Corrado Assenza’s East

Food is a very healthy obsession in Singapore: people talk about it, write about it, are ready to queue for an endless time in order to taste a gourmet dish. At the end of April, World Gourmet Summit generated a peaceful invasion of chefs from all around the world: Yannick Alléno, Jean-François Piége, William Ledeuil, Paco Torreblanca, Janice Wong and many colleagues from India, Denmark, Australia, Japan. The motto of this edition - Artisans and the art of dining – caused great culinary excitement in a land where energy goes hand in hand with the economy. 

Singapore loves Italian cuisine, which on this occasion was splendidly represented by Corrado Assenza, a pastry-chef who has refreshed the constant heat of Singapore with a breeze coming from Sicily, the real Sicily, that is to say. We’ve met him at the Gattopardo restaurant where the artisan from the Noto valley proposed his menu together with home-chef Lino Sauro, after having conquered the audience of the Summit with a speech entitled A Sicily window to the East.

Does your Caffè Sicilia look to Asia as a horizon for development?
Part of my work has been looking to the East for about ten years, to Japan, mostly, with visible influences in my dishes. Singapore is the expression of a different Asia, one that intrigues me and charms me, not only from the entrepreneurial but also from the cultural and human point of view.

Few are able to make raw materials stand out as much as you. Did you find any interesting ingredients here in Singapore?
I’ve found some interesting cultures: sea doesn’t mean fish but water, minerality and seaweeds. Then there are the spices. And the tea, that comes from Japan, China, Ceylon, India. I like to use it as a pure ingredient, even with savoury dishes, not just pastry-making. I’ve found liquid textures I didn’t know of, materials to use with across-the-board proposals, free of any dogma. I’ve also strengthened my belief that taste has no borders: it’s not a question of distance, the true selection is made by quality.

What did you prepare for your lecture at the WGS?
My lecture was the expression of a menu that resembled my way of seeing food and the world of food. The first reference is given my the farm life, and in some cases even by what hasn’t been cultivated: what nature offers us spontaneously, the fruits we hand pick in the Sicilian countryside after patiently waiting for the best moment for ripening, the one which expresses the best fragrance.

Was the audience keen on the subject?
Yes, they were very curious: I was surprised to see how many people were interested in our vision of their city and their people.

The World Gourmet Summit is a world-wide known event and Italian cuisine is very popular in Asia. Were you surprised to see only two of our chefs and producers, namely Gabriele Ferron and Dario Cecchini?
In Italy, the event wasn’t communicated very well. But then I believe that people around the world are not too curious about our medium and great food professionals: they tend to standardize our cuisine, accentuating the stereotypes without recognising the various nuances and differences.

When can we expect the opening of a Caffè Sicilia in Asia?
Never say never. Meanwhile, we’ll develop our business towards a closer East, that is to say Latvia and Estonia. Then we will see.