Carmen Vecchione

Credit Brambilla-Serrani

Credit Brambilla-Serrani

Dolciarte

via SantissimaTrinità 51, Avellino. Tel. +39 0825 34719

Carmen Vecchione, chef and patron at Dolciarte in Avellino, was born in this town, in the green Irpinia, in 1974. It’s a land of forests, orchards and vineyards around one hour from the luxurious coast of Campania. Her grandparents owned a farm and she grew up in the countryside, where cooking was a matriarchal domination, bread was homemade and her passion for cooking gradually took shape, with the help of numerous courses. After many workshops and a degree in Business and Economics, in 2002 Vecchione arrived at restaurant La Maschera in Avellino, working with chef Lino Scarallo, now a Michelin star at Palazzo Petrucci in Naples.

What with stoves and ovens, her culinary inspiration and creativity appeared, but the real discovery was her talent and intelligence in the art of pastry making; and indeed, after the experience with the Neapolitan chef, in 2008 she opened Dolciarte in Via Trinità. Two courses in particular struck Carmen and urged her to focus solely on desserts: a course on yeast with Rolando Morandin and one on chocolate with Valrhona. From the yeast-chocolate pair the concept of a workshop was born, in which she doesn’t assemble semi-finished ingredients, but works on an obsessive selection of raw materials, of flour, butter, eggs and so on.

No added sugar, but respect for the organoleptic characteristics of each element; new shapes for “personal” cakes, the result of research, intuition, unusual pairings in desserts such as Basil, carrot, celery. Hence Dolciarte became the stage that, on holidays, lightens up the emotions of clients, with thirty types of petit fours, at least ten single portion desserts, a dozen types of cakes as well as biscuits and chocolates. A place where there’s a tangible and visceral connection with the territory, starting from indigenous raw materials such as onion from Montoro used in panettone Panramato or ricotta from Carmasciano in her pastiera. Historic Sottobosco is not to be missed: a sponge cake made with marzipan instead of sugar, fruits of the forest, mousse of milk chocolate, mousse of white chocolate with infusion of dried fruits of the forest.

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Identità Milano


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Davide Visiello

Born in 1974 near Naples, now living further south, he’s a sommelier and coffee taster convinced that those born in Vico Equense like him have a gourmet imprinting by birth. He lives, writes and organises events in Palermo, but eats and drinks everywhere