16-04-2016
The first thing Davide Oldani showed with pride, as soon as we entered the new location for his restaurant, which will be called simply D'O, no longer D'O La tradizione in cucina, was the new kitchen. It couldn’t be otherwise. For a cook the place housing ovens and stoves is the heart of a restaurant
A little more patience, a couple of months more or less, and by mid June those wanting to dine at Davide Oldani will always go to San Pietro all’Olmo, but no longer to the trattoria in 18 Via Magenta but behind it, in the restaurant he’s finishing to build in the main field in this hamlet of Cornaredo, west of Milan. You couldn’t get deeper roots than this.
The new D’O will overlook Piazza della Chiesa, on the short side opposite the Chiesa Vecchia di San Pietro. Aside from the bell tower, insignificant, destroyed during the last war and roughly rebuilt, the facade is embellished by four basins which once advised travellers that over there you’d be fed by men with Christian charity. Different times.
In the middle of the square there’s an elm tree, the church and tree have inspired the name of this hamlet, which Oldani made popular. It was 23rd October 2003, less than thirteen years later things are changing: «To think that I had renewed the rent for 12 more years, six plus six, but the place where I’m moving is my own, I bought it with the money put aside after the abrupt interruption of the business with the then Giannino, in the Cinque Giornate neighbourhood. It was 1998 and for the five following years I lived on consultancies, all well paid».
Those dining these days at D'O, find this note on the table. The new location for Davide Oldani’s restaurant in Cornaredo is almost ready, one hundred metres’ from the historic one
And here we are, inside the building site, speechless. Design by Piero Lissoni, grey and rationality dominate. Open view kitchen, an incredible Marrone of which Oldani personally took care of the details just like he’s designed the tables, which have not yet been delivered. When you go inside, the kitchen is to the right, like in the old D’O «except I move from 185 square metres to 900. Basically, the kitchen will occupy the entire space of the old restaurant». And the rooms for the guests will be three, plus a chef’s table in front of the pass and a lounge at the reception «but it will still seat 45 people».
This large space will be occupied by the tables for the guests of the new D'O. Though the new establishment will be around 900 square metres wide, it will still seat 45 people
For sure there’s been plenty of water under the bridge since 2003: «I took over after a family got fed up, by then they were only opening at lunchtime. I did what was necessary and opened. I remember I put a sign outside with the menu at 11.50 euros, and when lorries drove by the air was sucked and the board would fly away. So every day I would tie it to a nail with a string. One of the first mornings two bricklayers arrived and sat without noticing a different atmosphere. They ordered the basic menu: first course, cake, coffee and wine, a glass. I brought them a bottle, I got distracted and so they served themselves: half a bottle each, in one blow, in red wine balloon glasses you can hold almost all the content of a bottle. They asked for a second one».
From inside the building site of the new D'O, right where there will be the crystal door, the telephone’s lens pointed at sunset on Friday 15th April 2016 on the facade of the Chiesa Vecchia di San Pietro. The historic elm tree is in the middle of the square, between the restaurant and the place of worship
It’s almost ready: in a couple of weeks’ time reservations will be open and those asking for a table for two, four or six people will do so for a new place. There, with Davide, we’ll find the usual trustworthy faces: chefs Wladimiro Nava and Alessandro Procopio, director Davide Novarti, sommelier Manuele Pirovano, sous chefs Matteo Romano and Riccardo Merli. «Other guys are in France and London. Diego Ferrari for instance, who’s also from Cornaredo like me, is head chef at Gavroche. He arrived at D’O at 16 and left at 21». Oldani’s place is also about this.
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born in Milan in March 1955, at Il Giornale for 31 years dividing himself between sports and food, since 2004 he's the creator and curator of Identità Golose. blog www.paolomarchi.it instagram instagram.com/oloapmarchi