Speaker 1: Hello, Brion and welcome to Repertorio Felix. I'd like to
Speaker 1: introduce today's event. For more than thirty years, the River
Speaker 1: Cafe in London has been the home from home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors,
Speaker 1: writers and politicians. On River Cafe Table four, chef and
Speaker 1: owner of the River Cafe, Ruth Rogers sits down with
Speaker 1: her customers to talk about food memories and today we're
Speaker 1: excited to welcome our guests Masimo Bateura and Lara Gilmour
Speaker 1: for this very special live recording of the podcast. Massimo
Speaker 1: Bitura is the chef patron of Osteria Francescana, a globally
Speaker 1: celebrated three Michelin star restaurant based in Modern Italy, where
Speaker 1: he grew up. Lara Gilmour is a fine art major, restauranteur,
Speaker 1: author and hotelier. Their new book, Slow Food, Fast Cars
Speaker 1: tells the story and shares recipes from the dylic eighty
Speaker 1: eighth century guest house Casa Maria Lujia.
Speaker 2: Welcome, It's so good to be here.
Speaker 3: There are twenty regions in Italy, from Piedmonte in the
Speaker 3: north to Sicily.
Speaker 2: In the south.
Speaker 3: This is a fact but let me tell you about
Speaker 3: twenty first region. The region next to Amelia Romana is warm,
Speaker 3: it's welcoming, and it's inclusive. The food has its roots
Speaker 3: in tradition. The views are stunning. A love of the
Speaker 3: arts is everywhere. Ethics and social justice a priority. When
Speaker 3: you're there, you'll never want to leave, though if you do,
Speaker 3: there's no speed limit for fast cars. The region I'm
Speaker 3: describing is not a place but two people, Massimo Guitour
Speaker 3: and Lara Gilmore, of course, known about this region for years,
Speaker 3: but only since last Thursday, when a table was booked
Speaker 3: in the River Cafe.
Speaker 2: Did I experience them.
Speaker 3: The excitement of Massimo and Laura, creative director and three
Speaker 3: star Michelin four star mission the chef coming to the
Speaker 3: restaurant was huge, and I have to admit that I
Speaker 3: canceled a theater date to pick up the shift so
Speaker 3: to be there for this momentous occasion. The chefs in
Speaker 3: the kitchen stopped on my behalf to organize a competition
Speaker 3: guessing what they would order girld squid tag itatelli with porcini,
Speaker 3: wood rose to turbot and no dessert. A few days later,
Speaker 3: we went to hear Masimo and Lara tell Apack Lecture
Speaker 3: Theater in the Victorian Albert Museum. Their story of starting
Speaker 3: Osteria Francescana and Klaza Luigi, their ambitions, their values, their
Speaker 3: love for hospitality, and their love for each each other.
Speaker 3: It was an astonishing hour. Today we're here for a
Speaker 3: live podcast of Ruthie's Table four to talk with Massimo
Speaker 3: and Laura, co authors of the just published and fantastic
Speaker 3: book Slow Food, Fast Charge. They are heroes to chefs everywhere.
Speaker 3: They are my new friends, and they are the twenty
Speaker 3: first region of Italy.
Speaker 4: Wow, can't can't no.
Speaker 2: I would never say no to you. Of course you can.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It was written from the heart.
Speaker 3: And I think that in the regions of Italy are
Speaker 3: so important. But for me, having lived there, having worked there,
Speaker 3: having a family, I'd say that it's not region to region.
Speaker 3: It's city to city, it's town to town, village to village,
Speaker 3: and in our case, family to family, and even another case,
Speaker 3: sister to sister, brother the brother. And I remember once
Speaker 3: this is I want you to carry on that I
Speaker 3: was in our house in the Valdorca and we were
Speaker 3: going to do a poor ketta. And I went to
Speaker 3: the butcher and he said, how are you going to
Speaker 3: cook it? And I said, you think you're talking to anybody,
Speaker 3: you know, I am a chef. And so I said, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to take sea salt and fennel seed and
Speaker 3: I'm going to do to do And he went, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no, that's what they do in Sienna. Now Sienna
Speaker 3: was forty miles away, you know, And so I think
Speaker 3: that close. Is that pride and that interest in where
Speaker 3: you're from over to here?
Speaker 4: When I'm here, you know, I got like, I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm not cooking the I'm from moderna. Yeah, we won
Speaker 4: against and we keep winning. So is there a modernes? Almost?
Speaker 4: Not everything hand chop the right piece is very here.
Speaker 4: There you have like some pork, some cuts, some beef,
Speaker 4: bone marrow, very complicated Bolognese. It's just pork. Come on.
Speaker 5: It's so much about identity from one table to the next.
Speaker 6: Even in a town like Modna.
Speaker 5: The Tourtelini are different, The talia tel are different, thinner, thicker,
Speaker 5: cut in a different way.
Speaker 6: The ragou you're filling in the tordelini.
Speaker 5: And as an American coming over to Italy thirty years ago.
Speaker 5: This is my thirtieth anniversary in Moderna. I arrived in
Speaker 5: the fall of nineteen ninety three for Masima's birthday. I
Speaker 5: fell in love with that making everything personal. A meal
Speaker 5: is a personal tribute to your mother, your grandmother, what
Speaker 5: you learned, what was passed on, and then.
Speaker 6: You've mixed it all together.
Speaker 5: I think those traditions are so important to keep alive.
Speaker 5: What you said about the twenty first region, Masthewon and
Speaker 5: I creating this not only a property we invite people into,
Speaker 5: not only the restaurants, but our imagination has been added
Speaker 5: to the landscape, to the ingredients, to the artisans to.
Speaker 6: Create something that is unique.
Speaker 5: And when we have our guests come in, we want
Speaker 5: them to have that feeling that they're in a very
Speaker 5: special place, a moment in time, passing it with us.
Speaker 3: And do you think back though, because you grew up
Speaker 3: in Amelia, Ramona, you grew up in New York. Are
Speaker 3: you constantly referring to both of your backgrounds?
Speaker 4: Of course I grew up in Moderna, and of course
Speaker 4: it's like this to me, I'm acting a very local.
Speaker 4: You know, we built a relationship with our farmer's, fisherman, cheesemaker,
Speaker 4: our artisans, everyone around in the area. But we are
Speaker 4: acting very global, very open mind, you know, as I
Speaker 4: learned since I was in New York and I met
Speaker 4: Lara first time and she introduced me to contemporary art
Speaker 4: and she was saying, I said, no, my art is
Speaker 4: over after the champ and I said, no, you have
Speaker 4: to look much deeper. You have to look do you
Speaker 4: have to understand when it's done this, when it was
Speaker 4: done that, why the artist is And since then everything changed.
Speaker 4: We are acting in a very low but imagine in
Speaker 4: the last tasting menu in auster reference as Kana, we
Speaker 4: have the Tortellini, you know, like I opened the kitchen
Speaker 4: and the creative process for all our sixty five chefs.
Speaker 4: They are working there, sixty five for thirty covers to
Speaker 4: express and rebuild our history of forty years in auster
Speaker 4: reference as Kana, but filtered by a contemporary mind and
Speaker 4: the culture biodiversity of each one of them. And the
Speaker 4: first course that Korean chef came out with the idea
Speaker 4: was the Tortellini are walking on the broth. I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: this is gonna be They're gonna still crucify me.
Speaker 2: Walking moor, you know, walking out, swimming, you know.
Speaker 4: But the tortellini, the tort you know, instead of being tortellini,
Speaker 4: they're like dumpling. They wants to be tortellini.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Imagine, imagine the locals eating dumpling up up there, like
Speaker 4: walking in the middle of the broth, standing there with
Speaker 4: Korean toasted nori, creamy sauce, cured eggs in the middle.
Speaker 4: But what I keep saying to all the locals they come, imagine,
Speaker 4: you know, the Asians, the people they travel, they try
Speaker 4: the dumpling better than any dumpling because the mixture and
Speaker 4: the tortellini is made with the best product of emilie romania,
Speaker 4: like parmigiano but also proshutto but also mortadella, but also
Speaker 4: the balance between veal and pork, but also some bone
Speaker 4: marrow but also some nutmeg. You know, extremely complicated, but
Speaker 4: extremely balance. And you go there and you feel these
Speaker 4: little dumplings that come up like that and they stand
Speaker 4: there in the middle of the broad is going to
Speaker 4: be an incredible message for everyone. Yeah, but the tortelliniar buttery.
Speaker 4: Yeah that sound okay.
Speaker 5: To give it some context, the new menu and Oscar
Speaker 5: of Franciscana, Massimo challenged the whole team to look at
Speaker 5: our most iconic dishes, the ones that are in never
Speaker 5: trust the skinny Italian chef, and each individual on the
Speaker 5: team was given the opportunity to reinterpret them, choosing whatever
Speaker 5: they wanted. Choi, this Korean chef chose to reinterpret the tortellini.
Speaker 5: And so for us, it has been such an amazing
Speaker 5: year because all of a sudden, we're seeing the dishes
Speaker 5: that we know and love, have written about and talked
Speaker 5: about through someone else's eyes. And so it's very interesting
Speaker 5: after all these years twenty eight and Aster of Franciscana,
Speaker 5: that we're still up to being playful and to taking
Speaker 5: risks and to trying to see something from a different.
Speaker 2: Point of view. Well, a different point of view.
Speaker 3: We can also talk about, and we have much to
Speaker 3: talk about, is seasonality. And as you know, in this
Speaker 3: little podcast that we do, we ask chefs to read
Speaker 3: their own recipes. Most everybody else reads a recipe from
Speaker 3: one of our books, but we asked you to choose
Speaker 3: a recipe, and the recipe that you chose to read
Speaker 3: is a recipe for pairs.
Speaker 5: As a North American who moved thirty years ago to Italy.
Speaker 5: Our head chef, Jessica Roosevelt, who wrote the recipes for
Speaker 5: Slow Food Festcars, is another North American. She's from Montreal,
Speaker 5: and she and I definitely had a bonding over this
Speaker 5: project because I kept asking jess who is in Austria,
Speaker 5: Franciscana working in a three star Misison restaurant in her
Speaker 5: free time, if she could come by to Cosmi Luigia
Speaker 5: helped design the kitchen, help me do interviews to find
Speaker 5: a head chef. The more time she spent at Cosmer Luigia,
Speaker 5: I had already planted a vegetable garden and so we
Speaker 5: had some Brussels sprouts coming up, and she wanted to
Speaker 5: learn how to use our wood fired oven, and so
Speaker 5: day by day, as she spent more time there, I
Speaker 5: realized she was never going to find a head chef
Speaker 5: because she wanted of the job herself. And it's been
Speaker 5: an extraordinary collaboration because both of us fell in love
Speaker 5: with moderna. We've tried to look at the ingredients, the
Speaker 5: traditions from a distance from our completely different cultural upbringing
Speaker 5: and sometimes seeing them in a way that the Modernese
Speaker 5: don't see them like cootequino. We serve for breakfast, and
Speaker 5: it is so delicious cooked under the wood burning oven.
Speaker 5: So this comes from our breakfast recipes, but of course
Speaker 5: they can be served any time of the day. We
Speaker 5: cook these pears in an iron cast skillet and finish
Speaker 5: them off in the woodburning oven. If you don't have
Speaker 5: a woodburnning oven, you can also just do it over.
Speaker 6: You can do it, you can. It just might not
Speaker 6: taste the same.
Speaker 4: So it's a good way to sell books right you
Speaker 4: get out.
Speaker 5: This recipe is from the cookbook Slow Food Fastcars. Pears
Speaker 5: serve six three pairs one hundred and twenty grams cane sugar,
Speaker 5: six tablespoons of saba, four sprigs of rosemary, pinch of
Speaker 5: flaky sea salt. Preheat a wood oven to two hundred
Speaker 5: and twenty degrees. Cut each pear into eight wedges, remove
Speaker 5: the cores and seeds. Place them in a twelve inch
Speaker 5: cast iron skillet, cut sides up. Sprinkle the sugar and
Speaker 5: the four tablespoons of saba on top. Add one tablespoon
Speaker 5: of water to prevent the fruit from drying out. Insert
Speaker 5: the rosemary between the pear slices. Cook until golden about
Speaker 5: twelve minutes, take the pears off the oven, drizzle with
Speaker 5: the remaining saba, Sprinkle with salt, and serve warm.
Speaker 3: I always say a recipe is part poetry and part science,
Speaker 3: isn't it? It is poetry and that's beautifully red. Can
Speaker 3: you tell us about saba?
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, but first I have to talk about breakfast.
Speaker 4: Christ to me, we did this, I.
Speaker 3: Said, can I just tell you that I really did
Speaker 3: think when I heard them at the VNA, that I
Speaker 3: could ask one question and come and join you.
Speaker 4: You know, we did. We did that. You know, we
Speaker 4: were like, we were like we were recording a masterclus.
Speaker 2: I am kind of the boss, I know.
Speaker 4: I know, but now listen, listen to this. We were
Speaker 4: talking about that we were recording master class, me and Taka,
Speaker 4: you know, and Jessica behind the scene. I prepare everything,
Speaker 4: and the director was keep asking questions now because you know,
Speaker 4: I get lost into my ideas. So at one point
Speaker 4: we were playing something with Parmijano, so he said from
Speaker 4: behind the scene, but can you tell us about how
Speaker 4: many grams of Parmigano regiano you're putting in the recipe?
Speaker 4: And I was looking at him, and you didn't understand anything,
Speaker 4: you know, because it's not about how many grams of parmichano,
Speaker 4: it's about your mental palette. And I start talking and
Speaker 4: explaining how to pick the right parmichano for forty minutes
Speaker 4: and they were still recording, and it was like, I
Speaker 4: just ask how many grums.
Speaker 5: I think it was the first time that I heard
Speaker 5: a chef a masterclass say you have to tune your
Speaker 5: mental palette. I mean, it's like your little jimminy cricket there.
Speaker 5: But mass talking about it forever since I first met him.
Speaker 5: I think when we met in Cafe Diinona in nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety three, when we kind of ran into each other
Speaker 5: in this little restaurant, he started talking about the mental palette,
Speaker 5: and I thought, who is this skuydam.
Speaker 4: But it's so easy because it's like, if you get
Speaker 4: a parmigenero regiana, it's not the same permigano from autumn
Speaker 4: or winter or spring, because it's aging a different way,
Speaker 4: because the animals they eat the different food, et cetera,
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. It's completely different. So how can
Speaker 4: you say thirty grams of parmigen regiana just listen to
Speaker 4: your palette? Your palette is telling you how many grams
Speaker 4: of parmigener reigiana you have to put. Okay, back to saba.
Speaker 4: Saba is the must. Actually, since we are in Maria Luigia,
Speaker 4: we make our own mast with our own vineyard of
Speaker 4: trebiano dspana. It's very important, like the white grape full
Speaker 4: of sugar, but also vanilia, but also back taste that
Speaker 4: reminds you of cricots and peaches. We harvest, we go,
Speaker 4: we press very softly to get in fiore the little
Speaker 4: soft press. Let him sit for a while to get
Speaker 4: extremely clean. At this point we boil very very mild,
Speaker 4: like sixty nine seventy degrees and once is reduced in
Speaker 4: the right way. Because it's all about tasting. It depends
Speaker 4: of the year, it depends on the harvest, it depends
Speaker 4: the water, and everything could be between thirty and fifty percent.
Speaker 4: You have the saba, and that's the best thing ever.
Speaker 4: I still remember one Christmas we were stealing the key
Speaker 4: from the pocket of my grandmother because she was the
Speaker 4: only one who had the key to go upstairs and
Speaker 4: open the door where all the vinegar and the saba
Speaker 4: was sinning. On Christmas time, during a very big snow storm.
Speaker 4: We stolen a little bit of saba. We went downstairs.
Speaker 4: We put the snow in the in the in the
Speaker 4: in a in a in a glass, poor the saba,
Speaker 4: mixing and eating slow a saba.
Speaker 3: So this is memory is a delinquent child, right, This
Speaker 3: is this is a new form of rebellion that we
Speaker 3: see is in in an Italian house where this is
Speaker 3: what two naughty children get up to. You know, they
Speaker 3: take the saba, they take the snow and they enjoy it.
Speaker 3: Did your grandmother find out that you had done it?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: And so I think that brings up a kind of
Speaker 3: cultural idea of what food is about, growing up taking
Speaker 3: the saba, of having your grandmother's cooking.
Speaker 2: Did you grow up with an American version of that?
Speaker 5: So I did not grow up with a grandmother doing
Speaker 5: much cooking. But in the early years my parents met
Speaker 5: in Washington, d c. My dad was an editor for
Speaker 5: a newspaper and got invited to a lot of embassy dinners.
Speaker 5: And my mother was a very curious cook. Not only
Speaker 5: was she number one fan of Julia Child, but she
Speaker 5: would always sneak behind the kitchen of the embassy dinners,
Speaker 5: whether it was the Chinese embassy, Japanese embassy.
Speaker 6: Indian embassy, and she'd get the recipe.
Speaker 5: So later she became a host many different dinner parties
Speaker 5: at home. That's when I began my culinary career in
Speaker 5: the kitchen, serving as a ten year old, making sure
Speaker 5: the rice pealof didn't burn, cleaning the dishes. But she
Speaker 5: was always an adventurous cook, and so I think that
Speaker 5: my sister and I really got this sense of food
Speaker 5: is a way that you can travel.
Speaker 6: You don't have to get on an airplane.
Speaker 5: You can start cooking, you can start smelling how different
Speaker 5: spices fill up a kitchen, and in your imagination, you
Speaker 5: can go anywhere through food. And so she gave us
Speaker 5: that curiosity. She also taught me that my first job,
Speaker 5: I should work as a waitress, and I worked in
Speaker 5: a friendly is This ice Cream diner when I rand
Speaker 5: was sixteen years old, and ever since then, it was
Speaker 5: just she just set.
Speaker 4: Me up to meet my and you actually missus Gilmore.
Speaker 4: She's amazing. She's an amazing and.
Speaker 3: Was your grandmother or your mother or both of them
Speaker 3: great cooks?
Speaker 4: Who was My grandmother was really bad cook because she
Speaker 4: had to cook for the old family. My mom. She
Speaker 4: was an amazing cook because she loved to cook. That's
Speaker 4: a very important difference, because cooking is an act of love.
Speaker 4: As I always right to remind all the young chefs
Speaker 4: that I met, it's all about love. It's all about
Speaker 4: what you serve, you know, I keep saying to everyone
Speaker 4: in Australia, in Marie Louise and Franciscan and got to
Speaker 4: where the you know, serving good food is one thing,
Speaker 4: Serving emotion is another thing. It's gonna stay with you forever,
Speaker 4: and that's a very important part. But the breakfast was
Speaker 4: inspired by my grandmother, by her choice. She was cooking
Speaker 4: one day here with lots of love. Was Christmas Day.
Speaker 4: She was waking up very early, woodburn oven, cooking everything.
Speaker 4: We are preparing and serving the breakfast for everyone for
Speaker 4: the old family. Same we are serving now at Maria
Speaker 4: Luisa's breakfast fried though with mortadella, some frite tatine in
Speaker 4: the woodburn oven, with a very slow cooking onion, finished
Speaker 4: with some balsamic vinegar on top, some cotecino under the ashes,
Speaker 4: with zabai on top, erbasone or other different kishe you
Speaker 4: know whatever, you know, all these kind of savory and sweet,
Speaker 4: because Emilia cuisine has always been about savory and sweetness
Speaker 4: and this is what was like this, and we challenge
Speaker 4: zz to repeat this kind of breakfast every day because,
Speaker 4: as we said in Maria Luisa, we want an experience
Speaker 4: that is different from any other hotel in the world.
Speaker 4: We want the kitchen always open with parmigiano and lambrusco
Speaker 4: on top of the counter, so you can go there
Speaker 4: and eat parmigana and musca and you understand you are
Speaker 4: in Moderna, but also breakfast has to be an experience
Speaker 4: like we want Christmas every day in Moderna for our guests,
Speaker 4: and our guests enjoy so much they stay. They spend
Speaker 4: a couple of hours there having a cappuccino and then
Speaker 4: batsona and another cappuccino and some cotechino and uh and
Speaker 4: s brizilona, you know this kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: The River Cafe is excited to announce the return of
Speaker 7: our Italian Christmas gift boxes, our alternative to the traditional hamper.
Speaker 7: We bring you all of our favorites from the River Cafe, kitchen,
Speaker 7: vineyards and the designers from all over Italy. They're available
Speaker 7: to pre order now on shop the River Cafe dot
Speaker 7: co dot UK.
Speaker 2: Did you grow up with breakfast?
Speaker 5: So I grew up with typical pancakes, bacon, eggs. However,
Speaker 5: when I go back my mother's in Colorado now, when
Speaker 5: I go to visit her at Christmas time, the one
Speaker 5: meal that I look forward to the most is we
Speaker 5: recreate this Sunday brunch kind of like your breakfast that
Speaker 5: you had at Christmas time, and we'll make creps and
Speaker 5: salmon and eggs, and so there's that sort of celebration
Speaker 5: in that breakfast. I didn't grow up with an everyday
Speaker 5: breakfast like that, but Sundays were always a special moment.
Speaker 5: My dad, who worked a lot, was the pancake maker.
Speaker 5: So I have this very fond nostalgic feeling every time
Speaker 5: I eat a pancake because he was the.
Speaker 6: One who did the flipping.
Speaker 3: So there you are, your father, and the memories did
Speaker 3: he cook other than.
Speaker 4: Just I'll tell this story about it, Doug, tell the story.
Speaker 2: About the.
Speaker 6: No you tell them.
Speaker 4: One of the things you know. One of the things
Speaker 4: that you know in moderna you eat is bollito missa.
Speaker 4: Of course, blitto misto, and the things that I love
Speaker 4: the most in Bolitto misto is a real tongue, you know,
Speaker 4: and these.
Speaker 6: Are things that Americans do not grow up well.
Speaker 4: And mister Gilmore, no, never, never, you know. So my
Speaker 4: sister's wedding I cooked for my sister wedding, the only
Speaker 4: wedding I cooked for. At the end of the meal,
Speaker 4: I was serving like everything like tortellini, lasagne, crunchy part
Speaker 4: or whatever, A little bit of avant garde, a little
Speaker 4: bit classic, but bolitto misto. I picked the tongue and
Speaker 4: testina and I was served with all these different sauces.
Speaker 4: And at the end of the meal, I went to
Speaker 4: the table of mister and missus Gilmore and I was asking, so,
Speaker 4: mister Gilmore, did you like the the you know, the
Speaker 4: bolitto misto massimo. I love it. I love that. And
Speaker 4: I said, wow, I'm very happy. You know what mean
Speaker 4: was that? I said, uh, veal tongue. You look at me,
Speaker 4: you look at me with the face. What did the answer?
Speaker 4: You know, make sure you don't invite me. And you
Speaker 4: more more when you when you cook that kind.
Speaker 6: Of stuff, you know, never invite me again.
Speaker 4: That's why I keep saying to everyone, listen to your palette,
Speaker 4: because your palette is telling you the things and give
Speaker 4: a chance. It's very important to try to try and
Speaker 4: understand that how do you.
Speaker 3: Feel when you go to other regions of Italy if
Speaker 3: you go to Pulia, if you go to Tuscany, if
Speaker 3: you go to Naples, how do you feel about the
Speaker 3: other regional food of your country.
Speaker 5: For me, it's an amazing discover and I love to
Speaker 5: I get really curious how they treat the same vegetable.
Speaker 5: Do their peppers completely differently, their potatoes completely differently?
Speaker 6: They use different herbs and.
Speaker 5: Spices, and we love to bring a lot of that
Speaker 5: also into the kitchen of Cousin Luigion, we make a traponese,
Speaker 5: which is a sacily kind of pesto and completely different
Speaker 5: from the Genova pasto. And that makes you understand also
Speaker 5: that a pesto is an idea. It's not a recipe.
Speaker 5: It's a way of putting together whatever you have that
Speaker 5: could be your mint and your almonds, or you know,
Speaker 5: your basil. So I learned so much by going to
Speaker 5: other regions. And I've been in Italy for thirty years
Speaker 5: and I still feel like.
Speaker 6: I get in my car and drive.
Speaker 2: I have so much to discover. Did you travel when
Speaker 2: you were a child, did your parents take you to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all over, all over from my point of view,
Speaker 4: like look at Italy and the regions. I got three
Speaker 4: regions that are extremely important for me. Sicily, it's very
Speaker 4: very south almost Africa, you know, like in the middle
Speaker 4: of Mediterrano, with incredible, incredible tasty things like the capers
Speaker 4: from Pantelleria. They're lightly sold by the wind Costierra Marfitana
Speaker 4: sun and wind with you know, these lemons, these all
Speaker 4: these flavors from Costilla and Pimonte, completely different one from
Speaker 4: the other. And I got so many inspirations, so many
Speaker 4: ingredients that I use in a million cuisine and introduce
Speaker 4: in a million cuisine because they are so tasty and important.
Speaker 4: Urtiness like nuts, you know, hazel as nuts, or like
Speaker 4: the almond from Notto. They are both incredible. Like imagine, oops,
Speaker 4: I dropped the lemontade. It's all about those ingredients.
Speaker 2: You know about Oops, I dropped the lemon tar. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We do a really bush raw version of this, which
Speaker 3: is that we make a lemon custard and then we
Speaker 3: put it in the pastry, and then we put it
Speaker 3: in the wood oven, and then we read about no, no, no,
Speaker 3: this is you know, this is really bush raw, and
Speaker 3: so what we want to know is, oops, I dropped the.
Speaker 4: Lemon ta Oops, I dropped the lemontarde. There is a
Speaker 4: line of flavor that you can pick and mix with
Speaker 4: the lemon, the smashed lemon tarde. They're like the range
Speaker 4: of flavor of south of Italy. You have the oregano
Speaker 4: from Pulia, the spicy pepper from Basilicata, the almond from Notto,
Speaker 4: capers from Pantelleria, sweet and salty, the bergamods from Calabria,
Speaker 4: the lemon from Sorrento. All these flavors are the range
Speaker 4: of flavor of south of Italy. So to me, when
Speaker 4: it was so natural when I saw Taka smashing the lemontage,
Speaker 4: can you tell.
Speaker 2: The story what happened.
Speaker 4: It's a good story, tell all right. So it was
Speaker 4: a lunch, last service. Two seats. You know, we were
Speaker 4: like ready to serve these two gastas. One of them
Speaker 4: was a journalist in the middle of the room. At
Speaker 4: one point, the old kitchen was already there, like cleaning.
Speaker 4: The radio was not you know, pushing, but music was there,
Speaker 4: and Taka was ready. Taka is my Japanese. You know,
Speaker 4: the Japanese are incredible, but they don't manage their rational Okay,
Speaker 4: they imagined their everyday life, but not their rational. So
Speaker 4: he was there to serve the two lemon tard that
Speaker 4: they already break the border between sweet and savory. I
Speaker 4: was in the kitchen, look at the guys and the cleaning,
Speaker 4: and everyone froze. You know, it was like WHOA. I
Speaker 4: turned left and I saw Taka like this there was
Speaker 4: completely frozen with one end with the other tart in
Speaker 4: his hand. He had some kitchen tools in the left,
Speaker 4: you know, And I lookt at the bottom on the
Speaker 4: counter and one of the two lemon tards was smashed
Speaker 4: in the plate and it couldn't it couldn't move, you know,
Speaker 4: And everyone was looking at Taka because Taka is Taka.
Speaker 4: It never made a mistake. Is a Japanese you know,
Speaker 4: it cannot make mistake and it's not allowed to make mistakes.
Speaker 4: And you know he made one. It made a mistake,
Speaker 4: and you know, I was like, Taca, you are a genius.
Speaker 4: You found the perfect way to express the imperfection, because
Speaker 4: you know, south of Italy, it's all about South of Italy.
Speaker 4: South of Italy is the most imperfect place in the world,
Speaker 4: you know. But depends on what kind of ice you
Speaker 4: use to look at South of Italy. And everyone in
Speaker 4: the kitchen was looking at me and they said, what
Speaker 4: did he smoke? You know, you know, I was like
Speaker 4: when I went crazy because I had to solve the problem,
Speaker 4: because we had to serve the two tart. I said, okay, okay, okay, guys,
Speaker 4: let's do exactly the same thing. Taca smashed the tart
Speaker 4: exactly in the same way you smashed the first one.
Speaker 4: I couldnot why because I don't know the idea. So
Speaker 4: take the tart and smash it exactly as that. So
Speaker 4: what we have done, you know, like we we rebuilt
Speaker 4: the second tart exactly the first one because the flavor
Speaker 4: they were there was the static part that was completely
Speaker 4: fucked up. And so at that point we finished with
Speaker 4: the with the little ice cream there being an ice
Speaker 4: cream you know, on the side, and we saved and
Speaker 4: we said, okay, time to go with the service. And
Speaker 4: the service was there, and no one wants to go
Speaker 4: out with that broken le mortage. No one, no one.
Speaker 4: So I said, okay, I'm going by myself, and and
Speaker 4: you know, I said, okay, you too, come get the
Speaker 4: two tart and I'm coming and explain. So I went out.
Speaker 4: The old room was full, the two server they were there,
Speaker 4: and you know, I said, you know, to good, I
Speaker 4: have to really get be aggressive, you know, And they
Speaker 4: serve the two tart to these two journalists and I start,
Speaker 4: you know, with a lot of emphasis. You know, what
Speaker 4: is Italy Italy? Italy is about the imagine the other tables.
Speaker 4: Italy is about poetry. And what is Thoseteria Francis Kanda
Speaker 4: The Secret of Austeria Frances Kanda, The Secret of Austeriferences Kanda.
Speaker 4: It's about keep always the door open for the unexpected.
Speaker 4: It's about walking to the unexpected and create something unique.
Speaker 4: But always drive driven by poetry, because poetry can make
Speaker 4: visible the invisible. And you know, imagine these two people.
Speaker 4: They were looking at me talking like this and all
Speaker 4: the other they were like. But I was very focused
Speaker 4: on the tart and not thinking about it nothing else.
Speaker 4: So I said, and this is the lemon Arde and
Speaker 4: these two beautiful tart are built in a perfect way,
Speaker 4: but in the imperfect. So what we are doing, we
Speaker 4: are serving and rebuilding in a perfect way the imperfection.
Speaker 4: Because it's the expression of South of Italy, because South
Speaker 4: of Italy is like, yeah, you're late for Capri, but
Speaker 4: when you're in Capri you swim in the Grotta Zura
Speaker 4: and is the most amazing place in the world. So
Speaker 4: the point is what kind of eyes you look at
Speaker 4: things you have? You have poetry or you don't have poetry.
Speaker 4: If you have poetry, you imagine an amazing lemon t Ard.
Speaker 4: If you don't have poetry, is a broken lemont Ard
Speaker 4: for an Italian restaurant like this in a tree mish
Speaker 4: Land Star. What is about poetry serving a broken lemont Ard?
Speaker 2: They buy that.
Speaker 4: Silence, silence, no one. No one was saying one word
Speaker 4: in the room. And at that point one of the
Speaker 4: two start clapping Bravo, Bravo, bravo, and the room start clapping.
Speaker 4: From that moment, that was the oops, I dropped a
Speaker 4: la montage.
Speaker 2: I think that round of the cloth.
Speaker 3: You know, you talked about Julia Child and your mother,
Speaker 3: and I always say that in England, everybody read Elizabeth David,
Speaker 3: which was take a tomato and throw it in the
Speaker 3: pan and make sure it's ripe, and make sure that
Speaker 3: the basil is strong. Whereas Julia Child said, take a
Speaker 3: tomato of a diameter of three inches and make sure
Speaker 3: the basil leaf is four leaves. And but there was
Speaker 3: a precision about Julia Child. I think that taught you.
Speaker 3: If you followed her recipes, you didn't make a mistake,
Speaker 3: and that gave you the confidence then to make a
Speaker 3: mistake because.
Speaker 2: You had the grounding. It's like being able to write poetry.
Speaker 3: You know, if you know automati pier first and then
Speaker 3: you can break away. And I think that you know
Speaker 3: that story comes from a history of rigor and discipline
Speaker 3: ability then to drop something and put it on a plate.
Speaker 5: Exactly when you can't start breaking hors, you have to
Speaker 5: start making them. As Massimo often says, know everything and
Speaker 5: then forget everything, and that's the moment that creativity can happen.
Speaker 5: But you got to know everything first, You have to study.
Speaker 5: You can't improvise in the kitchen. But great chefs can
Speaker 5: take realization and bring it to another level. You know.
Speaker 4: One of the secret of our success after six seven
Speaker 4: years of struggling was to show the locals we can
Speaker 4: cook better than their grandmothers. So one of the key
Speaker 4: point was like making taya ragu. But Picasso was alys
Speaker 4: saying that Pikauso was saying, I was thirteen and I
Speaker 4: was drawing as a Raphaello, so it learned how to
Speaker 4: draw as Rafaelo and it took the old life to
Speaker 4: pain like a kid. That's the point, you know.
Speaker 5: And in a way it brings us full circle to
Speaker 5: the slow food, fast cars and the recipes, because this
Speaker 5: book is not the three star Mischlin provocateur chef trying
Speaker 5: to change the way you see the world, but saying
Speaker 5: I have all this experience and I want to share
Speaker 5: the recipes that are close to me.
Speaker 6: I want to share the breakfast that I had growing up.
Speaker 5: What I share, what we share with our guests coming
Speaker 5: to Cosmo Luigia, taking something seasonal, simple like pairs and
Speaker 5: making it delicious and having this other layer of flavor.
Speaker 6: You could serve it for breakfast, for.
Speaker 5: Lunch, for tea, and that kind of inviting people in
Speaker 5: to participate and be part of our world.
Speaker 3: When I was describing the twenty first region of Italy,
Speaker 3: I also describe values and the ethics, the way that
Speaker 3: you give back to the people who are there who
Speaker 3: may not be able to partake of the kind of
Speaker 3: restaurants that I do, that you do, and I think
Speaker 3: it's very moving story about how what you see the
Speaker 3: place that we're in right now, and how that relates
Speaker 3: to what you see in your values of being an
Speaker 3: owner and a chef and a creative director of a
Speaker 3: very beautiful restaurant. How does the Refertorio sell into this story.
Speaker 5: Today we're in this beautiful space called Refertorio Felix and
Speaker 5: it's located in Earl's Court. It's a project that we
Speaker 5: opened in twenty seventeen, but everything began many years before that.
Speaker 5: I'd like to think that it began when we got
Speaker 5: our third Michelin Star. We've been working so hard for
Speaker 5: almost seventeen years to finally get that third Michelin Star.
Speaker 6: And when they give it to you that there's.
Speaker 5: A jacket and it's been embroidered on it the three stars,
Speaker 5: and Massimo had to hang it in our bedroom just
Speaker 5: to believe when he woke up in the morning we
Speaker 5: went to bed at night, that he had actually accomplished that,
Speaker 5: you know, incredible challenge and mission and dream. But it
Speaker 5: was probably, you know, the third or the fourth morning
Speaker 5: that we woke up with the chef jacket hanging in
Speaker 5: our bedroom that we looked at that jacket and I
Speaker 5: don't remember who started the conversation, But we came to
Speaker 5: the conclusion that those stars really only had value if
Speaker 5: we did something with them, if we use the voice
Speaker 5: that we had worked so hard to get to fight
Speaker 5: for our artisans, our fishmongers and cheesemakers. But more than that,
Speaker 5: what could we do to make more of good food
Speaker 5: for more people? And I think what we tried to
Speaker 5: do with our Food for Soul project, which started in
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen with Expo. There was the earthquake that same year,
Speaker 5: so we've been on a kind of a mission of
Speaker 5: our own just to make people sensitive that everyone deserves
Speaker 5: good food.
Speaker 6: How can we do that?
Speaker 5: Fighting food waste is so important. There's so much food
Speaker 5: that's coming surplus food from supermarkets, and many times it's
Speaker 5: being thrown away or even worse burned, creating more emissions.
Speaker 5: And if we can salvage that and create a delicious
Speaker 5: and healthy meal for people in need, it doesn't fill
Speaker 5: their bellies, but it's also a way of bringing people
Speaker 5: around the table, and we know that around the table
Speaker 5: the most incredible things happen. Healing begins when you sit
Speaker 5: down at a table with others.
Speaker 4: So that's food for soul in a Google research. They
Speaker 4: found out that we produce foods for twelve billion people.
Speaker 4: We are seven point five on Earth, eight hundred and
Speaker 4: sixty million people. They don't have anything to eat. We
Speaker 4: waste thirty three percent of what we produce, So that
Speaker 4: means it's just insane because we use water, electricity, human
Speaker 4: capital to produce food and after that we waste it,
Speaker 4: we burn it, and we become the second cause of
Speaker 4: climate change. That's insane. So it's like, it's not normal.
Speaker 4: We just have to step back and think about what
Speaker 4: you can do with that. So that's what it is.
Speaker 4: And I thought, and we thought since the beginning, let's
Speaker 4: do it, and let's share with everyone and what we need.
Speaker 4: We need the best architects because dream big doesn't cost anything,
Speaker 4: you know, to create beautiful places, because beauty, as Camus
Speaker 4: was always saying and reminds us, with beauty, you don't
Speaker 4: do the revolution, but one day when you're when you
Speaker 4: have to rebuild, you need beauty to rebuild. And beauty
Speaker 4: can rebuild that and give the second chance in life
Speaker 4: to people to fragile souls. This is the difference between
Speaker 4: a classic soup kitchen and our refertorio.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and if I were to ask you if food
Speaker 3: is giving back to people, food is giving happiness, the
Speaker 3: food is alleviating hunger. Food is also comfort. It is comfort.
Speaker 3: And so my last question both of you not be
Speaker 3: what is your last meal that you would have, because
Speaker 3: we don't like that question, but we would say if
Speaker 3: you need and I hope we don't need comfort very much,
Speaker 3: but if you need comfort, if you seek comfort, is
Speaker 3: there food that you would reach for to make you
Speaker 3: feel better.
Speaker 6: My comfort food is risotto. So risotto is the first.
Speaker 5: Italian recipe I learned when I came and studied art
Speaker 5: in Florence and my cousin was living in Florence, and
Speaker 5: I learned how to make a celery risotto. So both
Speaker 5: with cooked celery and raw celery, so it's crunchy and
Speaker 5: it has all the celery flavor, super simple onions, celery, parmegiano,
Speaker 5: nigiano and rice. The broth she didn't even make like
Speaker 5: a chicken broth. She would just throw in the end
Speaker 5: of the celery to make a simple celery broth and
Speaker 5: you have that deep celery flavor. But since then, I mean,
Speaker 5: risotto is the kind of thing you can empty out
Speaker 5: your pantry and.
Speaker 6: Everyone loves a risotto. You make it with what you have,
Speaker 6: and most of all, you make it with love.
Speaker 2: Even the process of making risotto.
Speaker 6: Is because you have to be there, you have to
Speaker 6: be present.
Speaker 5: You know. I've seen some nothing no criticism here, but
Speaker 5: I do have some friends who make the risotto in
Speaker 5: these kind of like thermal mixers and the Bimbi's And I.
Speaker 6: Think, what you've taken, you've taken off.
Speaker 5: You have friends like that human beauty out of staying
Speaker 5: there and watching it's like a hen watching her eggs.
Speaker 6: You're watching your resulto pan.
Speaker 5: And if you walk, if you step away, something's going
Speaker 5: to go wrong. And so it's that kind of focus.
Speaker 5: You're in the kitchen. It doesn't take that long, but
Speaker 5: everyone gathers around.
Speaker 2: You while you're making the result.
Speaker 6: Though, is it done?
Speaker 2: Is it ready?
Speaker 6: Can we eat?
Speaker 3: What is yours? Do you have a food? It can
Speaker 3: be a memory. As I was saying, I have AVENGEVI
Speaker 3: people said of peanut butter and jelly.
Speaker 2: Someone for me, for me, like.
Speaker 4: The comfort food is like open if I'm home, comfort
Speaker 4: food is open the refrigerator and get all these try
Speaker 4: different ingredients that we receive, so many beautiful ingredients from
Speaker 4: all over Italy and not just Italy. So open the refrigerator,
Speaker 4: taste and you know, exercise with the ballet. It's very easy.
Speaker 4: You know, you can do in every refrigerator.
Speaker 2: But we have like proshuto. Yeah, I know, I know,
Speaker 2: but we're saying.
Speaker 4: This is amazing to me. Yeah, but to me, is
Speaker 4: that for yours risotto?
Speaker 6: You know, you know what his comfort food is. I
Speaker 6: know what his comfort is.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, you don't know. You don't know,
Speaker 4: you don't know. I would say, you already answer. I
Speaker 4: would say.
Speaker 5: If we were on a dating game and we were
Speaker 5: like blindfolded and we had to say, what is your
Speaker 5: husband's favorite? What is your husband's comfort food? My answer
Speaker 5: would be pizza for.
Speaker 4: You, pizza because yeah, it's.
Speaker 6: Like because pizza can be anything. You know, once you
Speaker 6: have the dough, what do you have?
Speaker 5: You have Portugue, had porcini and fontina pizza.
Speaker 6: That was so delicious.
Speaker 5: So pizza is also about your.
Speaker 4: No, no, I'm telling you. And if it's traffl season
Speaker 4: right now, just some white travel at the end, you know,
Speaker 4: thank you.
Speaker 2: This is beautiful.
Speaker 3: And as I said, as I said in the beginning,
Speaker 3: I'm coming to the twenty first region of Italy.
Speaker 6: Thank you, embrace you warm let.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, thank you and by this book
Speaker 3: are you all being given them?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Thank you.
Speaker 8: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamai Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 8: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers. It's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 8: Our executive producers are Zad Rogers and Fai Stewart. Our
Speaker 8: production manager is Caitlin Paramore. Special thanks to everyone at
Speaker 8: The River Cafe two