01-10-2016
The majority of the kitchen staff at Lido 84 in Gardone Riviera, a town on Brescia’s bank of Lake Garda. Opened in March 2014, in the space of two years and a half the restaurant of the Camanini brothers (in the picture chef Riccardo is the third from the right and his brother Giancarlo the third from the left) established itself as one of the most interesting and sustainable ones in Italy
«Guys, the moment has come. We’ll offer our food, our service, and let’s hope we won’t go bankrupt». On 14th March 2014 Riccardo Camanini, as calm as the waves of Lake Garda slapping the water edge in front of Lido 84, is indoctrinating the team at the pass. This is the restaurant he took over after orchestrating banquets for a lifetime and a half at Villa Fiordaliso, a few steps away. But this is finally “his” restaurant: the 7 guys of his first service are now all hired. Everything’s different. And the change is even bigger the following autumn, when the Michelin Guide gives them the first star in record time. It’s a sign the road might be the right one: praises arrive from everywhere and, for once, public and critics agree. Two and a half years after the first orders were taken, Lido 84 is a restaurant shining with assertiveness in a poetic corner of Lake Garda. A strophe composed by a cultured and kind chef who leads a staff that has already doubled since the start: today there are 14 members. They take care of the 40 guests, the tables being very popular at the weekend, but even earlier, when lake tourism is usually dozing. La cuisine c'est beaucoup plus que des recettes. Cooking is more than recipes, the great Alain Chapel eagerly explained. So if we spent a day in the kitchen of Lido 84, it’s not to exalt its welcome with Almonds and gin, the Pasta cacio e pepe cooked in the bladder of a pig, in the way of the volaille de Bresse or the Torta di rose - online you can already find plenty of sentimental traces and the confirmation that this is one of the soundest and most creative chefs in Italy.
If the weather allows it, you can have lunch in the lovely garden overlooking the lake
The chef and his beautiful press, a return to the splendour of Marchesi
«Take care of the client as if you were inviting a friend into your home». Camanini adopts Brillat-Savarin’s principle
Gabriele Zanatta’s opinion: on establishments, chefs and trends in Italy and the world
by
born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt