19-09-2017
Fresh egg tagliolini pasta, black “hooked” truffle from Pollino, red prawns from Capo Rizzuto, sauce of Norman butter and Parmigiano Reggiano vacche rosse. A delicacy by Alfonso Crescenzo at Pietramare, in Isola di Capo Rizzuto (Crotone)
Our dinner at Pietramare in the photos by Tanio Liotta. The appetizers: fake tomato (hiding a juicy tartare of albacore), toast with sardella, 'nduja and red onion from Tropea, fried bread with a dome of octopus sauce, another toast with cream of potatoes and capers and lobsters. An excellent start...
Parmigiana di melanzane
Foie gras, apple juice and pan brioche: the dish isn’t beautiful but delicious. The fake apple of foie gras is covered in chlorophyll, red prawns from Capo Rizzuto, powdered crustaceans, reduced apple cider
Mackerel marinated with citrus fruits, glazed in honey and vinegar, mousse of pine nuts and fresh vegetables. Very elegant
We’ve already mentioned the tagliolini...
...and the spaghettoni. «I went to the port, once, and a fisherman brought me mullet from the gulf of Squillace. Fantastic. Everyone cooks it as a whole, I make a raw sauce»
Seared scallops, spugnole, courgette flowers, pea sauce, squid ink, carrot air
Lamb from Marchesato, apricots, asparagus, caviar of smoked aubergines, cherry sauce. The cutlet was excellent, the stewed thigh roll could be improved
Chocolate mousse, licorice, silver leaf, raspberry meringue
Cream of milk, crustoli with vinocotto and citrus fruit mousse. Crustoli are the Calabrian equivalent of Campanian struffoli
And the winner is… If there was an Academy Award for the best pasta, we would give it – let’s say in the “Best pasta of the summer of 2017” category – to Alfonso Crescenzo, chef at Pietramare Natural Food inside Praia Art Resort, in Isola di Capo Rizzuto, Crotone. We were crazy for his Fresh egg tagliolini pasta (with Senatore Cappelli flour), black “hooked” truffle from Pollino, red prawns from Capo Rizzuto, sauce of Norman butter and Parmigiano Reggiano vacche rosse. In fact this was one of the peaks – not the only one – of an excellent dinner in a beautiful place. The chef from Sarno, in Campania, has pasta in his DNA: so the Spaghettoni di Gragnano cacio e pepe, mullet tartare, red onion from Tropea, wild fennel and celery aroma (the cheese is Pecorino di Cutro) were also luxurious. Food is an excellent reason to praise Pietramare. There are more.
Alfonso Crescenzo and Giancarlo Marena
Back to the food. Crescenzo, born in 1978, is a humble and passionate chef, «I always start from tradition. My mother and grandmother were housewives and would make pasta and potatoes». His first worry is that he has to «present real flavours from authentic products». He’s at Pietramare since 2015, after a long cursus honorum that made him travel across Italy, and beyond: like Santa Caterina in Amalfi, San Pietro in Positano with Alois Vanlangenaeker, Georges Blanc in France, Pino Lavarra at Palazzo Sasso in Ravello as sous chef, Tonino Mellino at Quattro Passi, Trussardi alla Scala(«The last 12 days of Alfio Ghezzi, then Andrea Berton»), Il Rigoletto with Gianni D’Amato, Terrazza dell'Eden with Enrico Derflingher, St.Regis in Beijing, «where I met Marena», and even 3 years sailing on board an exclusive yacht owned by Russian Lukoil.
Alfonso Crescenzo
From time to time he goes back to Campania, «I like sharing experiences with housewives. I’d like to open a place of my own in Sarno, an agritourism, facing the challenges of a very peculiar place, considered a place for ignorant farmers, in the best case». But he loves Calabria too, «here I have access to excellent products». Lamb, for instance. Vermituri. Fish from the Ionian Sea, fantastic. Red pepper. Wild artichoke. Onion from Tropea, «I have a dish in which I serve stewed onion with egg and vanilla salt. And I use it in the Genovese sauce, which changes because bronze onions are sweeter, red onions are more aromatic». Potatoes from Sila, «I make Pipi e patate, a classic».
An outdoor trip or a journey to the other side of the planet? One thing is for sure: the destination is delicious, by Carlo Passera
by
journalist born in 1974, for many years he has covered politics, mostly, and food in his free time. Today he does exactly the opposite and this makes him very happy. As soon as he can, he dives into travels and good food. Identità Golose's editor in chief