The road to starred dining at the divine restaurateurs is paved with delights, surprises, and bitter disappointments.
If you want access to the exclusive world of the “divine restaurateur” never make the mistake of showing up unexpectedly. It is an awkward situation. You ring the door, an obsequious waiter opens it and asks if you have a reservation. You stretch your eye over his shoulder, count no more than six people seated at the tables, and candidly confess that you have not provided.
It’s over: you don’t come in and you will never come in. And to no avail will be your protests, the infamous assertion that the place is empty anyway: booking is the divine rule. And there is also no point in letting your imagination work. Not even if it would occur to you, in order to grab an inexorably empty seat, to pass yourself off as a contributor to the Gambero Rosso guide, an editor of the Espresso Guide or an inspector of the Michelin Guide: the six people you glimpsed sitting behind the waiter have already done so before you.
Book by phone, then, but avoid introducing yourself with trivial last names, such as Smith or Johnson, because they might mistake you for one of those terrible reviewers, indefatigable floggers of restaurateurs of all ranks, bloggers who have been denied unjust compensation, and prepare an “opportune” reception for you.
Finally al the table
Having overcome this last barrier you can finally enter the halls of the “divine restorative” and find that it was all worth it. Nothing is left to chance: furniture, furnishings, tablecloths, silverware, ceramics and crystal are chosen with taste and extreme refinement, always neat, shiny and glossy.
The very faces of the waiters, the movements, the voices, seem to be chosen after a long elaboration of the script they have to play, although, as is the case in large theater companies, the gap between the leading actor and the extras is often abysmal.
You sit admiringly and immediately they hand you a glass of champagne/sparkling wine as a welcome, together with the menu, a true masterpiece of graphic art, handmade paper, illustrations commissioned from great artists, dimensions sometimes larger than those from the table you are sitting at. Whatever intention you have, including putting yourself completely at the mercy of your host, do not neglect to read every line of the food chart, for it will hold many surprises for you. The first concerns the nature of the raw materials. Although almost all of these “divines” profess the philosophy of “market cuisine” and “zero km,” you will immediately wonder what the hell kind of market they frequent
In fact, there are no chickens or hens there but only cockerels and fowls, no ducks but only ducklings, not trout but baby trout.
And the lilliputzian vocation also infects the kitchen, where from the beautiful tortelloni of yesteryear we have moved on to raviolini, from veal walnut to nocette, from risotto to risottini.
At the grand ball of aliases, synonyms and antonyms
Beyond the raw materials and basic ingredients, the great revolution can be felt in the grammar, syntax and vocabulary. Stew has become a “dadolata“, the black truffle is “scent of Norcia“, the mixed ice cream is “palette of ice cream“, the union of two ingredients becomes “poetry” (poetry of salmon and scallops, poetry of duckling breasts and celery hearts, poetry of pork rinds and beans), but if they are arranged on the plate in geometric sequence it becomes “checkerboard” (checkerboard of goose liver and truffle, checkerboard of fava beans and pecorino cheese).
If the elements are more than two and allow more possibilities for figurative expression, one immediately moves on to the “mosaic” (mosaic of steamed vegetables, mosaic of seafood in salmoriglio, mosaic of tomato, mozzarella and basil in caprese style), while when the affinities are not aesthetic but only ideal one trespasses into musical jargon by disturbing the “concert” (concert of seasonal vegetables in pinzimonio) and even the “symphony” (symphony of sweets and small pastries).
The great lexical wastes of the kitchen
The thrifty soul patron will notice the great wastage Of the “divine” cuisine. Of fillets only the heart is eaten, of fish only the fillet, of shrimp only the tails, of ducks only the liver, sometimes the breast, at other times neither but only the kidneys, of tuna only the “rings,” of mushrooms only the caps, of pork only the loin, of artichokes only the heart, like the fillet.
Lettuce, endive and spinach have been reduced to elements of decoration and serve only to keep the food from touching the dingy porcelain on which it is served (…on a background of white malvasia lettuce, …on a bed of spinach with Normandy butter, …on a bush of endive with balsamic vinegar steams).
Those who do not juggle well with new languages end up taking refuge in the “tasting menu“, a convenient invention that allows one to get a general idea of the art of “divine” at a lump-sum price, usually less than it would cost to have direct, stand-alone access to the paper’s offerings.
One way or another, however, you finally get to eat.
Freely excerpted from “RuvidaMente.com,” courtesy of author Stefano Milioni: https://www.milioni.com/controcucina/il-divino-ristoratore/
