Returning to L’Albereta, now that Gualtiero Marchesi is no longer with us, is a trip down memory lane: looking for that room where I first tasted Riso oro e zafferano, or the sitting room where the Maestro of Italian cuisine made himself available for a chat. It’s hard to grasp, but everything has changed since December 31st 2013, when Marchesi last signed the menu at the relais in Franciacorta when they decided to change style, after little over 20 years spent together with Gualtiero, a partnership that started when they first opened, on the 23rd September 1993. Marchesi then decided to leave Milan and join Vittorio Moretti’s project; here he confirmed his extraordinary talent for many years, so that if two restaurants can be linked to his figure, one is surely in Milan, in Via Bonvesin della Riva 9, the other is in Erbusco, in Via Vittorio Emanuele 23.
Abbattista posing with the pages dedicated to him in 100 chef x 10 anni (Mondadori)
Everything changed, as we said. A strategic choice: when
Marchesi left and they handed the kitchen to young
Fabio Abbattista, they needed a sign of change, they needed to stress clearly that there was a before and after. «The hard part was understanding the impact this would have on clients. Hence the restaurant closed for 6 months so as to change its appearance. When we opened again, it was something different». The culinary offer also changed, «there was no point in trying to imitate the past. I am a different person, and I immediately took on the challenge». It was a difficult game, the shadow of
Marchesi accompanied
Abbattista for a long time – it’s now five years precisely, he started to work here in January 2014 – even though this calm guy from Molfetta, born in 1977, realised already in the second season that he had managed to get rid of the heavy legacy: «I perceived it clearly. We had managed to impose a new identity».
Returning to
L’Albereta, now
Gualtiero Marchesi is no longer with us, also means you realise what has changed, and what hasn’t. Memories, first of all, «back in April 2011, on a Sunday – recalls
Abbattista – I wanted to dine at Marchesi’s, I came here to Erbusco, sat at that table. What a magnificent experience!». It wasn’t the first time the Maestro’s grandeur appeared in the life of the young chef from Apulia: «In 1998 I worked as commis at the restaurant of
The Halkin in London (see:
Dining in London, but Elena Arzak’s)», where
Marchesi had offered his consultancy until recently, since 1991, getting a Michelin star in 1995. One of his pupils
Stefano Cavallini was then directing the kitchen (he left in 2011), «I remember the pride I took in being part of that team. It was the first great Italian restaurant abroad, and we had to thank the genius of the Maestro, for what he had built;
Cavallini was there, as well as
Mauro Governato as maître [he’s now the executive manager at the
Four Seasons in Milan] and
Federico Graziani as sommelier [see:
Un sommelier sull'Etna). What a team!».
It’s as if destiny wanted the lives of
Abbattista and
Marchesi to meet on multiple occasions, without a real professional meeting ever taking place: not in London, not at
Albereta for sure, «to think that at the very beginning of my career I sent a cv to Erbusco asking to be part of
Gualtiero’s brigade. They said they had no open positions at the time, so my career took a different direction». That was before leading him to the relais in Franciacorta, this time as chef, and little under a decade later.
Yet, even though Abbattista never worked with Marchesi – in fact he had to exorcise his figure, when he took over – he has to acknowledge what the latter taught, and he has to continue his legacy. The chef says: «My cooking style owes a lot to him, and I’d say this applies to all the greatest Italian chefs». Marchesi still lives, so to speak, at L’Albereta, «and strongly so, in his basic idea, of making Italian cuisine noble, elegant, simple and neat. This remains: the simple genius intuition of how important it was to take our huge culinary heritage, start from there, and then add influences from new products, but never forsaking the Italian character through raw materials, techniques, flavours».
Fabio Abbattista, lesson "A healthy Italian flavour" at Identità Milano 2015
This is what
Abbattista is doing today too. At
Leone Felice, the gourmet restaurant inside
L’Albereta («The name? There was a guardian here, called
Leone, to whom they initially dedicated a vineyard, from which we make a Chardonnay,
Vigna Leone. That’s where we got the inspiration from»), the chef portrays Italy, the different facets he’s discovered over the years: «I come from Apulia, I worked in Rome for many years, at
Hilton when
Beck had just arrived, and at
Altro Mastai with
Fabio Baldassarre, then in Milan with
Baldassarre when he opened
Unico. So basically this “journey across the peninsula” is part of my story». He also shows a personal sensitive touch that leads him to create a very intelligently structured menu.
Another picture from Identità Expo, with Gualtiero Marchesi, Fabio Abbattista, Francesco Apreda and Ezio Santin
’s dishes are full, with neat flavours and elegant too; they’re tasty, but flavours are always balanced, harmonious. Nothing is done for the sake of it. Sometimes he presents the Mediterranean Sea (
Squid mousse and Mediterranean sauce), the local territory (
Chargrilled eel from Lake Iseo, cucumber, green apple and chervil) or he dares with perfect, delicious crossovers as in
Snails, artichoke royale and teriyaki. The chef recuperates classical elements too, in an intelligent way:
Hazelnut soufflé, variegato ice cream with brittle, a great dessert. And at the end of a high standard meal (illustrated with photos by
Tanio Liotta and captions in the photo gallery), one dish stands out above all:
Pigeon in ashes, rhubarb and Timut pepper. It’s perhaps the best pigeon I’ve ever tasted.
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
