The Masseria Amastuola restaurant in Puglia opens its doors to a new chef, Luigi Chirico, whose credo is to enhance his homeland and what the land offers.
Luigi Chirico is the new executive chef at Amà, the restaurant at Masseria Amastuola in Crispiano, the wine resort with winery surrounded by the garden vineyard designed by Fernando Caruncho. After the farewell of Patrizia Girardi, the lady chef who painted on the plate, a new experiential journey began at Amà. Luigi has been able to find the way to tell the personal idea of cuisine that draws on the recipes of memory reconceived to enhance the freshness of flavors with a maniacal observance of three fixed points: seasonality, sustainability and no waste.
Nothing is left to chance; everything is the result of study, commitment and research.
Luigi is originally from Crispiano and is a longtime chef. He graduated from the hotel school and took his first steps in reception halls to learn the trade; his desire to learn, know and experiment took him far afield and he spent the next 12 years traveling between Ireland, Britain, Indonesia, the USA and Switzerland. The proposal to take the reins of Amà came at the same time as his imminent departure for Abu Dhabi.
The real challenge for Luigi is to stay and not leave in order to enhance the land of origin and its excellence locally, being successful outside the national borders would have been much easier. “I learned to manage a restaurant abroad, the first times were hard, I did not know the language, there were bills to pay and to make ends meet I started working with a famous fast food chain,” says Luigi Chirico. “Later, the situation improved, I discovered fine dining, the meaning of innovation and the Asian influence. Mine is a contemporary cuisine in which the territory is the only protagonist. Proposing in winter cabbage, kale replacing it with bell bell pepper, eggplant and greenhouse zucchini is not obvious. I try to make palatable those vegetables that apparently are not but cooked in the right way win you over. When I was a kid, cabbage stank, I hated it. Today I offer it baked in foil with salt, oil, shallots and thyme, I bake it in the oven for half an hour at 250°. The part underneath that becomes almost glazed I go and season it with the vegetable scraps to which I get a demi glace. It is a very popular side dish.”
In the a la carte restaurant you can dine by reservation; two tasting menus are also available upon request. From the back window of the restaurant room, you can see the vegetable garden by the sea; all the vegetables and herbs that reach the kitchen are produced there. The wine list consists of the labels produced organically in Amastuola’s cellar.
In the courses, the right ratio of textures, the perfect mix of raw materials and a balance of scents and colors that make the mouth water immediately jumps out at you. One should not miss tasting the amberjack carpaccio with cialledda water, baby broad beans, asparagus and crusco powder, and also the frsella risotto with tomato, oregano, whey graft and frisella powder. Also recommended are the fish chowder with bread croutons and chives and dulcis in fundo the mousse the hazelnut bavarese, milk chocolate crisp, coffee creamy with caramel sauce and salted butter.
