Identità New York, a surprising start

Do you know krapfens, the doughnuts filled with cream or jam and covered in sugar? When journalist Pavia Rosati mentioned them, the audience of the first lesson of Identità New York nodded though they didn’t understand why, after all Mario Batali and Cesare Battisti’s speaking of pasta, they would be served a cake. It wasn’t dinner time, we were in fact at Eataly’s Scuola on 23rd Street West and so all the questioning and marvelling about the krapfen was understandable. The krapfen in fact came with a surprise: inside, there was cacio e pepe, the sauce usually used for tonnarelli.

A very Italian savoury doughnut, the idea being that of an important absentee at the Identità New York’s fourth edition, the Davide Scabin who was injured in a car crash (Battisti took his place in the lesson with Batali) and represented by his second, Beppe Rambaldi, in two other moments signed by Pasta Felicetti. To make the dough, they used the overcooked pasta, almost without any butter. For dinner, instead, Rambaldi prepared Scarpetta Felicetti & Bagna Cauda, with sauce and vegetables served in a soup dish and, in a bowl on the side, the boiled conchiglioni pasta that had to be dipped in the sauce using your hands. The American audience was marvelled and happy.

Now here’s what happened yesterday. There was a nice confrontation between Batali and Battisti: Mario prepared some fun Ravioli with prawns and basil with butter and pumpkin, Cesare some brilliant Penne with pepper cream. When the moment arrived to add the zest of the lemon preserved in salt, Batali burst with happiness: “See the touch of genius of this young man”. Then it was the turn of the eternal debate regarding al dente cooking. The American chef said: “My countrymen do what is written on the pack of pasta. If it says 12 minutes, they boil it for 12 minutes. They don’t think that, say, 9 minutes followed by the remaining time in the pan, to mix everything with the sauce, would be better”.

Then came a truth that doesn’t belong to all chefs: “In my restaurant I cannot be as strict with the cooking time as I would be if I only had Italians guests. I never forget that the client needs to be happy and, no matter how I try to present my point of view, I only serve what I know will make him happy. After all, there are those who send the dish back asking for the pasta to be more cooked. One thing has changed over time: once pasta had to drown in the sauce, today more value is given to the pasta itself”.

In the afternoon, there was the second lesson, the one focused on codfish with Dave Pasternack and Moreno Cedroni, raw codfish with apples and turnips for the former, Baccalà and hare in raspberry sauce for Moreno, a dish from his Susci selvaggio menu at Clandestino. And what will be the theme for next summer? It’s already set: “Literature, and poetry in particular”, the chef revealed. Tonight, on Saturday, he will cook in the Birreria just like Battisti, Ladner, Rambaldi, Cracco, Uliassi and Katia Delogu did yesterday.

Battisti brought Mondeghili, a mini-risotto fried with marrow over a Lambrusco gelatine with Grana Padano to Manhattan. Ladner, the non-star turned into chef, four stars on the New York Times, which for the American public is more relevant than the three on the Michelin Guide, brought his beef carpaccio made with meat hanged for 90 days.

It was then the turn of Scabin/Rambaldi’s Pasta scarpetta, of Carlo Cracco’s Scalded scallops with toasted almonds, corn cream and Calvisius caviar, another great dish that contradicts the reputation that Italian chefs have here in the United States of being able only to prepare pasta. Ideas, genius, products, technique, flavour and in a context which is surely not that of one’s restaurant. It’s a game abroad. It was then the turn of the Atlantic White Fish made according to the Marche’s tradition by Mauro Uliassi and the chocolate mystery box, made entirely of chocolate, by Delogu. She called it Appuntamento al buio (blind date) because unless you opened it, it was hard to understand what was inside. And after that, sweet dreams and goodnight.