Calm energy at All'Enoteca

«Well… I run!», Davide Palluda dazzling explains his enviable shape at 43, the latter twenty of which he spent commanding the kitchens of a restaurant called All’Enoteca because it is located in a true enoteca, the regional one in Roero, “the once poor cousin of the Langhe” in the words of Paolo Marchi.

Here, it’s not a question of jogging and burnt calories: running is something of the mind, it’s an agility of ideas, and is finely matched – with perfect contraposition – by the lazy deliciousness of these cosy, calm, fruitful lands; the chef, on the contrary, is full of adrenalin and joviality even when he’s among the tables, greeting clients and leaving the stoves with a sprint – to steal the scene to his sister Ivana, whose wavy hair finely represent her sparkling personality, which also belongs to him: she’s the domina in the dining room and wards off his assaults, claiming a right to her role even in the age of Masterchef and star chefs. Let Davide return to the kitchen!, she smiles playfully. And recalls that they are one of the three brother-and-sister couples in the Italian fine dining scene: together with the Uliassi and the Romito, and oddly enough Niko was sitting at that table a few days ago, almost confirming himself that there’s a sort of indirect liaison (we wrote about it here).

Twenty years, without feeling them, we said. Because All’Enoteca was born in April 1995 and celebrations are soon to arrive, as basically the Palluda have spent half their lives here, if one also counts the time when this was a kindergarten and they, as children, would attend it - it is not clear if the current dining room – 9 tables plus 5 more in an adjoining room – was the children’s’ playroom or the meditation room for the Carmelite nuns. Prophets in their own country, that is; Davide holds this place dear, he feels at ease and has the partial regret that he doesn’t own these walls, otherwise he’d feel it really as his own home, but it is almost just a formality.

Because the chef is perfectly integrated here and it is here that he has reached his full stylistic maturity, as Nicola Perullo recalls in the review for Identità Golose 2015, which also includes the following statement: «We are focusing on relaxing things», the meaningful words of Palluda certifying the current season in his cuisine. Which is not in a hurry and is hardly still but benefits of the current calm energy of its creator and thus results, in parallel, as in great shape, whether one opts for tradition or for a creativity without any spectacular frills, a reasoned contemporaneity, filtered through the lenses of the territory. I’m thinking about the excellent Sweetbreads with chargrilled eel and lemons, a dish that goes beyond Roero and is founded, however, on an elegant local mix of leaves and petals («A chef is someone who gets up at 7 every morning and looks for fish, meat and herbs. Afterwards, he can enter the kitchen and he’s ready to start», the chef said); the two fats, from sea and from earth, are infinitely succulent and only slightly softened by the sweet-acid aromas of the lemon preserve. All this with the scents of embers: a complete, intelligent, modern, complex offer.

In our menu, it represented the debut of a triptych of marvels whose other two components were aimed, instead, at identity. First of all, with the very classic Finanziera, a sort of fetish dish for the author of this piece, only a few times tasted with a similar roundness (I recall Maurilio Garola’s one at Ciau del Tornavento and the one by Vivalda at Antica Corona Reale); then with the Simple square ravioli with fassona: a veil of pasta, an explosion of filling, though the secret is in the sauce that cuddles the palate with a charm revealing the secret guest, namely Marsala.