Uliassi goes to the mountain

The countdown for Identità Cortina is running on Mauro Uliassi’s watch. He’s very happy to associate his hands, on the evening of Saturday July 12th, with those of host Gigi Dariz of restaurant Da Aurelio in Colle Santa Lucia, in the incredible location of Passo Giau (see the website and sigh). Starting from his restaurant at sea level, the chef from the Marche and his team will thus bounce and cook at 2,153 metres above sea level. Something worth of the Andes’ soroche, the altitude vertigo.

In this case this vertigo will touch all the lucky guests because, as Uliassi explains «I’m very used to being in the mountains: since I was a kid, I used to go skiing with my parents on the Sibillini mountains. The slopes were near Sarnano, Ussita, Visso. You took a ski lift and in 8 seconds you were already off. Still, it was fun because those were pioneering years. It was only barbers and us. With very long skis, something that would make people laugh, today. We later discovered Cortina and Campiglio. I was very disappointed because you could ski all day and in terrific sceneries. I learnt that the Sibillini mountains, when compared to the Dolomites, were like a small swimming pool compared to the Adriatic sea».

Those who think of the equation Uliassi=seafood cuisine ignore the love that chains the chef to the land, «Something quite natural, if you think about it», he clarifies, «because the Marche have hills right behind». A natural habitat even for someone who cooks, every day, with his toes in salty water: «Of course, were I to live on an atoll in the tropics, I wouldn’t dream of cooking game». This, however, is the great passion which the chef will bring on the table in Colle Santa Lucia. «I grew up with the myth of hunting. Of game, in particular, because of its profound peasant characteristics: once, someone who returned with a pheasant or a woodcock didn’t have to be accountable to anyone. Courtyard animals, on the contrary, belonged to the owners of the sharecropping: out of 10 cocks, 9 needed to end in the baskets of the bourgeoisie».

The first shot? «A stone my father threw up in the air. I was ten, the recoil was terrible but my father had warned me. I repeated this action many times, shooting with my left arm: I write with my right hand but double-barrelled and billiard cue make the left-handed in me emerge». How about the first game dish at the restaurant? «Porchetta tagliatelle with murex snails and thrush in “potacchio” which I presented in San Sebastian in 2005. Rafa Santos, the patron of the congress, praised it very much. Since that day, I never stopped cooking woodcocks and hare thanks to the common elements with fish: they are both archaic universes. Homo sapiens has been hunting and fishing since the start».

In the 4-hand menu in Cortina, Uliassi will sign 3 dishes. A Potato fondant with black truffle, squid ink crumble and teal («Classic Robuchon-style mountain potatoes and rare cooked teal with its entrails and wild herb roots»). A Wild duck royale with raspberries («A French classic, where hare is mostly used. I use the breast of the duck, marinating it in cognac and black truffle»). Finally, Cappelletti di zia Elena, «An extraordinary woman, with a fixation for cooking. She taught me to make cappelletti. She gave me six chances: if by the last time I wouldn’t make them properly, she would slap me. In Passo Giau we will cook them with roast juices, butter and sage». The hunting season for tickets has officially begun.