Delicious Colonne

A few steps from Vanvitelli’s Palace, you walk into the tempting world of the Marziale family. Established in the Fifties, restaurant Le Colonne is today fearlessly run by Rosanna, a young and talented chef, recently awarded with a Michelin star in the already rich heaven of Campania’s gastronomy. With her hair gathered up and the charm of a fencer, after years of rigorous training, the young woman puts her inspiration into play and with the “cold steel” of her creative cuisine she plunges the blow and scores.

A few weeks ago she announced Le Colonne is to open also at dinner and assured the menu à la carte to be available on Friday and Saturday nights. For a few years, experience and knowledge of local customs had led her to close in the evening on working days. And now this decision awaited by the public is taken to pay homage to the land that has more than inspired the chef, accepting a further commitment to her people. This solution maintains the balance between the kitchen and the pastry workshop, two components that put the whole staff to work every day, imposing fast rhythms and lengthy preparations.

The advice to the customer who encounters Marziale’s work, is to go beyond their personal Pillars of Hercules, to cross the doors leaving pre-packaged imageries and gastronomic certainties behind, because here, the great classics of Campania’s cuisine are de-structured and composed again, and only the participation of all five senses together makes it possible to discover the seductive nature of every dish. At Le Colonne, the distinction between past, present and future becomes pure illusion. Recipes travel in time and take, from the past, the lessons of papà Gaetano and from his motherland the necessary wealth to invent a personal gastronomic future, hanging in the balance between tradition and modernity.

Guided by her anachronistic works, the Leaves of chicory, mozzarella milk, bocconcino and Fizzo water acquire more strength and in a Socratic way, at the sound of a harp, all the guests let their senses travel, broadening their gastronomic experience that starts from biting one leaf. The paper plates are an alternative interpretation of the same territory, they are creations that speak the same language of Rosanna, and tell her assertiveness and determined intention to stay anchored to her Terra di Lavoro, always on her own terms.

This is why, on one evening, she cooks delicate and maternal dishes, that remind of milk and fertility, such as the Ovomozzo: a poached egg cooked in the Roner, placed in the Mozzarella di Bufala Campana, served with rice water and the water of Piennolo cherry tomatoes; while on another evening she offers brave and decisive dishes, steam cooked and then fried, like the Pork escalope, marinated in Annurca apple jam and breaded, on a bed of traditional and tasty prickly lettuce, fried with figs – something that reminds you, with only one bite, of Christmas, at least for us who are from Campania.

To confirm that this is not a mere Proust inspired illusion, here come beer panettoni, mustaccioli, roccocò, sapienze and delicious torroni, made following the best tradition from Campania, to reaffirm that indeed it is still Christmas time.