All That Glitters is a Golden Tapir

06.18.07

Dolce and Gabbana
Gold, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana's new restaurant in Milan, brings glitz to a new level. The concept restaurant/bistro near their Metropole showroom is designed almost entirely in gold and meant to be the first in a brand catering to luxury-leaning night people. Paris Hilton and Kylie Minogue were among the first clients. But now all the buzz about Gold revolves around a dubious award it won from Italy's most popular satiric TV program, Striscia La Notizia, which looks at the news from behind the scenes. It seems the new restaurant was dissed in a review in Milan's august financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, when it first opened last year. Reviewer Camilla Baresani liked the razzle-dazzle and the over-the-top bathroom but was put off by the food, especially a cotelletta alla Milanese she said was "oily, strangely sweet" and tasted as if it had been heated in a microwave. Dolce & Gabbana subsequently pulled their fashion advertising from Il Sole 24 Ore. Whereupon the financial daily sent another food critic, the nationally known Davide Paolini, back to the restaurant, and he produced a positive review. "It's true. We have to defend ourselves," shrugged Gabbana on Striscia when he was nailed by the bearer of the Tapiro d'Oro (Golden Tapir, a sort of Raspberries award presented by the TV crew to unsuspecting winners wherever they catch them). The fashion team won the Golden Tapir (a gilt statuette of one of the ugliest hoofed mammals known to man) for the entire event. Dolce was even more good-natured about accepting the award when accosted by the TV crew at his atelier. "We're going to rename the veal cutlet cotelletta tapirata," he declared.

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