Italian cuisine is renowned for its rich flavours, vibrant colours and diverse range of dishes, with flavours and cooking styles changing according to the geography and cultural influences. At its heart is a profound appreciation for high-quality, locally sourced ingredients and produce, carefully preserved in traditional recipes that allow the flavours to shine through. Giving us a taste of their hometown flavours are these Italian chefs, who have done an impressive job of showcasing this season’s bounty. Be prepared to embark on a culinary journey like no other. Buon appetito!
Altro Zafferano
Level 43 Ocean Financial Centre | Tel: 6509 1488
Since its rebranding last year from Zafferano to Altro Zafferano, the posh Italian restaurant has impressed diners with its highly stylised dishes that celebrate Italy with the produce of its lands and seas, prepared with modern techniques and perspectives.
Executive chef Andrea De Paola and head chef Daniele La Rocca have done exceedingly well in presenting contemporary Italian cuisine interpreted through a South Italian lens. In their latest degustation called the Journey Menu ($248++ per person), the dynamic duo invite us to take a trip around the Italian peninsula to discover all the wonderful flavours of Italian cooking. Through this meal, we get to know the chefs a little better and enjoy a cultural lesson in Italy’s rich history and cuisine, the significance of food, and how it can unite communities.
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My culinary journey started with the “Italian Breakfast”, featuring a quartet of snacks inspired by the diverse flavours of breakfast in Italy. I started sweet with the Cannolo — inspired by the sweet Sicilian cannoli — filled with 12-year-old parmesan cheese fondue and enhanced with candied lemon zest and white balsamico gel. A favourite is the Tuna Chutoro tartlette, adapted from the classic tramezzino sandwich and enhanced with hazelnut flavours. Another is the Foie gras Diplomatico, an ode to the traditional Italian dessert Torta Diplomatica, which combines foie gras pate with Diplomatico pastry and Strega-infused sponge cake.
Mamma’s Parmigiana, the first starter, was a pure delight for the senses. The bite-sized sphere burst in my mouth, releasing all the familiar nuances of classic Parmigiana like triple-fried eggplant, tomato sauce and fresh basil.
The subsequent dishes paid homage to the sea, such as Fishermen Perks, which featured fresh uni bathed in luscious yellow cream. According to Italian fishermen, the best way to eat uni is simply with charred bread and olive oil, and that’s what we did.
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Another stunner is Friday’s Sole, an alluring interpretation of the nation’s devotion to Catholicism. I enjoyed the lightly cooked sole fillet topped with trout roe caper mugnaia sauce and steamed white asparagus.
The Ode to The Artichoke and Pasta Mista were some original creations I found outstanding. The latter celebrates minestrone by presenting five types of ravioli of varied shapes, colours and fillings, each representing a region of Italy, in a hearty guinea fowl consommé, while the former shines a spotlight on a commonly used vegetable. Served sous vide, the artichoke is topped with smoked egg yolk, Oscietra caviar and rendered lard dip. Supposedly, using caviar and egg yolk reflects artichoke in the “Fricassea” style in Abruzzo, while smoking the egg yolk emulates the flavours of the grilled artichoke from Naples.
Before the meat dish arrives, chef La Rocca comes out with cut oranges and a manual juicer, inviting us to juice the oranges and enjoy them with sorbet to cleanse the palate. Little details like this made us appreciate the often humorous side of Italian hospitality.
Every dish was stellar, but I felt the “journey” could be shortened by one or two fewer dishes. I struggled with the last dish, Venetian Pigeon, a charcoal grilled pigeon leg and breast served with grilled sweet corn and poached Nashi pear. And when it was time for dessert, I barely touched the exquisite garden-green Ancient Panna cotta. The crunchy pistachio tuile was topped with fresh Japanese strawberries, drops of 100-year-old Balsamico, and soft Stracchino cheese produced by returning cattle from the alpine pastures of northern Italy.
To fully enjoy this explorative meal, I highly recommend going easy on the bread (served with the uni dish), but I won’t judge if you can’t. It is impossible to resist!
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Braci
52 Boat Quay, Level 5/6 | Tel: 6866 1933
At Michelin-starred Braci, chef de cuisine Matteo Ponti has introduced a refreshed, seven-course Signature Degustation menu (at $258 per person, inspired by his hometown of Piedmont in northern Italy. Spring’s finest produce of impeccable provenance takes centre stage, using the restaurant’s signature grilling methods.
Snacks commence with a potato open cannolo filled with pork trotter salad — popular in Italy’s countryside — and topped with Oscietra caviar referencing the Po River’s sturgeons.
One of Ponti’s favourite seafood is the red prawn from Santa Margherita, enjoyed during his childhood holidays by the Ligurian Coast. His interpretation is the Rosso su Rosso (“red on red”), where he places a raw slice of Santa Margherita red prawn over some reddish crispy snow fungus and accents it with a Salsa Rossa made of red capsicum.
Another dish popular in northern Italy is poached veal served with a tuna-base dressing called vitello tonnato. The Braci version is Tonno Vitellato, a tartlet with bluefin tuna tartare glazed with veal jus and finished with alyssum flower for a light horseradish flavour.
One of my favourites is the Carpione, which showcases a northern Italian tradition of preserving fried fish in vinegar and vegetable solution. Plated to look like a rose, the dish features “petals” of cured kingfish, smoked eel and black radish. It sits on an umami bed of carpione jelly made with smoked eel broth, white vinegar and amalfi lemon.
A fan of Ossobuco, Ponti reinvented this dish by creating “bone marrow” made from 36-month-old Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse. It’s filled with hand-chopped beef tenderloin tartare and garnished with toasted saffron threads, a nod to risotto that the classic dish is usually served with.
What was pleasing on the palate was the Linguine in Laguna, a pesto dish using top-quality pasta from the Dolamite Mountains. Ponti used his mother’s nettles pesto recipe and finished the dish with hamaguri clams, sea asparagus and borage. Simple yet exquisite.
For fish, he grilled seven-day aged sawara and served it with a buttery beurre blanc sauce adapted from the classic prosciutto e piselli sauce, originally from Emilia-Romagna, a region in northern Italy. This delicious version contained smoked swordfish ham and teardrop peas from Spain.
The best dish of the entire meal was the Easter-inspired Agnello Pasquale, simply because it combined my two favourite ingredients — lamb and chocolate. New Zealand Maimoa lamb is charcoal-grilled until pink and finished with jus made from lamb bones infused with a reduction of Vermouth aged in an ancient cask of balsamic vinegar of Modena. On the side, I savoured a piece of morel stuffed with 100% dark chocolate.
Dessert and petit fours were delightful, especially the bite-sized “salt crystal” made with grana padano cheese and white chocolate. I enjoyed it with a spoon of aged Balsamico from Modena, specially-barrelled and aged for Braci.
I found the seven-course menu — available for lunch and dinner — well-portioned and not too filling. If you’re rushing for time, you can opt for a scaled-down five-course version at $208. A three-course executive set lunch at $88 is also available from Mondays to Fridays. The menu changes weekly to feature the different ingredients of northern Italy.
