Girotonno, the first finalist is French

French Sylvain Sendra, of restaurant Itineraires in Paris, competing today, on Friday May 30th, with his wife Anne Legrand, is the first finalist at Girotonno 2014 in Carloforte on the island of San Pietro in Sardinia. Thanks to his Niçoise tuna salad he overtook, with 8.05 points, American Tim Magee with 7.70 points, here with Chiristian Nicola, of Sale in San Vincenzo (Livorno), who prepared a Tuna sandwich. Tonight’s contests are between Japan and Spain, and Italy and Brazil.

At 6.30 pm Haruo Ichikawa and Lorenzo Lavezzari, of Iyo in Milano, will put themselves to the test, after winning last spring, presenting a Samurai-Burger while Alba Ruiz and Maria Giulia Magario, a total of less than fifty years of age, sweet outside but solid inside, of Marzapane in Rome, will reply with a recipe made with tuna fillets with corn flour, pine seeds and Blinq Blossom flowers originally from South Africa. There will also be a touch of tuna marrow, a detail that has us from the press very intrigued.

And at 8 pm Italy with Roberto Serra, from restaurant Su Carduleu in Abbasanta, and Clelia Bandini, ex psychologist, now chef-patron at Lucitta in Tortoli, will compete with their Mediterranean tuna, with cherry tomatoes, aromatic herbs, ricotta mustia and civargiu bread against Brazil represented by Mauricio Zillo and Nicola Pepe Christian of Rebelot in Milano. They will present a recipe with tuna ventresca, ash and camone tomato water.

Girotonno, three days, three eliminating rounds, and tomorrow a final one with three chefs moving on separate tracks that are united once the dishes have been finished. We have the response of the audience, a group of some hundred people, and that of a jury, a dozen experts, the only who, between yesterday and today will have the chance to taste all six preparations and judge them in view of the final round. Yesterday, Sendra’s dish was very much appreciated thanks to the idea of a salad rich of Mediterranean aromas, cherry tomatoes, garlic, onion, herbs, in a tuna stock that was made stronger thanks to a hint of katsuobushi, dried tuna cut very thinly with a mandolin knife. Then there was the tuna tataki, just braised, and a final touch of lardo di Colonnata.

Tim Magee, instead, presented a craveable tuna sandwich, with a sapid mussel sauce, slices of fish alternated with wafers made with almond flour, onions and seaweeds. Unfortunately, I believe that because of the emotion he forgot to tell the jury that his dish had to be eaten as a sandwich, not with fork and knife. Everything changes because in the first case, the right one, the aromas exploded in the mouth, with a unique roundness and richness. We’ll see tomorrow.

Also yesterday, there was the first of three lessons entirely focused on tuna, inside the Cavallera theatre, thanks to Moreno Cedroni. Today, in the late afternoon, it will be the turn of Alessandro Negrini and tomorrow that of Luciano Monosilio. The chef from the Marche, with his thirty years of experience, since he began when he was only twenty in Senigallia in 1984, beside the dish itself, a sort of tuna with tuna sauce, kept the attention high from the beginning to the very end with a continuous tale of himself and his work. For instance, he recalled the Gioco del Tonno which he proposed in 2000 as well as the tuna mixed with raw beef that he prepared two years ago for his dish called Pollicino, when he presented the fairy tale menu at Clandestino.

“Every year I introduce two new ingredients in my cuisine, last year it was millet, this year quinoa. It helps to keep creativity alive because it’s easy to work with what you know well, whereas new products force you to think in different terms and this is how you get the best ideas. Then people asked him if it is true that the romantic level at Clandestino, on the beach of Conero, is at the highest level and he confirmed: “We have this joke that if a guy comes here and the girl will not sleep with him later, it’s because he has something missing”. Try and see.