The cuisine of Northern Italy is varied and
vibrant.? And none more so than the
exquisite dishes prepared by executive chef Michele Bernacchia at Domani
Ristorante in Pacific Place, Hong Kong.?
?Domani is special, not because we only
have one speciality of the house,? says Michele.? ?We have been open since last November and we
have a great ? la carte menu, with a
lot of dishes which I think are very special.?
Dishes such as Tagliatelle di Seppia, Pesto di Alga Nori ? cuttlefish
tagliatelle with nori seaweed pesto ? or Acqua di Pomodoro, Capesante, Gamberi,
Insalatina ? tomato jelly with prawns scallops and salad.? Another speciality of Domani is potato
fondant layered with prawns, mushrooms and black truffles.
?When they are in season, in the winter, we
use fresh truffles from Italy, but at this time of year we use the summer
truffles which are totally different.?
When we opened last year we were able to use the superb winter truffles
for about two months.
?Another speciality is the Mediterranean
amberjack carpaccio with langoustine and tomato cherry sauce.? This is a very exciting appetiser that is
very fresh.? The langoustines come from
Australia but almost everything else we source from Italy if at all possible.?
Pasta
?We offer pasta of course, all
home-made.? We have special pastas like
the tagliatelle, ravioli and agnolotti and our favourite pasta, spaghetti with
a lobster sauce and roast pistachios.? We
also do a fantastic homemade tagliatelle with duck ragout, mushrooms and black
truffle paste as well as ravioli with shrimp and artichokes and ginger. The
agnolotti we do with veal, mushrooms and pigeon sauce.
Northern
Italy
?This menu is from the regions of Tuscany,
Umbria and Abruzzo but the ingredients are from the northern part of Italy,
like balsamic vinegar, parmesan cheese.?
For me, these are indispensable.?
I need all these for my dishes.? I
don?t necessarily have a dish from Tuscany or Piedmont, I just use the
ingredients from the region to create the dish.
The balsamic vinegar, I use the 25-year old
vinegar from Modena and I use the parmeggiano
from Reggio Emilia.? I know there are
cheap balsamic vinegars out there, but we use the original.
?And the olive oil comes from
Sardinia.? Not light, but fantastic with
meat.? And we use a lighter one for
fish.? And, of course, the red tomato, we
import these ourselves for our kitchen, but they come from the south.? For our kind of kitchen I use the best
products in Italy.? Most come from the
centre and the north, but other products come from different parts of Italy.
?For instance, fish we cannot find in the
north.? The best fish comes from the
Mediterranean.? But many products, like
mushrooms, truffles and cheese, I find in the north.? Taleggio cheese, Speck.? All our products come from Italy where
possible.
It?s not difficult to source good
ingredients in Hong Kong, but I need fresh produce.? Our company imports a lot of our
ingredients.? I use the best ingredients
I can find: the langoustines from Australia; the Blue Fin tuna from Japan.?
Degustazione
?We have a special menu to pair with our wines.? The aperitivo
?is a glass of Montenisa Franciacorta
from Lombardy, from the famous Antinori estate.?
We then begin with cuttlefish, slow cooked many hours at a low temperature
and served with black seaweed pesto.?
This is followed by the Acqua di Pomodoro and Albanella di Crostacei ? Marche-style
fruit of the sea; and then black ink strigoli with squid, parmesan cheese and
basil.? These three dishes are served
with a glass of Whispering Angel from Prov?nce.
?Next comes the turbot with eggplant and
tomato ?caponata?; or the Filetto di Manzo e Guanciale ? beef tenderloin in red
wine and garlic sauce.? With these main
dishes, we serve a glass of Chianti Classico, the beautiful wine of Tuscany. The
turbot, wild turbot, is from France as we cannot find it in Italy. Cheese
though is from Italy. Parmaggiano is without doubt the best cheese to come from
Italy but we also use a number of other Italian cheeses for our cheese board, including
the wonderful Sotto Cenere, which literally means ?under the ash?.?
Marche
and Mauro Uliassi
?I live in Marche, says Michele, ?which is
on the Adriatic coast. I worked for 13 years with one of the most famous chefs
in Italy, Mauro Uliassi. Ristorante Uliassi in Senigallia is one of the best
ten fish restaurants in Italy with two Michelin stars.?
The story of the Uliassi restaurant could
only start like this. Everything began with Franco Uliassi, who didn?t want to
be a peasant farmer and so he became a lorry driver to escape the grim life of
working the land in the 1950s.
Lorry drivers travel all around Italy and
stop off for lunch or dinner at the restaurants they find along their way. It
was in one of those restaurants that he met Bianca Maria Bartolacci, the
waitress and a daughter of a restaurant owner. It was love at first sight.
Their three children, Mauro, Walter and
Catia, grew up in the typical environment of a business serving the public, but
they cultivated their own personal interests and pursued different dreams.
Mauro went to technical school, while Walter attended the Italian Air Force
College. Catia, too, went to a technical-vocational school to study information
technology.?
In the end, Mauro chose a catering and
hospitality training school. Four years later, after a period as a cook in
Italian and French restaurants and hotels, he found his first real experience
of kitchen work with cordon bleu chef
Lucio Capannari, He donned his toque with a new awareness and a passion for
research and experimentation. At the same time, he joined the Panzini catering
and hospitality school of Senigallia to teach cooking techniques and
confectionery.?
The Uliassi restaurant opened in 1990 with
Mauro in the kitchen and sister Catia as the ma?tre d?. She had been promised
that it would only be for a few months. Those few months turned out to be 18
years, which Mauro and Catia have lived intensely together with the rest of the
staff who were little more than teenagers at the time; most of them are still
working with them. Three renovations, a growing success with diners, the first Michelin
star, followed by a second but, above all, a constant desire to continue
cooking and to enjoy pleasing the customers.
Domani
Dishes
?I prepared three tasting dishes for you to
try: the first is the cuttlefish with tomato jelly ? Tagliatelle di
Seppia.? The second is our special turbot
with eggplant ? Rombo, Caponata di Melanzane ? and for dessert Pralina di
Nocciole con Gelato ? hazelnut praline with ice cream.? These are all typically Northern Italian dishes,
of which we are very proud,? says Michele.
Michele
Bernacchia was talking to Jeff Heselwood
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