From the Alps to Aspromonte

ALFIO GHEZZI – Microclimate: the distance that makes people closer – In coherence with the title of his lesson and his philosophy, Alfio Ghezzi presented Tartiflette alla mia maniera [Tartiflette – my style] «a new take on frico, rosti and tartiflette; but I found similar recipes in Norway too», he says. For his tartiflette he uses a cream of potatoes, mortandela and a cheese made by fermenting powdered pasta, previously cooked for 50 minutes at 96°C and then dried in the oven overnight

The main ingredient of the second dish is yak from Val d’Ambiez, which descends from the Tibetan oxen that Reinhold Messner brought to Italy. Ghezzi paired the meat with a rye bread toast with lard from the same yak, powdered black trumpets, smoked paprika and – served in a cup – a broth of yak meat, previously caramelised with honey and herbs

RICCARDO GASPARI with OLIVER PIRAS and ALESSANDRA DEL FAVERO The  “trip” of milk – In the El Brite de Larieto agritourism Gaspari matches fine dining with the raw materials from the family farm

The salami made with pig feet with a surprise – a cube of tongue in its heart – surrounded by a delicious cream of milk serum and toasted hazelnuts, covered with apple granita (adding a unique note to the dish) and rosemary flowers. This is the proof that there are no poor raw materials when you use them properly. The pig feet are cooked in milk, deboned and processed as with a salami, to be kept cold «because it tends to break». The final touch is given by the crumble of porcini and the marinated beetroot

Twenty minutes are enough to move from El Brite to Aga at Oliver Piras and Alessandra Del Favero’s, yet Piras (originally from Sardinia, he moved to Cadore following his heart) and Del Favero, a couple at heart and in business, get their inspiration elsewhere. You can tell immediately from their tiramisu, which is not a tiramisu in fact, though the flavours are similar, and is inspired by a trip to Japan and by the discovery of koji, a mushroom used to ferment soy and rice to make miso and sake. Oliver’s and Alessandra’s dessert has a base made with polenta made with barley from Belluno (a Slow Food presidium) fermented and burnt. It is aromatised with an infusion of chicory roots and completed with a koji gelato made with milk from El Brite

MAURIZIO GRANGE AND PIERGIORGIO PELLEREI – Our traditional dishes seen through contemporary eyes – You can travel even by giving a new take on tradition. In the case of Maurizio Grange and Piergiorgio Pellerei, they make a pork foot travel across time

They brown it in a piece with celery, carrots and onions, and then cooked in a jus of veal for 2/3 hours. Then they debone it and transform the foot, with artichokes, into a filling for ravioloni, which they finish in a pan with butter aromatised with herbs. The presentation is on a deliciously hot sauce of cauliflowers and ginger

ANTONIO BIAFORA AND NINO ROSSI – Transhumance: ancestral survival instinct - Biafora and Rossi gave a different meaning to the theme of travel: for the two Calabrian chefs it is a journey of survival. The one the men in Calabria would do when they moved with their animals from the mountains to the sea, and back, in a short transhumance that contaminated flavours

In their dishes, Biafora and Rossi develop the concept of “altitude” through elements from sea, hills and mountain. The first has an impact on the “riunella” (veal tripe rolled in goat gut, glazed in a jus of veal and goat and sautéed in butter) with a desalted sardine, a sauce of cabbage in brine, pine needles and pistachios, and completed it with powdered lemon zest

Rossi chooses a lamb tataki quickly cooked after marinating it in Earl Grey tea (which is aromatised with bergamot), served on a sauce made with barbecued prawn bisque with ricotta made with goat and cow’s milk curdled with bergamot and salt, and a wafer of crespigno