02-01-2017
Ilaria Brunetti visited Giovanni Passerini for Identità Golose in his homonymous restaurant in Paris. This place will show the maturity of a chef who, after rock and roll at Rino, wants to follow a journey marked by the north star of so called “Italian neoclassicism"
After the great symphonies of culinary experimentation played from the small stage of Rino, Giovanni Passerini, in his new restaurant named after him (read the review by Tokyo Cervigni for Guida identità Golose 2017), allows himself more space, changes orchestra and instruments so as to play more classic melodies, though their vibrating soul is still imbued with rock.
With Rino, his first restaurant, which was born in 2010 and died four years later, the chef managed to express the irreverent strength of his both exuberant and refined creativity, leaving an important mark in the history of the Parisian bistronomic revolution. Today, while this approach to restaurant offer has been brought to an extreme, Passerini has sensed the time has come to take a step back, so as to offer Parisians a more “comfortable”, more rustic cuisine, that would put the best Italian tradition back to the top.
He says: «Let’s leave young people like Michele [Farnesi] or Simone [Tondo] the chance to be rock and roll. At forty, I can take on the responsibility of an accomplished, impeccable tradition that is now hard to find even in Italy». Between the walls of the restaurant, with a contemporary decor, a strictly traditional Italian cuisine coexists with classics French roasts and a few dishes vaguely recalling Rino. «I’m still in the middle of a deciding phase. I must understand what the future will be like. Can French and Italian coexist? Modern and creative? Can Roman-style tripe cohabit with a seaweed broth with tortellini filled with gorgonzola and sea urchins?».
«My greatest talent is that I understand what people want to eat. Do they want carbonara? Let’s make it! Do they want pigeon to be cooked longer? Let’s do it! Of course it requires some effort, chefs must step aside, in a way. But we’re restaurateurs, we must refresh people, we cannot always expect clients to be those who must understand us».
«Today my ambition is to become a great restaurateur». The evolution process is still in progress, it requires the chef a strong capacity to put his ego aside and listen to the guests’ needs. What’s guiding him is a precise image, that of guests sitting at a table and rubbing their hands foretasting one of the classics in Passerini’s menu, such as supplì, montanare, gricia pasta or Roman-style tripe. The idea of hearing aficionados exclaim: «Let’s go and have tripe at Giovanni’s!».
«Now the tiredness from opening is behind me, I have simplified my life. I now want it to get complicated. Rino was like a FIAT Cinquecento with the engine of a Ferrari. What I miss here is pushing the restaurant to its limit, use my ingenuity to reach a goal. I like taking everything to its limit, so as to go beyond». No dish from Rino found place in his new menu: there’s been a clear break with the past, which for Giovanni is the best way to pay homage to it and then evolve freely. And though some may miss it, people like Passerini’s new dimension.
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Mathematician by chance, gourmand by passion, she loves to travel around the world – what with conferences on mathematics and chefs’ congresses – and tell stories about food and their passionate and fascinating protagonists