, Saudis, Nigerians, Panamanians, Chinese, Americans. There are guest workers, bankers, exiles, refugees, diplomats. My late Italian uncle married a Russian here just after the war, then divorced and remarried a Dutch woman. In 20-odd years' worth of visits, I can't recall having met a native Genevois of Swiss stock.

Another funny thing about Geneva: I am always hungry here. I have no secret, numbered account and can't resolve the world's diplomatic crises. So what else is there to do but stroll and feed the swans and myself?

Apparently I'm not the only one to feel perpetual hunger pangs: Geneva is a surprisingly food-friendly city. Germanic, French and Italian cuisines meet and marry, often happily. The guest workers, exiles and refugees have brought their pots and pans with them.

Chocolate perfumed the air as I walked through the turn-of-the-century Rive neighborhood east of the lake toward Chez Roberto. I had been told by colleagues that it was a good, simple place. "They even serve pizza at lunch," said one.

By the time I arrived, with my wife and a New York friend, the restaurant was full. Or almost: A Neapolitan waiter in starched whites mixed four languages as he showed us to the last available table, in a side room.

There was no pizza oven. The tables were dressed in starched linen. The decor was plush, primarily crimson, circa 1970, but perfectly preserved. The wall sconces and chandeliers sported tiny lampshades, also crimson, one for each faux candlelight bulb. Bankers and secret-account holders were present in number. They weren't ordering pizza.

A glance at the menu told me that this was an "international Italian" restaurant. Such hybrid animals went extinct in Italy several decades ago. But Chez Roberto offered everything from saffron-scented risotto alla milanese to giant Sicilian raviolioni stuffed with eggplant, bell pepper and zucchini; osso buco, roast quail or Guinea fowl; wild salmon or scampi.

We decided to divide and conquer, ordering starters and main courses from the straps to the heel of the Italian boot. As the parade of dishes arrived, served and re-served from old-fashioned hot tables by several skillful waiters, we were utterly astonished. Waves of nostalgia crested like our pleated white napkins, carrying upon them the flotsam and jetsam of childhood memory. The waiters revolved, plying us with delicacies from the hot tables -- more pasta, more salad, more seafood, signori.

The scampi were firm and fleshy, tossed with crisply pungent rucola glistened by silky olive oil. The raviolioni's three-vegetable filling sang of Palermo. The baby octopus, squid, prawns and fish -- flash-fried -- were as light as a Japanese master's tempura.

This was -- I wanted to exclaim aloud -- some of the best Italian food I had ever eaten. A considerable claim in my book: I was suckled on spaghetti sauce and have lived on and off in Italy for quite some time.

As we teased out this extraordinary feed my mind returned to those seafood dishes on the menu, made with fresh -- not frozen -- products. How do fish swim from the ocean to landlocked Geneva by noon? We asked our waiter, who asked the maitre d', who called the owner. He arrived as the service was ending; ours was the only table left.

N E X T+P A G E+| Food from home

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