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__A PAN-ITALIAN FEAST -- IN GENEVA .|. PAGE 2 OF 2

Monsieur/Herr/Signor Roberto, a small man with white hair and smudged glasses, spoke to us warmly, simultaneously in several tongues -- the house style. He offered us coffee and quarter-dollar-sized cookies. "I opened in 1946," he said, in German. He repeated the phrase in French, English and Italian. "I'm from Milan," he added. His Lombard accent curled out, all osso buco and risotto alla milanese.

The fresh fish? It came by truck from Italy and France, or by air from everywhere. Diplomats, exiles, refugees, guest workers -- all want foods from home, said Roberto. The word "home" hung in the air, rung by a distant bell.

Had he, too, been a refugee or an exile? I wondered. My uncle had refused to fight for the fascists and had wound up here. Whether he had ever been happy in Switzerland was a family mystery. The Swiss had accepted him; he had had a successful career; his children were Russian-Italian-Swiss and Dutch-Italian-Swiss. My father once said, "They speak five languages and none." I always wondered which language, which culture, which country they claimed as their own.

We reserved for dinner the following night. The crowd was different: couples, families, tourists like us. Roberto showed us his kitchen, impeccably clean, staffed by Italians, French, Turks, even a few Swiss from other cantons, I think. He made us spaghetti con le vongole, Neapolitan style, and pasta e fagioli, Veneto style. The bean-and-pasta soup was so good I wanted to weep, but was too busy slurping it. Roberto showed us newspaper clippings about him and his restaurant; in his mid-80s, he was still working. This was his life.

We reserved for dinner, again, two nights later. The Lombard maitre d' and the Neapolitan waiter clasped our hands and squeezed our shoulders, flattered by our repeat business. Another waiter showed us to a corner table in the front room. He had the look of a friendly old wolf; he had my uncle's nose. I said to my wife, this guy has to be from Venice, like my mother's family.

"Twenty-seven years," sighed the wolfish waiter. "I've been here a long time." He told us about his neighborhood back in the Lagoon City, and his eyes sparkled when I answered in stumbling Veneto dialect. We talked about the way you pronounce bean-and-pasta soup in Padua and Venice, about the house grappa from Bassano, and he sang a few bars from "Noi ci darem la mano," that old Veneto song Mozart stole for his "Don Giovanni."

A fat Sicilian couple sat across from us; the man -- a taxi driver? -- preferred not to remove his shrink-wrap leather jacket. He gobbled all the chunks of Parmigiano offered as a pre-appetizer. The hot tables appeared, then began the parade of pan-peninsular delicacies, each made with the love only an exile or a refugee can impart. I thought of my uncle again. I asked the waiter what life was like in Geneva, and didn't he miss Venice?

"Si lavora bene qui," he answered wistfully as our winter coats arrived from the cloakroom. "It's a good city to work in." We stepped outside and headed toward the lake, night-lit for strollers. The waiter and maitre d' rushed out and waved after us. "That Saint Anthony of Padua bless you!" shouted the Venetian.

The swans and the steamers slept. The banks and offices winked across the dark, cold water.

An odd, wistful place, Geneva. But the food can be surprisingly good.
SALON | April 1, 1998

David Downie is Wanderlust's correspondent in Paris.

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