New frontiers for fine dining

Strength of freedom is the capacity to innovate, to take unknown roads, try new things, even taking a risk. The future is never a new presentation of something already seen, man is possessed by the demon of research, the urge to improve is infinite and only ceases with death.

These thoughts perfectly fit Carlo Cracco, one of the fathers of the congress, «his dishes are never made only to attract, to please the guest for the sake of it», explains Gabriele Zanatta when welcoming him on stage. «They are new dishes and most of all they are good dishes». He presents three. Purple prawns from Santa Margherita, to begin with, «a product we hold dear. We always try to have a recipe with these every year. This time we thought of a pairing with traditional ingredients, vin cotto and almonds, but using new techniques», vin cotto with saba, cloves, cardamom, star anise, cinnamon, apple and orange, reduced so as to obtain a caramel texture, with sweet and acid notes. The prawns, only warmed up, are brushed with this sauce, then matched with an almond pesto (peeled, vacuum cooked for 8 hours and then blended. A tablespoon of roasted almonds to give a toasted aroma. «The contrast between the harmony of the almonds and the disharmony of the vin cotto, with the prawn acting as a bridge, is fantastic».

Cracco later gives a new take on his old raviolo, «which I’ve been preparing for 25 years, a button». He fills it with quince apple candied without sugar (three hours in the oven) and mashed. Then cane apple giving acidity, two types of chestnuts (normal and water, seared), powdered bay leaves, scorzonera truffle and thin slices of Zivieri’s venison. He cooks the ravioli in water aromatised with juniper branches, served on a jus made with venison bones and a little chocolate. Final smoky notes, given by the juniper wood.

Cracco cooking meat after all the controversy with animal-rights activists due to his pigeon at Masterchef? «Funny thing, it is the vegans who are the first to apologise, because they don’t acknowledge this aggressive minority. Let’s say it’s a sad story...».

Sous Luca Sacchi instead presents the third dish, a sweet: a different rocher, «born from a sort of cream puff», made not with choux pastry but with raw seitan soaked in hazelnut water and then cooked and washed, so its gluten texture softens. It becomes the case for the cream puff, with a meaty texture but without any sugar, which is only in the filling, a gianduia ganache with a heart of “puffed” hazelnut (boiled at length in water and a little milk, then toasted with oil and salt, so as to obtain a very light, salty texture and loose its sweeter note while the toasted one is enhanced). Seitan is steamed, brushed with hazelnut paste and powdered with hazelnut crumbs. Obulato wafers finish the dish. «A very craveable dessert with a rich texture». Cracco’s final comment: «We’re a unique and different country. We often complicate our lives. However, for instance, there’s Identità Milano, it works and it’s a good thing. And perhaps now we also have someone who takes care of us in politics».

The chef from Vicenza stays on the stage to celebrate the epopee of Giorgio Pinchiorri and Annie Féolde togetherwith Paolo Marchi. A great chef, she’s also been a bit of a “mum” to Cracco, as well as to Riccardo Monco and the other guys who arrive on stage, Luca Lacalamita and Alessandro Della Tommasina for instance. Marchi asks Féolde what was the dish it was hardest for her to make her clients accept, over the years. Her reply: «Pasta with snails, because they’re scary, just like rooster crests». The homage to Enoteca Pinchiorri quickly went through the history of the establishment, represented by a pigeon based recipe. In two versions: the historic one, wrapped in bread dough, and the modernised one in a steamed sandwich stuffed with meat sauce, a sort of “Vicenza-style cod” (copyright Cracco), black cabbage and fried amaranth. From France to Tuscany.

The latter region played a significant role in the professional life of Paolo Lopriore, the following speaker on stage, an extraordinarily fascinating and important lesson focused on his project of “new Italian dining” (convivial, eclectic, without foreign-loving conditionings, capable of enhancing the role of the chef-maker but also that of the super-waiter, following a new relationship between dining room and kitchen) of which we wrote extensively here, so we refer to this analysis.

Morning grand final with Massimo Bottura. The chef from Modena spent much of his lesson off the stage and for a long time left on stage his sous Takahiko Kondo and Davide Di Fabio. They cooked, he just loomed over with his voice, marking words that defined a real “Contemporary chef’s manifesto”, that you can read here. A theorization which then was transformed into a new dish, capable of starting from the raw materials of the Apennines, with references to history and (game) traditions and «also expressed the historic moment we’re living. The dialogue with the Zivieri family, who launched a beautiful project of recovery for the supply chain that includes hunters and, for instance, truffle pickers». These activities need a further element, on top of determination, passion, tenacity: luck.

Sometimes a partridge, sometimes a mallard (it depends of what you find, of course) is such a dish, but this also applies to Osteria Francescana’s classics such as Boiled non boiled and Camouflage, «as our cooking has now a defined identity, we can draw from our own work», with our feet in Italy – paraphrasing the famous words of the chef – and our head in the world, so civet turns to Enrique Olvera’s Mexico and his mole.

This logic goes beyond provincial boundaries just like the Food for Soul foundation, created by Bottura and his wife Lara to spread the extraordinary experience of Refettorio Ambrosiano. Soon to open also in Rio de Janeiro, in the favelas.