Niko rediscovering fire

Niko Romito was the one to open the 2016 edition of the Seoul Food Festival, a programme created and organised by Belgian photographer Jean-Pierre Gabriel, who’s always so kind in praising Identità Golose, in the ceremony hall at the Four Seasons which opened in the South Korean capital only seven months ago. Seoul means over 10 million inhabitants in a country, South Korea, that has 50, basically one fifth of the population which in fact becomes half, 25, if we consider it together with Incheon, where the port and airport are located, and the residential area of Seongnam. All this in an area that is only one third of Italy.

As almost everywhere in the world, as soon as people find out you’re Italian, they smile happily. Even more so if the reason that drew you here, on the eastern borders of Asia, is connected with food. So here we are, following Niko Romito in the capital. He’s just back from a dinner in Pusan, South Korea’s second largest city, on the opposite coast, the south-eastern one, compared to Seoul in the north-west. «I had an unseen number of cooks at my disposal, yet their way of working is completely different from ours. Once you have explained what is what, if you change something on the go they get stuck and you must explain why. They’re very good at catering, where everything is repeated as if in a production line».

Yet the real thing that surprised the patron of Reale Casadonna in Castel di Sangro in Abruzzo is different: «The technology standard in Korea is crazy, you’re always connected, but when you get into the kitchen you realise immediately they’re behind. I had asked for some tools that in Italy are taken for granted, nothing doing». A revolution that will soon arrive.

On Thursday, the lessons’ aperitif, there was a river of people. The entire bridge was occupied from one end to the other with some fifty stands and food trucks. Morning, afternoon and night. Picnic on the bridge had ten foreign chefs mingle with local activities in the middle of the viaduct. One had to buy the whole package for 100 dollars, a lot but it doesn’t happen every day. The chef from Abruzzo presented cacio e pepe pasta adjusted on the spot. Hence penne rigate («Perhaps they’re almost raw for South Koreans»), Parmigiano and not Pecorino, pepper, ground in the mortar, mint leaves and lime zest. Horrifying for purists but here we are and here we play.

The following day, on Friday, an extraordinary lunch with a very unique chef, Lee Jong Kuk. Sculptor, ceramist, the founder of a cooking school, he welcomes people in his home, in the hilly countryside. Dining with Romito and Pascal Barbot

we spent two very special hours, with offers entirely focused on the meeting of life and death. Please note, not inside the same recipe, but in two different recipes served at the same time in incredibly light china. Strongly summing up, first a celestial music, then a series of punches in the face, life lifts you up, death sends you to the ground. The cakes then were absurd. The culture and elegance of the chef is such it couldn’t be a matter of culinary blindness. Colourful and sugary junk, served so as to sanction the end of his higher commitment.

Two of the most important moments involving Niko still need to be mentioned. At the gala dinner on Friday he presented a veal cheek with tomato sauce and celeriac purée. One could think “what an effort, the usual infamous vacuum cooked and regenerated veal cheek”. Mistake. He cooked in a cast iron grill, on a very low flame and with plenty of patience. I can’t stand vacuum used in restaurants partly to save money and partly out of guilty ignorance. In the end, everything gets the same gummy taste. A copied banality, so much so those refusing it become innovative.

On Saturday, the lesson, the first because of the approaching flight back home. A nice speech on simplicity, «which doesn’t mean banality», on giving value to raw materials, so as to focus on clients most of all, and not «to feed your ego as a chef». In front of the photo of his Spaghetti and tomatoes, «and not with tomatoes because the sauce mustn’t tower over the pasta», an ohhh of admiration rose from the audience. «This is Italy» he pointed out, and then showed his extraordinary version of savoy in a country such a South Korea that bases its culinary identity on fermented cabbage, kimchi. Last April they even dedicated a museum to the latter. «These trips allow you to understand different cultures from our own and sense what we could draw from them. Not a recipe but a technique instead, an unusual approach that can open new perspectives».