France-Japan-Italy, a final for three

France, Japan and Italy, these are the finalists of Girotonno 2014 in Carloforte, on the island of San Pietro, on the South-East coast of Sardinia. After the success of Sylvain Sendra on Friday, last night Haruo Ichikawa, sided by his faithful equerry Lorenzo Lavezzari, thanks to his M-Iyo Burger with tuna, won over Spanish Alba Ruiz (8.55 vs. 8.20) and Italians Roberto Serra and Clelia Bandini, with a smoked ventresca, won over Brazilian Mauricio Zillo (8.80 vs. 8.58). Tonight they will start all over, and who knows if the day of rest has allowed Sendra, patron-chef at Itinerais in Paris, to perfect his Tuna Niçoise thus resulting in becoming the final winner.

The two eliminatory rounds were very heated and chef Zillo from Sao Paulo, who with his result would have beaten the competitors in the other rounds, certainly wasn’t helped by the fact he had to face the Italian team. Not only the dish by Serra and Bandini was truly excellent, but the popular jury (the final vote is an average of the public’s and the technician’s votes) gave a few extra tens on one side, and some ungenerous sevens on the other.

But let’s speak about the round involving Japan and Spain first. The absolute winner, one year ago, when the votes of the two juries were not mixed, but overcome with regards to the amateurs’ votes by the phyllo pastry hamburger by French Alain Cirelli, master Ichikawa has also chosen to prepare a hamburger. His is very classic with reference to shape, with the tuna used instead of the beef, of course, and Sardinian smoked and crispy pancetta, the sesame bread made on spot, the buffalo milk mozzarella and the mayonnaise made with yuzu (a sort of Asian mandarin). It was very craveable and delicious thanks to the fact you necessarily had to eat it with your hands. I found it hard to distinguish the tuna, yet it was undoubtedly a good job.

A great research of family memories was instead conducted by Alba Ruiz, a kid outside and a tiger inside, of Marzapane in Rome. Aided by Maria Giulia Magario, the Spanish chef made a «recycled» tartare by using the meat that was left around the tuna’s spinal chord: “Where there was poverty, there were no alternatives”. She then separated, using lots of patience, each vertebra in order to extract the marrow disc in one piece, hence the name of the recipe: Tuna ossobuco. These are translucent and mushy, intriguing as long as you’re curious. When the dishing out moment came, Alba placed a vertebra in the centre, putting the marrow above, and a bud of blinq, a flower, on top. All around there was the meat and different flavours and colours.

Then the turn of Italy vs. Brazil came. Roberto Serra and Clelia Bandini, once a psychologist (“This helps me with my relationship with my collaborators in the kitchen, rather than with the clients”), received all the praise thanks to a superb ventresca, that was first marinated in sugar, salt and lemon, and then smoked to the right point, that is to say just a little, as with a caress, two at most, and then served cut into dices together with Cannonau sapa, candied tomatoes and a ricotta and oil sorbet. Nothing else to say. The applauses were enough.

And after such a well executed dish, I believed it would have not been difficult to decide the best recipe. Instead, this is exactly what happened because Mauricio Zillo’s Metropolitonno, supported by Fabrizio Nicola, was equally surprising. While the Italian ventresca had a colourful appearance that captured one’s attention, the one by the Brazilian chef was based on extreme minimalism. The piece was rolled in the ashes of aubergines and spring onion and left there to rest just enough, and then braised on a very hot grill for a few seconds. It was then served as an escalope, with tomato water, rhubarb, salt and red vermouth.

As for the name, Metropolitonno, it has a special story: “When thinking about Girotonno, a sort of movie of my life came to my mind, which I associated with Jimi Hendrix’s song Crosstown Traffic, in which he speaks of metropolises. I come from Sao Paulo and I’ve always lived in a metropolis, Paris, Barcelona, Dubai and now Milan, before coming here to Carloforte I had never set foot in a village and so here I was with Hendrix’ guitar in my head. In his lyrics I found my balance, the one we search for in our dishes at Rebelot in the Navigli area, knowing very well that we are as crazy as Jimi”.

With 8.58, Zillo would have overcome all the other competitors. Tonight he will start from scratch and the initial votes will not count: Sendra 8.20; Ichikawa 8.55 and Serra-Baldini 8.80. The most serene and calm will win.