QUALITALY 139

May 2024 XIII MAGAZINE neither erotic nor pornographic but simply revealed without prudery in the anatomical crudity of body and thought. As I watch the chef flaming the mackerel in the cold light of the kitchen, I recover the distant memory of how, as a child, the vision of Spielberg’s E.T. the extraterrestrial filled my eyes with amazed wonder. Once I had grown up, and finally unravelled the mechanisms of the flight by which Elliot’s bike seemed to reach the moon, I added the knowledge of Carlo Rambaldi’s stage tricks and special effects to my manhood but killed the emotion that had filled my eyes with wonder. This is what it is like to watch modern cuisine: a beautiful glimpse of the brigade that brings my indomitable spirit of researcher to recover the vibrant emotion of discovery in the most frozen silence amid pleated uniforms worthy of the Quirinale’s Cuirassiers regiment, clean faces, very short nails, lean and efficient bodies, rigorous gestures, for a falling in love that the modernity of today’s cuisine calls to be very reasoned and cerebral but not lacking in charm. __________________________________ BOX Dinner The tasting menu, which is blind, goes far beyond the Lombardy dishes while welcoming regional comfort food in a gesture of grateful romanticism towards the foods of a childhood full of affection. I sit at the Chef’s Table accompanied by a Champagne Grand Reserve Brut Chateau de Bligny 50% Chardonnay 50% Pinot Noir. We start the tasting with a revolution of Valtellina sciat alla casera battered in buckwheat flour served fried as a savoury puff. The brigade prepares a classic polenta and gorgonzola as a cheese-filled cannoli garnished with chopped hazelnuts. We finish the small appetisers with a concept that fuses two Milanese dishes, schnitzel and osso buco, in a breaded ossobuco croquette with marrow mayonnaise. The tomato and strawberry gazpacho with shrimp tartare owes a touch of spicy frivolity to its nasturtium flowers. Revolutionizing the Roman-style squash blossom that accompanies the gazpacho are crumbly squash blossom crackers that, in Acqua’s rendition, acquire the lofty status of ‘fossils’. The savoury and milky notes of the flowers stuffed according to Roman tradition are gathered in a separate porcelain dish thanks to a double whipped alpine butter with truffle and anchovy tails as an accompaniment. Red prawn, shrimp and langoustine are laid bare on the plate. The langoustine takes precedence for delicate sweetness. It is the young quartirolo, acidic and mellow, that balances the senses. The head of the Mazara red prawn is eaten fried, while the saltiness of the raw meat sets the tone for the accompanying chestnut cream, peaty whisky and celery. Prawns go with pumpkin, lime and chilli guacamole in a reinterpretation in which sage takes the place of coriander. The creamed baccalà honours the chef’s Vicentine grandparents according to a classic recipe that combines the fish with white polenta, crispy sails of yellow polenta bramata, coffee powder and a mayonnaise of milk of creamed baccalà. The mackerel shime shaba swims in a colourful sea that defies the hues of sunset in a fresh green water. Alessandro flames and arranges the marinated mackerel as if they were sails stretched out into the open sea. Tasting it almost disrupts the visual harmony of the dish. Then back to the table. The bread is cereal, barley and linseed. Davide Possoni sits at my side with the same generous availability as his father Pino, curious to know and talk about Acqua’s menu, the wine cellar with its two hundred and more choices of bubbly that we find on the wine list. The service opens with an eel and bergamot risotto made with Carnaroli riserva San Massimo rice whipped with bergamot butter and finished with creamed turnip tops and marigold flowers in which the fattiness of the eel fillets finds a balance in the acidic and aromatic notes in which the chef works the fish. It continues with steamed turbot with a parsley chlorophyll sauce, butter, hazelnut and lemon juice. On a side are very light pommes sufflées, parsley powder and a lightly smoked French-style puree to counteract the acidity of the revisited meunière sauce. The tataki fillet combines Italian fassona meat with Japanese cooking in a shiitake mushroom garnish. Alessandro uses no salt. The savouriness is all in the beef joux flavoured with truffle and soy. The tataki tuna with avocado brûlée sails, redolent, in a vast sea of leche de tigre nikkei with coriander, ginger and aji amarillo. For the desserts, never too sweet, Alessandro leaves the choice to me. Then he suggests a chilli panna cotta topped with yoghurt ice cream, white chocolate puffs with variations of pollen and honey, and offers a crème brûlée with liquorice, Sorrento lemons and black garlic cream that I cannot resist. __________________________________ BOX The cuisine of Menoncin In Menoncin’s cooking there is grace, delicacy, a measured lightness. But it is a lightness that is anything but impalpable. As Paul Valery used to say, ‘one needs the lightness of swallows, not feathers ’. Lightness that is agility, not suspension, because an ethereal kitchen loses materiality It is the gliding over things from above with the swallow’s dart without having burdens in the heart, for free expression. This is how Menoncin’s cuisine removes weight, getting rid of the superfluous, without losing consistency. For a dream of freedom, shiny and light as in the mackerel shime shaba and tuna tataki thanks to light marinades, express cooking and thoughtful sauces aimed at sculpting the taste profile by softening the textures, without excess . Then there are preparations where the ingredients show more muscle, have more torque and express strength and vigour. And here the release of flavours is less muted, in a power-for-power statement, all and sundry, an invasion, a vigorous push that makes all the difference. Thus Menoncin’s kitchen removes weight, freeing itself from the superfluous, without losing consistency. For a dream of freedom, shiny and light as in the mackerel shime shaba and tuna tataki thanks to light marinades, express cooking and weighted sauces aimed at modulating the taste profile by softening the textures, without excess. Then there are preparations where the ingredients show more muscle, have more torque and express strength and vigour. And here the release of flavours is less mediated, in a discourse of power for power’s sake, all and sundry, an invasion, a vigorous push that makes all the difference. __________________________________