I Visited the Italian Restaurant from Nodame Cantabile!

In volume 11 of “Nodame Cantabile” ¹, starting on page 145, a place called the “Italian Restaurant” appears. Yunlong describes it as “cheap, plentiful, and delicious.” Whether or not Yunlong’s claim is correct, the restaurant at least exists in terms of its exterior.

Santa Lucia, 22 Rue des Canettes, 75006 Paris (links to map)

“Santa Lucia” (left) and the exterior of the Italian Restaurant appearing in “Nodame Cantabile (11)” (right). Please forgive the slightly mismatched angles. [(Left) photo: Nat Sakimura; (right) “Nodame Cantabile (11)”]

The exterior matches perfectly, down to considerable detail.

The interior is a little less certain. In Nodame Cantabile, the restaurant has tablecloths (and a restaurant with tablecloths is generally expensive…), but the real one does not.

Santa Lucia’s interior, looking toward the street from the middle of the 1st floor. [photo: Nat Sakimura]

Here, Nodame and Yunlong order spaghetti pomodoro and pizza Margherita, then fight over the spaghetti as they eat it (Nodame gets 2/3 and Yunlong gets 1/3).

Incidentally, this is what the food in the original manga looked like.

I really should have ordered the pomodoro too, but when ordering I could not search for what they had ordered. Remembering the image of Nodame and Yunlong fighting over it, I only recalled that the noodles looked tomato-based, so I ended up ordering tagliatelle Bolognese.

The serving is certainly large. Even the way it is heaped into a mound matches the original. It is lightly salted; even after adding grated cheese, it still tastes mild. Incidentally, it arrived almost immediately. On that point, très bien.

Now, back to the original manga. After eating while fighting over the food, the two go to pay, only to discover that Yunlong’s wallet has been stolen on the Métro, leaving them unable to pay. Just as they are about to dine and dash, Nodame approaches customers at the next table and says, “Excuse me. Could you lend us some money?” (As expected of Nodame—no hesitation….) Once she explains the situation, the customers learn that she is a music student (though she still looks like a middle-schooler), and one offers to treat them if she can play the piano well. Nodame begins playing the upright piano in the restaurant ²: Liszt’s Transcendental Études. It is probably “Feux Follets,” given the background of Rui’s performance that Yunlong had shown her ³.

But when I looked around the restaurant, there was no piano. A little disappointing. The cashier’s counter near the front, opposite the pizza oven, does look a little like an upright piano, though.

Later in the manga, the portly proprietor emerges carrying a pizza-making tool and says, “Don’t play such a boring piece in my restaurant!” Then he sings “Largo al factotum” from Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.”

The person actually baking the pizzas looks entirely different. One waiter, however, had a similar air. He happened to serve me ⁴ When I showed him the Santa Lucia illustration from Nodame Cantabile, he happily gave me a thumbs-up.

And thus the Paris night deepened.

Incidentally, this is Santa Lucia’s menu. It seems neither cheap nor expensive.

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• I Visited the Italian Restaurant from Nodame Cantabile!

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1. Tomoko Ninomiya, “Nodame Cantabile (11),” Kodansha (2005)
2. p. 149, Kindle Loc 152 of 195
3. Volume 11, p. 138, Kindle Loc 141 of 195.
4. When I returned later, he served me again. He remembered and welcomed me, then called over the young man baking pizzas and said, “This guy’s called Angelo. Nice to meet you.” So perhaps he really is the proprietor….

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Nodame · 2017-10-29