New 3 Star - da Vittorio

[roosterchef21]

Looks like Michelin has awarded 3 stars to da Vittorio. Checked the Michelin Guide NY and searched for another article to confirm. Here are the links

http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2009/11/25/331052/michelin-awards-new-stars-to-32-italian-restaurants.html

and finally here

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601099&sid=aYAJJhg7.Cn0

Thoughts?

[Man]

While that is welcome news, you will find that among Italian gastronomes all the debate and the scandal is about why Paolo Lopriore (Il Canto in Siena) has lost his star!

[fortedei]

If you look at the comments here and see what he served,and have been there and experienced it, there is no debate and scandal. What he was serving and the way he served it was scandalous.

This is similar to the huge demotion in Gambero Rosso for Cracco. As I've said here many times, Carlo was a very good restaurant owner and chef, when he was in the countryside outside of Alba. He was a good regional chef. A really charming guy. A pleasure to eat at his restaurant. To elevate him to close to the top within two years of the time he got to Milan was sheer folly. And as quickly as they rise, that's how quickly many of them have fallen... and will fall.

Question? With thousands of recipes in Le Ricette Regionale Italiane, why do these guys, and they're almost all guys, think they have to re-invent everything. If some of them had a good understanding of the basics of cooking, it might be one thing. It is totally another when they don't have more than the rudiments of cooking.

Not much of real significance changed in Gambero Rosso, Michelin and L'Espresso, except as noted above and Vittorio. Quistello lost its second star (one of the great ones in former years going back to the early 80s, not so much in the last few)and some changes in Tre and Due Gamberi. Gambero Rosso, the restaurant, is nowhere listed (closed at this time last year as the guides came out),and at least by this writer won't be missed. What an over-rated place.

On a very sad note. Some of us had wonderful meals during the 70s, 80s and 90s (and perhaps some of you had good meals there more recently) at La Mora in Ponte a Moriano outside of Lucca. Sauro Brunicardi was a wonderful restaurant owner, the possessor of an incredible palate re wine (and just about as good re food), a warm, extrodinarily giving man, both as a person and a restaurateur. A friend to many.

Sauro died last week. He will be missed. What a really nice guy. http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/dettaglio/trovato-morto-sauro-brunicardi-patron-del-ristorante-la-mora/1794283

[Kropotkin]

The 2010 Michelin Guide also throws up four starred restaurants for the small town of Vico Equense on the Sorrentine peninsular. This is more than many major cities in Northern Europe: it's certainly more that anywhere in the UK outside London (except perhaps Edinburgh?). See Campania Slow's report here

I used to work in Vico for five days each year - but its culinary regard seemed to revolve around the entertaining Pizza a Metro (the self-styled Universita' della Pizza). But perhaps I should give it another chance...

[fortedei]

Vico does in fact have three one stars and of course Saracino with two.

A reading of Gambero Rosso will make you wonder why three one stars.

At L'Accanto and Antica Osteria Nonna Rosa the dishes are weird. Young kids trying to make a name for themselves by serving very different dishes from the norm. Maybe it works in the long run, maybe it doesn't. Most of the time, from what I've seen in Italy, the resturants fade... because the Italians don't want to eat that way and/or the chefs really don't have enough experience in running a restaurant on a long term basis.

Even Gambero Rosso is very lukewarm in the numerical rating, giving L'Accanto a 78 and Antica 77, ratings that hundreds and hundreds of average restaurants have. Maxi, the third of the single stars, sounds much better. dishes that seem to make sense. Gambero rating is 78. Never having been to any of them, this is my close reading (between the lines) of Gambero.

Maybe the Michelin is ahead of the curve this time. I doubt it because for the past 30 years that I've been following it closely, the thought behind the book in Italy is not about the food.

[Kropotkin]

Clarification for any potential foodie-visitors: Gennaro Esposito's Torre del Saracino (2*, and with a thread somewhere on here)- is in the hamlet of Marina d'Equa, 300 meters or so from Vico Equense duomo, and a little further by road, but it's not far from town.

Thanks for your considered thoughts, Fortedei. I guess whether we like the food in Vico, or rate Michelin is, of course, another matter. My point was that here is an emerging destination for some who like visiting restaurants. And these latest stars add to those already sprinkling the Sorrentine peninsula. For me at least, this makes the prospect of a return to Vico more tempting...

Edited December 11, 2009 by Kropotkin (log)

[Man]

Well, one might agree or disagree with the judgement, but that there has been debate and scandal is fact, not a matter of opinion. Just look at the Papero Giallo blog (where the foodies congregate) entry on Lopriore. That IS the big news of this year and I was merely reporting this fact.

I haven't been at Il Canto, so no specific opinion. But I'd like to mention that Walter Miori at Locanda Margon in Trento, a restaurant I love, has also lost his star. He does rather traditional, regionally based cuisine. For me personally this is the inexplicable Michelin rating of this year. But I accept that in a partially subjective field like this there may be differing opinions. Perhaps what irks me a little is a critical system whereby judgements are passed with little or no motivation, so it is hard to empathise with the opposite viewpoint.

I love Italian cuisine in all its incarnations, traditional, modern, and all the many varieties in between, provided that the flavours are there, loud and clear, and they stand together. I dread a world in which Italian cuusine is trapped within the confines of regional recipes. Cuisine evolves with the world. The French don't cook like Escoffier any more, and for the life of me I don't see why all Italian chefs should not absorb, or create, new ideas.