IT

04-03-2013

APREA-style Creativity

In the photo-gallery from the Park Hyatt’s Vun, all the global-Neapolitan creativity of its chef

The Dolce e salato della Caprese (sweetness and sa

The Dolce e salato della Caprese (sweetness and savouriness of Caprese), the culinary peak in the tasting journey signed by Andrea Aprea. Since August 2011 he’s the chef of the Vun restaurant in the Park Hyatt hotel in Milan, Via Pellico 3, +39.02.88211234. The establishment received one Michelin star last November

Photogallery
Photogallery

Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear
The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go

Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup
The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto

Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum
A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage

Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee
A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago)

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago)

The sweet and savoury of Caprese
The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss

Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle
Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss

Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano
It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu

Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil
Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring

Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard
Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates

Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza
Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there

Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo
A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey)

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey)

Lemon intensity
This is a saudade-filled ode to Costiera Amalfitana and to its lemons of the pane and sfusato varieties. The citrus fruits are transformed into gelatine, custard, crumble, diced lemon zest – candied or salted – and lemon coulis. While you give a look at the meringue and the lemon sorbet...

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey) Lemon intensity This is a saudade-filled ode to Costiera Amalfitana and to its lemons of the pane and sfusato varieties. The citrus fruits are transformed into gelatine, custard, crumble, diced lemon zest – candied or salted – and lemon coulis. While you give a look at the meringue and the lemon sorbet...

... the maître pours an infusion of lemon on dry ice under a basket of real lemons. A reminiscence of Blumenthal, one of Aprea’s guiding lights in his trip across the Channel, when he was young (as if he were old today)

Perhaps, instead of calling it in Milanese, Vun, they should have called the new journey of the Park Hyatt restaurant Uno: this way you’d start to count in Neapolitan, too. Over a year and a half ‘o ‘uaglione Andrea Aprea has marked with a clearly Neapolitan character the cuisine of Galleria Vittorio Emanuele’s sitting room, so much so you almost feel like you’re in Piazza del Plebiscito, in Naples.
Attention, though: this is not the fulsome moan of a minstrel wandering away from home, but the chant influenced by the thousand European and extra-continental latitudes the chef has crossed over the years, feeling at ease at the top of the skyscrapers in Malaysia as well as while strolling in the Berkshire countryside.

Chef Andrea Aprea, born in 1977, became a father a few weeks ago

Chef Andrea Aprea, born in 1977, became a father a few weeks ago

So while our cover dish is a Caprese, if you browse through the photo-gallery below you discover the soul of the chef is more global than it would appear. It’s like a cart stuck on a rollercoaster, alternating double loops with sudden turns in order to reassure, once back at the base, with the goodness of roots. His techniques cause the sweating of the craziest gastronomic detailed work, while the young man can indulge even hours and days while thinking of details, through actions that approach micro-cuisine with the attention and competence of an artist who makes miniature figures for the nativity scenes, in San Gregorio Armeno.

Over 18 months this rollercoaster has attracted many people, trying to find a place in the rooms also rearranged thanks to the chef’s perfectionism (there’s Aprea’s influence also on the china, the tablecloths, the placeholders, lights and furniture). The front office is on the safe and courteous track of the maître from Apulia Nicola Ultimo, here for the past 10 years. And then there’s the sparkling Valentina Benedetti, new head sommelier, just 30.

The menu below mixes autumn influences and spring previews. As of March 21st, the new menu will be available.

 

Photogallery
Photogallery

Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear
The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go

Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup
The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto

Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum
A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage

Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee
A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago)

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago)

The sweet and savoury of Caprese
The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss

Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle
Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss

Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano
It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu

Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil
Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring

Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard
Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates

Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza
Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there

Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo
A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey)

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey)

Lemon intensity
This is a saudade-filled ode to Costiera Amalfitana and to its lemons of the pane and sfusato varieties. The citrus fruits are transformed into gelatine, custard, crumble, diced lemon zest – candied or salted – and lemon coulis. While you give a look at the meringue and the lemon sorbet...

Photogallery Fermented milk, Birra Moretti Grand Cru and salted pear The first amuse-bouche is the embryo of a future dish, and also gives a good idea of the Aprean folly: the milk ferments at 40°C for 4 days, the beer is reduced with agar agar and the salted pear, with its prevailing flavour, is the result of the work with two textures (centrifuged and raw). Off we go Potato croquette with Buffalo milk blue cheese and beetroot ketchup The sticks hold a “classic” potato croquette (but potatoes are cooked in salt, not in water), a blue cheese made with Buffalo milk (a heresy in Campania, where only fresh milk is admitted) and on top, under the chives, a fresh beetroot ketchup (alone, it requires 7-8 hours of cooking, with vinegar and sugar). Acidity and fatness in one morsel, that is to say. Plus another morsel with tapioca chips and Senise peppers (not in the shot), in which the tapioca is cooked like a risotto Scampi, sweetbread, potato and levisticum A recent entry in the menu, it leads the chef to win his fears: "I’m not a fan of entrails", Aprea explains, "I hate hearts, lungs and spleens". The sweetbread, however, serves to give a bitter slap to the sweet scampi and the sweet potato. The levisticum – both in the form of coulis and leaves – forces us to open the dictionary: it’s commonly known as lovage Breast and leg of quail with fat liver, cauliflower and coffee A reminiscence of the autumn strolls in Britain and France, with the quail stuffed with fat liver and the cauliflower. Plus the coffee which in fact arrives in the form of a vinaigrette made with oilseed and Xeres vinegar: acid and bitter. Quail and foie gras fanatics should refrain: one more week and it will disappear from the menu (just like the version with chestnuts instead of cauliflowers disappeared some time ago) The sweet and savoury of Caprese The chef started to rack his brains about it in January 2012. Four months of hard-thinking later, finally the most famous dish in his Milanese inter regnum arrived: the Caprese with hundreds of inverted commas. The mozzarella-like sphere is made with puffed sugar, a sweet tone that makes the savoury orthodoxy explode: there are 3 preserved tomatoes (piennolo, datterino, ciliegino and a fourth, when in season, namely the corbarino), plus toasted casereccio bread croutons, anchovies fillets, candied tomatoes, mousse, mini mozzarella bocconcini and a snow of mozzarella covering, with salt crystals and some pepper, a field which at the base ill-conceals a basil emulsion. Easy? As if! Ask the chef how long it took him only to succeed in making the sphere. What bliss Egg, potato, bagoss cheese and truffle Double walled spheres of borosilicate glass (which in practice preserves the temperature) enclose a quail egg cooked at low temperature, bread croutons, a cream of Bagoss cheese produced by Guffanti, a syphoned Avezzano potato and flakes of black truffle from Umbria. When he was in Naples, Aprea used 36 months caciocavallo podolico. Here, however, we’re at the Vun, so hurray for bagoss Carnaroli rice, Senise peppers, salted codfish tripe, garlic and oregano It’s hard to find someone from Naples or Campania who’s in love with risotto: with this dish, Aprea reproduces the bitter/sweet/fat/wild matrix that at the Comandante restaurant in Naples he put on stage with pumpkin risotto, coffee and quail. It’s the first step with a dish that will be finally complete with the coming spring menu Spaghetto di Gragnano in bianco di pummarola, with anchovies and basil Here we find, once again, Heinz Beck’s trick which, a few years ago, in London, not to upset the fans of spaghetti alle vongole with or without tomato sauce, cooked the spaghetti in tomato water. Aprea puts the spaghetti for half the time in water, and the other half in tomato water "obtained after blending and draining the tomatoes for one whole night". The pedestal of the rolling pasta is the green of the basil. Candied tomatoes are on the top. The pummarola (tomato sauce) doesn’t influence the colour but only the aroma, even from afar. Available in the spring Tortello with oxtail, corn salad roots, pioppini mushrooms and mustard Here we tune into some Roman frequencies with the vaccinara oxtail, "which, in truth", Aprea points out, "is like the Neapolitan’s genovese, but with less onion". Are you geographically confused? No worries, the bitterness of the corn salad root and the light spiciness of the mustard will put you back on the right palate coordinates Rockfish, prickly lettuce, black olives and acquapazza Only the slippers are missing and for the chef it’s like going back home. Except in this case there’s the crazy use of the technique behind the togo (the name is the same as the popular cookie) made with black olives topping the dish, a marginal component of the recipe, after all: he closes a purée of black olives with paraffin, spreads it on the silpat and dries it for 4 hours in the oven at 60°C and fills it with ricotta cheese. "I started from the concept of the langues de chat". And arrived a long way from there Black pig, scorzonera truffle, annurca apples, walnuts and nocillo A very popular dish, it blends North and South (the pig is sometimes the Caserta variety, sometimes it is the mora romagnola). Southern raw materials are questioned while they put their roots in the North (which is in fact a good sum of our chef’s journey) Lemon intensity This is a saudade-filled ode to Costiera Amalfitana and to its lemons of the pane and sfusato varieties. The citrus fruits are transformed into gelatine, custard, crumble, diced lemon zest – candied or salted – and lemon coulis. While you give a look at the meringue and the lemon sorbet...

... the maître pours an infusion of lemon on dry ice under a basket of real lemons. A reminiscence of Blumenthal, one of Aprea’s guiding lights in his trip across the Channel, when he was young (as if he were old today)

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Zanattamente buono

Gabriele Zanatta’s opinion: on establishments, chefs and trends in Italy and the world

by

Gabriele Zanatta

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. 
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