Michelin-starred chef Adriano Baldassarre does not get distracted by the externals but is focussed on food, says Saimi Sattar
N ew-fangled concepts like molecular gastronomy do not impress him. Nor do dining styles and grammar, be it fine or casual. For Michelin star chef Adriano Baldassarre, the sole focus is on great-tasting food, which is rooted in traditional cooking. In short, robust flavours that have always held their own and lasted generations. He wants to leave a stamp within that known profile. “I don’t believe in following trends. I believe in creating them. I like to be followed and not follow someone,” says the Italian, who was in the capital recently. He laid out a treat which included beetroot tartare perbacco, an onion soup with saffron and parmesan, risotto alla Milanese, roasted Chilean sea bass on a bed of potato puree topped with spinach and black olive sauce and scallops xarpione zucchini with garlic and vinegar. These specials will be served at Perbaco, the new Italian speciality restaurant which will open this month at The lodhi, New Delhi.
Baldassarre is pretty sure about their acceptability among Indians for he has a fair understanding of their palate, having worked for two years as the executive chef of the Vetro at The Oberoi, Mumbai. He has also worked at the prestigious Cafes les Paillotes in Pescara, where he was the executive sous chef at the Michelin-starred, fine-dining Italian restaurant owned by the De Cecco family. He has extensive experience at a variety of fine-diners across Europe and worked with Michelin star chefs like Giorgio locatelli, Heinz Beck and Antonello Colonna before he opened his own restaurant Il Tordo Matto, which won its first Michelin star in 2007. Defining his mantra, he had once said, “When I think of a dish, it is always from a memory, a suggestion of my home, my childhood, the flavours of my mother and my grandmother. My research then goes forward and inevitably comes back to India that mine has remained inside with its scents and spices. I have come back to Italy with a richer flavour portfolio, with a bag that has allowed me to expand the ability to use and combine more ingredients among them, even in the recovery of tradition.”
Baldassarre emphasises the intense flavour profiles and the use of the freshest, seasonal ingredients and their innovative combinations on the plate. “I only follow a little bit of the international philosophy around food. While preparing and presenting a menu, my focus is to make sure whether you would like it blindfolded, which in effect means that the fullness of taste is the most important without the illusory perception,” he says in heavily-accented English.
Baldassarre’s confidence perhaps stems probably from his earliest realisation that he was born to be a chef. So at 14, he went to culinary school and started working summers at restaurants. His first professional kitchen experience involved cleaning about 50 kg of calamari. Talk about thoroughness of basics.
He believes that world over, the trend is about slowing down, enjoying every morsel, recalling known flavours but in an adaptive format and going back to the roots. At the lodhi, the menu that he has curated is traditional Italian with a nice balance of the contemporary. “It is food with some twist but still it is very traditional Italian,” says the chef.
So how would we define traditional Italian cuisineIJ People in Italy eat their salads with olive oil, vinegar, salt, and maybe pepper. That’s it. Diners mix the ingredients at the table themselves. Even at most restaurants, where customers are provided with an oil and vinegar set and expected to dress their own salad, Italians are more likely to order pasta al pomodoro, with a sauce made from fresh tomatoes, olive oil and basil. Another menu item closely related to pasta with marinara sauce is spaghetti alla puttanesca. Though this dish is much more modern — only dating back to the mid 20th century — the ingredients for the sauce are quite close to marinara and include tomatoes, olive oil, capers and garlic for a salty, tangy taste. And yes they can have long-drawn coures.
In today’s hectic life, do people have the time for course mealIJ “People might not have time for lunch but dinner can be leisurely with family or friends,” he says. And he also feels that people can make one meal of a dish whether it be spaghetti, risotto, penne or soup.
He also disagrees that there is a shift from casual dining to fine or vice versa. For one person, a restaurant could be casual while for another it could be upper crust. In fact, Baldassarre doesn’t believe in demarcating between the two. “Is Indian Accent restaurant fine dining or casualIJ” he says, an eyebrow raised. We say, “fine dining.” He counters us, “While the concept is fine-dining, the service is casual,” he says.
To further elaborate his point, he illustrates the example of National Exemplar restaurant in Cincinnati which looks like casual dining but is actually fine dining. “I do not understand the difference. Geranium in Copenhagen, which has a live kitchen and long white table cloths is a fine dining restaurant but has been done like casual dining,” he says. These distinctions, according to Baldassarre, are irrelevant as the focus should be on the food and the experience. “You go to the restaurant for the food and not the glasses or the decor. When the food is up to your expectation, it is then that you notice the service. And when the service is fine, then you see the other things like the decor, glasses and so on,” he says.
But are ingredients easily available to cook the feast that he wants to lay outIJ He answers philosophically, “Everything you want you can get. What you don’t get is because you don’t want. Cook from the heart and the food will always be great.”