23-10-2013

D'O turns ten

Davide Oldani today is celebrating. We have interviewed him and discovered that...

The actual team of restaurant D'O in San Pietro

The actual team of restaurant D'O in San Pietro all'Olmo, a little village closed to Cornaredo, a town in the North-western sorroundings of Milan. In the center, chef Davide Oldani, born in 1969 and previously working with Alain Ducasse, Gualtiero Marchesi and Albert and Michel Roux

Restaurant D’O in Cornaredo (Milano) today celebrates its tenth year. A part from the record of being the most booked restaurant in Italy, we need to acknowledge Davide Oldani another merit: while today people often speak of bistronomy, of high cuisine prepared with accessible raw materials, of giving dignity to ingredients (or parts of these) that were traditionally neglected, the chef from Cornaredo has been doing this since the beginning of his first (and only, until now) self enterprise. This and the non-negligible corollary of the decalogue that sums up his Cucina Pop precepts. The latter granted him the lesson of economics that he will hold on November 15th in front of the students of Harvard - the first and only Italian chef to do so. "I’m already excited, you can imagine how excited I will be on that day", he says.

What do you remember of October 23rd 2003?
We were 3, in the beginning: Hide Matsumoto, Alessandro Procopio and I (all three still at D’O, editor’s note). We arrived with the first shopping in the van: 1 kg of onions, flour, sugar. There was only one client, my accountant: he had to explain to me some details on bookkeeping that I still found difficult to understand…

The team as it was 10 years ago

The team as it was 10 years ago

Who else helped you in the beginning?
Mostly friends who were designers and architects. We needed to change what until shortly earlier and for 70 years had been Trattoria Sironi. I didn’t find any particular logistic difficulty, however, because I felt this was the right moment: I had managed to save some money, I had acquired lots of experience with Ducasse, Marchesi, Roux (see here, editor’s not).

The first menu?
There were 18 dishes à la carte plus 4 in the tasting menu. There already was the Caramelized onion: 6 months earlier, when it was still a tarte tatin cooked with 5 onions and not a single portion, Andrea Berton had tasted it and he basically forced me to include it in the menu in Cornaredo. Initially, I would serve it with some black truffle, though I removed it as soon as I received the first invoice from my greengrocer. It scared the life out of me: had I continued to spend that much, my road would have soon come to an end. But there was also a flavour-related reason: the truffle didn’t give extra importance to the dish, it didn’t add anything to the Grana Padano ice-cream for which it took me two weeks to balance maturation, glucose...

Have you ever removed it from the list?
No, it became impossible. Many clients return just to try it.

Cipolla caramellata con caldo-freddo di Grana Padano (Caramelized onion with Grana Padano chaud-froid) the signature dish

Cipolla caramellata con caldo-freddo di Grana Padano (Caramelized onion with Grana Padano chaud-froid) the signature dish

The star arrived in a very short time: in November 2004.
They were very nice, but I only understood the following year that the restaurant could have really worked. It was on a Monday, the restaurant was closed. In the dining room everything was in order. I was flipping through our reservation book and each page I turned was full. I made some calculations: the phone was ringing every 7 seconds. It was then that I fully understood something Gualtiero Marchesi once told my father: “These guys are like sponges. They absorb and absorb and at one point they start to release”. That was the moment in which I began to release.

What would you not repeat?
Being too attached to the restaurant. During all of the first 3-4 years, I stayed here all day long. Over the years I understood it would have been better to take care of communication and of my relation with other colleagues too. This is why, could I go back, I’d risk more by investing in the staff.

Which was the worst moment?
In general, when I’m tired everything gets dim. But then I slap myself and start again. I do feel discouraged, indeed I do, every time some badly mannered or biased clients arrive. But this is part of the game.

The most beautiful compliment you received?
When they say “here the food is good and you feel at home”. It happened last night too: there were 40 people and all of them wanted to book again, after having a full stomach. To me this is the best.

The question many people ask you: have you ever felt the need to drive a Ferrari, a real gourmet restaurant?
Of course I have, but you also need to find the right moment to buy it. For now I feel satisfied with a Cinquecento, not many people know how to drive it properly.

D'O entrance

D'O entrance

If they offered you to guide the Albereta, would you accept?
The Moretti family offered me this position after Gualtiero Marchesi announced his farewell. I thanked them and refused because the centre of the world is Milan. I’m already working on a project, a new style of restaurant in which I will be able to include all my staff. I will tell you soon about it.

Some other indecent proposals we should record?
I have received many over 10 years. There was a great offer in New York, but I don’t like to accept blind projects, what makes sense, for me, is to work with my own staff. The road to New York, however, is still open in other ways.

Should I want to make a reservation at D’O today, how long would I wait?
As of December 1st, we will accept reservation from April 2014 onwards. Today reservations are closed: were they to be open, we would probably be full until January 2015.


Zanattamente buono

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

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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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