I went to Italian Restaurant (Nodame Cantabile)!

Nodame Cantabile Volume 11¹On page 145 of the novel, there is a place called "Italian Restaurant." It is a restaurant that Yunlong describes as "cheap, plentiful, and delicious." Regardless of whether Yunlong's claims are correct or not, at least in appearance, the restaurant actually exists.

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

"Santa Lucia" (left) and the exterior of the Italian restaurant that appears in "Nodame Cantabile (11)" (right). The slightly off-angled photos are a bit cute. [(Left) photo: Nat Sakimura, (Right) "Nodame Cantabile (11)"]

The exterior is a perfect match down to the finest details.

The interior is a bit tricky. In Nodame Cantabile, the restaurant is covered with tablecloths (←if the restaurant has tablecloths, it's usually an expensive restaurant...), but the restaurant doesn't have tablecloths in real life.

The interior of Santa Lucia. Looking towards the street from the center of the first floor. [photo: Nat Sakimura]

Here, Nodame and Yunlong order spaghetti pomodoro and pizza Margherita, and fight over the spaghetti (Nodame eats 2/3 and Yunlong eats 1/3).

By the way, the dishes that appeared in the original work look like this.

I should have also ordered the pomodoro, but I couldn't remember what the girls had ordered when they were ordering, and the image of Nodame and Yunlong fighting over something stuck in my head meant that it must have been some kind of tomato-like noodle dish, so I ended up ordering the tagliatelle bolognese.

Well, it's certainly a lot. The mounded texture is just like the original. The saltiness is light. Even with the grated cheese sprinkled on top, it still feels light. By the way, it came out in no time. In that respect, it's a Trevian.

Now, back to the original story. The two eat while fighting over the food, but when it comes time to pay, Yunlong finds out that someone had stolen his wallet on the subway and is unable to pay. Just as they are about to eat and drink without paying, Nodame goes to the customer at the next table and says, "Excuse me. Can you lend me some money?" (As expected of Nodame. No hesitation...) When she explains the situation, a customer appears, realizing that she is a music college student (even though she still looks like a middle school student), and offers to buy them a meal if she plays the piano well, and Nodame picks up an upright piano that was in the restaurant.²I start playing Liszt's Transcendental Etudes. Perhaps the background is Sun Rui's "Will-o'-the-Wisp" that Yunlong showed me.³So that's it.

I looked around the store and there was no piano. It was a bit disappointing. The front office opposite the pizza oven looked a bit like an upright piano, though.

Later in the comic, a chubby man appears holding a pizza oven and says, "Don't play such a boring tune in my shop," and sings "I am the town's jack-of-all-trades" from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."

However, the person actually grilling the food is completely different. However, there was a waiter who had a similar vibe.⁴When I showed him a picture of Santa Lucia from Nodame Cantabile, he gave me a thumbs up and was delighted.

And so the night in Paris deepened.

The menu at Santa Lucia looks like this. Well, it's neither cheap nor expensive.

Nodame Cantabile related articles

• Season's Greetings: On "Cantique de Noël (O Holy Night)" Hymn, Book 219, No. XNUMX
• Where was Nodame's debut concert held? An unusual but good performance?
• If you go to the Lord of the Rings gate of the Miyoshi apartment in Nodame Cantabile, you will find...
• The Donkey Church (Nodame Cantabile) is the work of that person... Who is Lucas' grandfather?
• I went to Italian Restaurant (Nodame Cantabile)!

Paris-related articles

• Appearing at API Days Paris (January 2018th and 1st, 30)
• If you go to the Lord of the Rings gate of the Miyoshi apartment in Nodame Cantabile, you will find...
• Night out at Bella Notte in Paris, the city of love: I Lazzari - Italian restaurant in the Latin Quarter
• Get a SIM at CDG Terminal 2E!
• Piazzolla: The History of Tango
• The Philharmonie de Paris launches with an all-French program
• The Merry Widow of the Paris Opera/Palais Garnier: DIE LUSTIGE WITWE
• Huîtrerie Regis

1. Tomoko Ninomiya "Nodame Cantabile (2005)" Kodansha (XNUMX)
2. P.149. Kindle Loc 152 of 195
3. Volume 138, page 141, Kindle Loc 195 of XNUMX.
4. The next time I went back, he remembered me, greeted me, and called over the young man making the pizzas, saying, "This guy's called Angelo. Nice to meet you." So maybe he's the owner's father...