Modena

Not the song by The Beatles, from the film, Yellow Submarine, but the title of the latest tasting menu at Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. The restaurant reopened in its Via Stella location in central Modena on 1 June, following the most recent lock-down restrictions with a menu which pays tribute, across 12 plates of food and 18 individual creations, to 16 Italian chefs.

The dishes are each inspired by the originals devised between 1963 and 2020, and have been reimagined, in homage to the original creator and presented in the most elegant and delicate way possible. In some cases chef Massimo Bottura plays with the mind as well as the eyes and the palate perhaps initially to confuse and then certainly excite the diner, but always in a way that makes sense, at least by the end of the particular course. One dish, Zuppa fredda di Carbonara, in homage to Gianfranco Vissani, translates as Cold Carbonara Soup. It is described as Crema Inglese (custard) with pepper, guanciale (cured pork cheek) banana, pecorino cheese ice cream and caviar! This was in fact the first of the deserts but perhaps is best described as a cross-over course! The sharp eyed among readers will notice the key ingredients for Carbonara sauce are mentioned (guanciale, pepper, pecorino and egg in the form of the custard) and clearly that classic Roman dish is the inspiration for this course. The salty tang of the fried guanciale, nestled under the custard and the cheese ice cream really set this dish alight with flavour. A-ma-zing!

I last mentioned Osteria Francescana in 2016. After my previous visit in 2014, I’d had a great desire to go again. Seven years of patience eventually paid off and I was very pleased to celebrate my birthday there just a few days ago with two friends, for one of whom it was his first experience of a Michelin 3* eatery.

My admiration for the chef is unbounded, not only for his undoubted skill in the kitchen, his limitless imagination and his kind personal welcome to every guest, but also because of his significant efforts in developing future talent in the hospitality industry, his interventions to help save the Parmsan Cheese production following an earthquake in 2012, his establishment of a ‘refectory’ during Milan Expo 2015, to feed the most vulnerable people of the city with the food from the various pavilions of the Expo and then the not-for-profit organisation he created with his wife, Food for the Soul, which grew out of that intitial enterprise.

This is a man who has a social conscience and one who, when you meet him, exudes a simplicity both in his love for food and hospitality. He has an open way of communicating and a gentle manner in treating his staff in what must be a very demanding working environment. Many of us are familiar with a style of running kitchens, espoused by the likes of that uncouth gorilla of a man, Gordon Ramsey. The foul language and aggressive way of treating staff, and sometimes customers, makes good TV but with Chef Bottura it’s completely different and consequently his accolades are higher and he remains first and foremost a cook. I wandered down a small road to the side of the restaurant shortly after Massimo had worked the dining room and spoken to each table. A small door into the kitchen was open and I was able to witness the man himself returning to the brigade full of smiles and friendly greetings. If massaging Wagyu cattle produces the finest beef in the world then being nice to the staff when you’re the boss produces quality too.

Osteria Francescana was ranked as number one in the world in 2016 and then again in 2018. It was the first Italian Restaurant to achieve this. It was second in the world in 2015 and third in 2013 and 2014. No one stays at the top of the league forever of course and now Mirazur has taken that first place but it’s clear that Bottura has stayed at the top of his game. His expansion with Franceschetta58, also in Modena and his kitchens in Istanbul, Dubai, Florence and Beverly Hills, often in conjunction with Gucci, make me worry that one day he will overstretch and that Osteria Francescana will consequently cease to be the unique experience it still is today.

Mama knows best

They say, if you ask any Italian to name the best chef in the world, the answer from everyone will be the same, “mama”. Home cooking is held in very high esteem here, its the pinnacle of culinary experiences.

There must be a reason why, in a country with some of the best ingredients in world and a population that lives and breathers food, there are relatively few so-called top class restaurants. If you look in the Michelin guide (2016), there are only eight three star restaurants listed in the whole nation. Of those only one is in the capital and none are in Milan, the business heart of Italy, where many of the richest Italians have homes.

I recently watched a documentary about the chef, Massimo Bottura, who owns Osteria Francescana in Modena (named this year as the best restaurant in the world in the San Pellegrino awards). The programme showed that his early days in the restaurant were very much touch and go as Italians, perhaps especially the Modenese, were not that interested in eating what chefs today refer to as ‘elevated’ food. Fine dining and Italian food were not natural bed-fellows. If the inhabitants of my adopted homeland can’t eat Mamma’s food they seem to prefer eat at a local trattoria rather than a posh restaurant. Tagliatelle al ragu depends on the quality of the pasta and the flavour of the rich sauce rather than on how it was re-intrepreted by the chef and refined beyond all recognition.

Don’t get me wrong, I once had the pleasure of eating at Osteria Francescana and I loved it. What Bottura does with local food is very exciting to me – but I’m not Italian. My immersion into the culture of Northern Italy occasionally requires me to stop and take stock of things like, why there are so few posh eateries.

I also frequently wonder why there are some many Asian restaurants, usually serving a fusion of Chinese and Japanese dishes. There are three or four even in our little city of Lodi and two of them I know quite well. I ate the other evening in Kokoro, which has recently changed its menu to focus more on Japanese rather than Chinese dishes. I know very little about Japanese food but I really enjoyed what I had. They’ve really managed to pack flavour into their food and combine a whole range of textures into every mouthful. It’s clean tasting food and as different from Italian as you could imagine.

The restaurant was full, even on a Wednesday, and not only full, but full of Italians. These were people choosing to eat Asian cuisine, in a relatively smart restaurant, certainly ‘posher’ looking than most local Italian places. You’d never see the same people in an equally smart Italian restaurant, even if you could find one. It’s been suggested to me that the locals prefer mama’s cooking and when that’s not available they’ll go the trattoria. When they want something a bit different they eat Asian food or McDonalds; all of this in preference to Italian fine dining. Only in Italy!

October 28, 2016 1

My favourite places to eat

When people ask me to tell them what is my favourite restaurant I hesitate for two reasons. Firstly I hate the ‘favourite’ type questions such as what is favourite colour, music, TV programme and secondly, how to decide. Always for me the answer has to be ‘it depends’.

There are restaurants that I return to time after time, or would if I could, so I suppose they could in some way be classed as favourites. The first of those is a restaurant in London where I first went 15 years or more ago. Le Caprice is legendary in certain circles and has been around in one form or another for 35 years with a host of celebrity, royal and hip clients. For sure the former husband of the Queen’s late sister could always be certain to get the best table but Le Caprice serves its ‘ordinary’ regulars exceptionally well too. After only my first couple of visits I was always ‘known’ and my Bloody Mary preferences always anticipated. The food is a fusion of modern American, British and European cuisine, the service friendly and relaxed but uber efficient. It’s not cheap but it’s not too expensive either (this is Mayfair!) but it is consistently good and I miss not being able to go as often as I used to do.

Over the years I’ve eaten in one or two of Rome’s ‘best’ restaurants but have always, in some way, left feeling disappointed because they never quite lived up to my high expectations. The higher the price the higher the expectation is my thought. Trattoria da Luigi though has hardly ever disappointed. It has no pretensions whatsoever. It is what it is, a simple family run Roman trattoria frequented mostly by Romans and those visitors to Rome who like me have been eating there for decades. My first visit was probably 30 years ago and every visit to Rome since then has had to include one, two or even three return visits. The staff are always welcoming and whilst the food could never be described as ‘fine dining’ it is undoubtedly fresh local food cooked well and served with enthusiasm. I’ve seen the generations of the family grow up in the business and work hard to ensure that nothing much changes from year to year. Perhaps occasionally the umbrellas or table lines are replaced or the wall re-painted but the abbacchio al forno or the fiori di zucca stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies remain delicious.

A relatively recent addition to my list of places to return to requires a bit more commitment in terms of cash and advance booking. Osteria Francescana in Modena is owned and run by Massimo Bottura in the streets where he grew up as boy. He’s a remarkable chef with a social conscience. During Expo Milan in 2015 he organised Refettorio Ambrosiano to ensure that the chefs working at Expo didn’t forget the poor by using their talents and excess produce to feed the poor. Osteria Francescana is Number 1 in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2016 and boasts three Michelin Stars. “Our Cooking is collision of ideas, cultures techniques and gestures” says their website. For me my dinner there was visually challenging – one of the presentation techniques is to throw the food onto the plate – and deeply rewarding in terms of flavour and especially the combination of flavours.