The Tianmu Glass House Restaurant, Selected by Italy’s Gambero Rosso Red Guide, Serves a Risotto Even the British Queen Loves

▲The British Queen's Risotto.

Reported and photographed by Huang Shiyuan, Taipei correspondent

The Italian Red Guide Gambero Rosso, which also holds authoritative status in the Italian culinary world, conducted a secret evaluation of Taiwanese Italian restaurants in 2017. A total of 8 restaurants made the list, with IL Mercato being one of the newly listed. It became an internet sensation thanks to its beautiful glass house, but beyond its photogenic and pleasant atmosphere, the restaurant serves authentic Italian cuisine — including a risotto that even the British Queen adores.


▲IL MERCATO became an internet sensation thanks to its beautiful glass house.


IL Mercato is dedicated to bringing authentic Italian cuisine and dining culture to Taiwan. This vision stems from the personal experiences of its founder, Michael dePrenda, General Manager of RIMOWA Taiwan, and his Taiwanese wife Annie Chao. During their travels in Europe, they wanted to eat Taiwanese food but couldn’t find any restaurant that truly captured its essence. Upon returning to Taiwan, this experience inspired them to establish IL MERCATO, introducing the most orthodox Italian cuisine to the country.


▲IL Mercato also imports numerous top-tier Italian ingredients and features wines from specialty vineyards, boasting Taiwan’s largest Italian wine cellar.


▲Second-floor dining environment.

DePrenda believed that to offer authentic Italian cuisine, the head chef should be from Italy. Therefore, he not only invited Enrico Derflingher — former personal chef to British royalty and U.S. presidents, who was awarded the titles of Global Best Chef in 2008 and World Ambassador of Italian Cuisine in 2009 — to serve as the restaurant’s Head Chef, but also brought on Paolo Morresi, former chef of Aqua, Hong Kong’s top-rated Italian restaurant, along with a team of over 10 other Italian chefs including assistant chefs and pastry chefs.


▲Open kitchen.

Beyond the cuisine, IL Mercato also imports a wide range of premium Italian ingredients and features wines from specialty vineyards, boasting Taiwan’s largest Italian wine cellar. It offers many Italian red and white wines rarely seen in Taiwan, as well as Grappa — known as Italian spirits or brandy — which is a distilled spirit made from grape pomace (the leftover skins, pulp, stems, and seeds from winemaking). This earned the restaurant the title of Best Wine List Restaurant in the 2018 Gambero Rosso Red Guide.


▲IL Mercato’s winter menu.

As winter arrived, Head Chef Enrico Derflingher specially used seasonal winter ingredients to highlight their natural flavors, responding to people’s expectations and cravings for food during the colder months, thus presenting a delightful culinary map of winter. However, the signature dish — the risotto beloved by the British Queen — remains on the menu. This risotto impressed Queen Elizabeth II the most when Enrico Derflingher served as a chef at Buckingham Palace. To recreate this dish authentically at IL Mercato, Enrico spent a great deal of time selecting fresh red shrimp until he found the ones that met his standards.


▲Chef’s handmade Coppa-aged pork bruschetta salad.


▲Mushroom beef tartare.

Although the founders originally aimed to offer the most authentic Italian cuisine, Taiwanese people generally have lower acceptance for the firm rice center typical in Italian risotto. The hardness of this British Queen’s Risotto is only at 95% of the original standard — but that’s already the lowest limit for Head Chef Enrico; any softer, and it wouldn’t be Italian risotto.

As for the winter menu, it includes hazelnut-flavored pan-seared sea bass featuring tender and sweet seasonal seafood, mushroom beef tartare made with Italy’s aromatic winter mushrooms, chef’s handmade Coppa-aged pork bruschetta salad, and wine-marinated red cabbage shredded duck breast.


▲Hazelnut-flavored pan-seared sea bass.


▲Wine-marinated red cabbage shredded duck breast.

The mushroom beef tartare is thinly sliced raw beef topped with sautéed mixed mushrooms. To preserve the original flavor of the egg yolk, the chef uses a unique process: marinating the yolk first, then slicing it thinly and garnishing it with Parmesan cheese on top of the beef, paired with truffle sauce. The chef’s handmade Coppa-aged pork bruschetta salad features the chef’s proprietary recipe for Coppa (30-day low-temperature cured pork slices), paired with fresh Brigidini cheese flown in from Italy, arugula, and cherry tomatoes.

The hazelnut-flavored pan-seared sea bass pairs autumn-winter hazelnuts with sea bass, using the nut’s distinctive aroma to highlight the freshness of the seasonal fish. The wine-marinated red cabbage shredded duck breast features duck breast marinated in a special sauce for 24 hours, allowing its unique flavor to blend with the tannins of red wine.


▲The must-try Tiramisu.

Address: No. 164, Section 2, Zhongcheng Road, Shilin District, Taipei City
Phone: 02 2873 0608