The best of Identità New York

Only a week has passed since Identità New York, edition number 4, held between the Scuola on the ground-floor, sold-out during the day, and the Birreria on the last floor of Eataly, crowded long after sunset. Six lessons in the first location, and two dinners in the other. And before that, on September 26th, the dinner wanted by Expo Milano and organised by us at Identità, with chef Carlo Cracco at Manzo, the meat restaurant that has seen many people become interested in the World Fair which will take place in Milan in 2015, with guests such as prime minister Enrico Letta and the general manager of this super-event, Giuseppe Sala.

I tried to sum up this event in ten points, plus a photo-gallery edited by Gabriele Zanatta thanks to Matilde Damele’s photos. My memories don’t necessarily coincide with Identità. In fact they embrace the whole time I spent across the ocean.

Cesare Battisti’s mondeghili: those that for anyone across Italy would be meatballs, in Milan are called mondeghili as the chef of Ratanà clearly knows. How to call them in English? It’s simple: Milanese Meatballs. A couple of American guests, however, asked me why there was no saffron.

Business partners Jeremy Bearman & Kristy Lambrou: he’s the chef of Rouge Tomate and she’s the Culinary Nutritionist who fine-tunes dishes based on a healthy and tasty, hardly punitive diet. The menu includes meat and fish, far from the sadness of some exasperated vegetarian offers.

Massimo Bottura’s dilemma: the chef from Modena enjoys playing with words and raw materials. After all, he knows the matter so well he can use lots of irony. This is how he created the potato who dreamt of becoming a truffle but which in the dish woke up to become spaghetti. And the audience kept asking what kind of magic was that.

Daniel Boulud and truffle: the French are masters in communication and marketing, that goes without saying. They’re the leaders in (almost) everything because sometimes they too have to surrender. This is what Boulud had to do during his lesson with Bottura. At one point, Daniel asked for some truffle for his egg, and Massimo teased him: “Black or white?”. White, of course. As Josè Mourinho would say, “I’m not an idiot”.

Sean Brock and the surprise: Sean divides himself between Tennessee and South Carolina, between Nashville and Charleston. While he was in the former location of the Husk Restaurant, I enjoyed his extraordinary and accomplished cuisine in the restaurant in Charleston. McCrady’s is a gourmet restaurant. Luckily there’s not only New York but also places and chefs who surprise you thanks to their quality.

Carlo Cracco’s rice pasta: what can a star do? Something unthinkable, unsettling because only he knows how to see something happy where for most people nothing is left. After the saffron risotto for the Expo, and the scallops for the dinner on October 4th, for his pasta alla chitarra Cracco used rice for the dough, seasoned, in the end, with caviar. Everyone was startled in front of the box with steel threads.

Daniel Humm and that delusion: even Daniel Humm has surrendered to the rite of tasting menus at his Eleven Madison Park (while the menu still resists at NoMad). At least at lunchtime I would like to be able to order three dishes and leave happy ever after, but what has happened for him to change his mind? “Simple, two years ago we entered the 50 Best, one morning a couple of Germans found, the shorter menu, as was our rule. They ate and then told me that in such a renowned place they expected much more. ‘We didn’t have a 50 Best lunch’ they said. This hit me and I understood that the world around us had changed”.

Mark Ladner’s orecchiette: some scarcely talented chefs get the cooking of the risotto right and act as if they were stars. This is not the case of Ladner: 4 stars from the New York Times for his Del Posto (something quite unique for an Italian restaurant in the Big Apple) he behaves as if he were the Forrest Gump of the kitchen. He’s better, to be sure, because his dishes speak for him. And the Orecchiette with lamb and carrots ragout are like a journey to the paradise of the palate.

Matthew Lightner and his establishment: what a great, brilliant, intelligent night, the one at Lightner’s Atera. Only one tasting menu, take it or leave it. I took it and can’t wait to be back. The only limit, which is common to his formula which was imposed by Ferran Adrià at El Bulli is that there are dishes that, to be fully appreciated, cannot be reduced to mini-portions. Attention please: at 77 Worth Street there’s no sign outside that would indicate the presence of a restaurant. There are two entrance doors: the smaller (and black) one is the correct one.

Davide Scabin’s doughnut: a car accident forced Davide to stay in Italy. So it was Beppe Rambaldi who had to prepare the dishes designed by Combal.zero for New York: conchiglioni pasta instead of bread, to be dipped in the bagna cauda and a doughnut filled with cacio e pepe sauce. The latter was also a pasta dish: the pasta was overcooked, powdered and used instead of flour. The result was breath-taking.