After being seriously damaged by a sea storm last winter, Clandestino has just re-opened on the sea-shore of Portonovo, near Ancona,. The very creative bistrot, signed by Moreno Cedroni, this year exposes a menu inspired to Great Britain and The Beatles, the band recording its first record 50 years now. There are dishes like Strawberry Fields Forever, Ice Jolly, Laver- bread and Roast beef... The menu is 85 euro. Info and booking +39.071.801422. See more here
Japanese chef Haruo Ichikawa just won the 2013 edition of Girotonno, a competition that took place yesterday night in Carloforte, Sardinia. The chef of Iyo, a restaurant in Milan, won over the Argentinian Emiliano Lopez, who had the award for the best presentation and Spanish José Luis Marìn Marugàn, awarded by the popular jury. "Ichi"'s dish is named To.Ka.Mi because it symbolizes the trip of a tuna from Tokyo to Carloforte and Milan
The title is "Fluidità" ("Fluidity") and it's the new book signed by Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo, the two brothers of Le Calandre restaurant in Rubano, near Padua, 3 Michelin stars. Pre-sale starts today online as the volume, 450 pages on a big size, will be out next November 24th. It's a natural prosecution of Alajmo's first book In.gredienti and it's expressed thorugh an unconventional plot and 68 recipes. 99 euro if you buy it now, 150 euro in November
The Food Repubblic: it's the main theme of Sunday June 2nd, the first one of Festa a Vico's 4 days, an event with over 200 hundred great Italian chefs cooking together in Vico Equense, near Naples. In order to celebrate the Day of Italian Republic, 60 chefs will prepare several dishes in the shops of the little town. One ticket costs 15 euro and the fee include 3 drinks and a bottle of water. All the money will go for charity
On Tuesday June 18th Mirazur in Menton (2 Michelin Stars), resident chef Mauro Colagreco will set a very special dinner: he will cook together with Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Modena and Quique Dacosta of the namesake restaurant in Denia, Spain, both 3 Michelin stars. The dinner will cost 250 euro per person, plus 80 euro for the wine pairing. Info and bookings: info@mirazur.fr and +33.(0)4.92418686
Gennaro Esposito - chef of Torre del Saracino in Vico Equense - is ready to go ashore on Capri Island, with a new adventure named Mammà: it will open next mid-June on the famous Piazzetta, proposing a Mediterranean/Caprese cuisine for 60 seats maximum. In the kitchen with Gennaro, his long-time sous-chef of Vico Salvatore La Ragione. Plus, in a place nearby Mammà, Esposito will run a pizzeria with a wood oven and 50 seats: pizza napoletana and fritti
5 July–29 September 2013, The Somerset House in London will host "Ferran Adrià and the art of food", a major retrospective exhibition on chef Ferran Adrià and the restaurant he built to become the world’s best. Charting the evolution of elBulli, the exhibition will feature an in-depth, multimedia display of each of the essential ingredients that make up the culinary creative mastermind of Adrià and his team: research, preparations, presentations
The fourth floor of Eataly, on the Ostiense neighborhood, hosts today the first edition of Roma Food & Wine Festival, a format following in Milan event's footsteps: from May 17th to 19th, Identità Golose and Merano Wine Festival will join forces to put together 15 chefs' dishes and hundreds of wines from 60 Italian winemakers, a three day event marked by gourmet food and wine. Click here to get all the informations you need
On Tuesday May 28th, 2.30 pm, at the Terme di Montecatini (Pistoia), Gualtiero Marchesi and Paul Bocuse, founders and honorary presidents of Euro Toques association, will award Sirio Maccioni, the New York Le Cirque's restaurant owner, with the first international prize Euro Toques Italia, created by new president Enrico Derflingher. "I'm happy to celebrate Maccioni, a maestro, un real, great maitre", already commented Marchesi himself
Arcangelo Dandini, chef/owner of L'Arcangelo restaurant in Rome, neighborhood Prati, will replace Enrico and Roberto Cerea in the Roma Food&Wine Festival, on Friday May 17th from 7 to 10 pm. Dandini will prepaire Pollo alla romana, Chicken Roman style
La Plage Resort in Taormina (Messina) is going to host five dinners signed by important Italian chefs: first appointment, May 21th with Pietro D'Agostino of Taormina's Capinera; June 18th with Angelo Sabatelli of Masseria Spina in Monopoli (Bari), July 16th with Paolo Barrale of Marennà in Sorbo Serpico (Avellino), August 6th with Marco Sacco of Piccolo Lago in Verbania and September 2nd with Roy Caceres of Metamorfosi in Rome
Massimo Bottura and Marta Pulini's dishes in Milan. You might taste them from May 17th to 25th at Caffè Carlyle in corso Garibaldi 84, Brera neighborhood. The Cafè will host the special temporary restaurant of Franceschetta 58, Modena's more easy-going restaurant of the notorious chef. Every dish in the menu will cost 15 euro; 45 euro for 3 dishes. Booking at +39.02.29003888 at ristorazione@brerahotels.it
Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food movement and of Università degli Studi di Scienze Gastronomiche in Pollenzo, and also a columnist of Repubblica newspaper, has just been awarded with the Birra Moretti award for spreading food culture, an important award that is part of Il Premiolino, promoted by Birra Moretti itself. Together with Petrini, other journalists were awarded: read who here
The name is Winter Garden by Caino and it's the new fine dining restaurant of The St. Regis Florence: the menu was conceived by Valeria Piccini, chef of notorious Da Caino in Montemerano, near Grosseto, while Michele Griglio is the executive chef. The wine menu is signed by maitre and sommelier Mirko Eutizi, together with Maurizio Menichetti. There's the intention to offer an authentic resume of gastronomic culture of Tuscany
A good news for Bergamo restaurant scene: M1lle Storie e Sapori, address viale Papa Giovanni XXIII 18, is the new place of Giampaolo Stefanetti, a chef who has worked for more than 30 years beside Cerea family, between Bergamo and Brusaporto. The cuisine, marked by affordable prices, is mainly fish-oriented, there's a wine-cellar rich with champagne and a little shop selling great products. Lighter menu at lunch, phone +39.035.4220121
On April 28th 2013 Harrods welcomed guests to Identità London - The Lunch of a Lifetime. Video by Harrods (3' 36") |
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On December 2010, as he turned 30 years old, Matteo Torretta turned back and thought: «I could just work as a cook». A salvation if you grew up in Rho town, in Milan suburb. A natural step if you are watching, as a little guy, your grandmother and mother from Apulia non-stop baking orecchiette pasta, bread, panzerotti and mountains of other fantastic stuff. «I was chosen by my job». At that point he had to be skilled enough to enter the more conducive slinding doors .
Let’s follow his steps: he graduated at Milan’s Carlo Porta Hotel management school in 2000. Then he immediately went on stage at Gualtiero Marchesi's Albereta : it was just after the army «but I could not tell the difference between the two experiences». After wriggling out tons of shrimps, he decided to go partying in Paris, but the cook’s inner voice used to wet his pillow at night. Perbellini called him to his restaurant near Verona and here, for the first time, Torretta explored the fascinating horizons of pastry art: «I was shocked as I saw a 70 years old dough». In a year and a half working at Milan’s Cracco-Peck he learned how to cook with «elegance mixed with rigor», after which he snapped the Italian cooking-as-you-must cuisine at Villa Crespi with chef Tonino Cannavacciuolo: «great pastas, great risottos, great tastes». The most important leap off came in 2005 at Martin Berasategui in Lasarte.
As he passed the entrance the door, the 3 Michelin stars Basque genius came straight up to the young Italian: «If you want to be a chef you must first learn to be a person». And they started drinking together cuba libre. But the day later he realized that it had nothing to do with laziness and fun: work, work and work. Trapped into an impersonal mechanism («you could replace me with my mother in the kitchen and the result did not change), Torretta started his climb from stageur to chef de partie in less than 3 months. Which then became 4 years. He returned home. It was time to awaken a sleeping giant, Milan’s Savini , that called him after a few months in the wheelhouse: as Torretta became chef, less than 28 years old, he used to alternate traditional cuisine to a more whimsical style «which is still traditional, but a bit lighter». Ended the Savini experience, today he thinks of Food Art on the Navigli neighborhood. Waiting for another, wider door to be open.
Has participated in Un risotto per Milanoborn in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, he's been working as a co-author and coordinator of both Identità Web and Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook for the past 7 years
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