17-07-2017
Ludovica and Riccardo Gaspari in front of SanBrite, their new restaurant in Alverà, in Cortina d'Ampezzo
Keep calm and don’t waste your time with Google. There’s no such saint as San Brite. Forget Italian and think of Ladino, spoken in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites of Belluno. San means healthy, brite means mountain hut. A healthy mountain hut. This is the name Riccardo Gaspari, from Cortina d’Ampezzo, and his wife Ludovica Rubbini, born in Bologna, now living in Cortina, gave to their new restaurant in Alverà, basically the last roof before the fields and woods that go to Tre Croci and Brite de Larieto, an agritourism with stable, cows, goats, pigs and larches, where Riki left his sous-chef Eugenio so as to totally dedicate himself to this new place.
SanBrite, tel. +39.328.7288665, opened on the 5th of July, with a launch party on Sunday 16th July. It replaced Piccolo Brite, their dairy factory, which is now enclosed in the restaurant, set to leave a mark in Cortina’s hospitality offer, while the town will host the Winter Olympic games in 2021, 65 years after the 1956 Olympics. This, however, doesn’t mean you’re flooded with information on the sport event when arriving below the Tofane. Still, this place blessed with nature is trying to wake up from a long lethargy that has done all sorts of damage.
Speck cut with a knife, served with a cream of cucumbers and salted butter gelato – the signature dish for chef Riki Gaspari
Gaspari arrived in the kitchen of the old Brite in 2009, then one year later, in 2010, he married Ludovica, and two years after that they built Piccolo Brite. With a restriction imposed by local authorities: for four years, the place now occupied by the restaurant, had to be used as a garage for agricultural machines. In November 2016 works were finally allowed, and in six month’s time everything’s ready. After some fine-tuning, we’re in the present. The menu says: «SanBrite, agricucina Cortina d’Ampezzo».
Riccardo and Ludovica made the right choice. The hut, though fascinating, was not exactly a fine dining place. Some expected simpler dishes, some complained about the smell coming from the stable or because they had to walk two-hundred metres from where they left the car.
The latter was the only recipe that convinced me less, due to the vacuum cooking of white meat. Thirty-six hours later I tasted a version made over the fire. A good dish. Followed by delicious desserts.
The events you cannot miss and all the news of topical interest from the food planet
by
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