A Taste of Bergamo in New York – Italy’s Da Vittorio makes a splash in Manhattan
BY ELENA MANCINI
Solid, riveting haute Italian cuisine was the toast of Soho last week via Chefs Enrico (Chicco) and Roberto (Bobbo) Cerea and their cooking workshop at the International Day of Italian Cuisines hosted at the Italian Culinary Academy in Manhattan. The brother-chef team brought the uniquely refined tastes of their three-star rated Michelin restaurant-spa, Da Vittorio Relais & Chateaux in Bergamo to a room full of cooking students, foodies, restaurantuers and media types.
The Cerea Brothers: Chefs Bobbo and Chicco of Da Vittorio Relais & Chateux, Bergamo, Italy
After a twenty minute technical glitch induced delay, the fifty or so attendees were extended a warm welcome by Italian Culinary Academy Dean and Chef-Owner of Salumeria Rosi, Cesare Casella, who was donning a chef smock accessorized with his signature rosemary flair. Casella gave a gracious but informal introduction to the Cerea brothers, Chicco (Enrico) and Bobbo (Roberto), underscored their reputation in the European culinary world and emphasized the prestige and significance of the three-star Michelin distinction awarded to their family-run restaurant-spa, da Vittorio.
Chef Cesare Casella introducing Chef Enrico (Chicco) Cerea of Da Vittorio, Bergamo
Da Vittorio was established in 1966 by Vittorio and Bruna Cerea, parents of the chef duo. Before ceding the podium kitchen station to Chef Chicco and his translator, Jessica (also a culinary student), Casella also singled out the culinary talent of Naru, Cerea brothers’ chef assistant in attendance followed by a well-intended, jocular reference to his authentic Italianness.
The audience was then shown a ten minute film on the evolution of Da Vittorio’s restaurant through the present, highlighting the driving personalities behind its success. It was a promotional video, and it was all in Italian. But Jessica provided speedy and reliable English translations for the audience and the film was filled with interesting facts and many compelling images. For instance, viewers quickly learned that the restaurant’s winning concept was owed to Papa’ Cerea’s idea of introducing fish from all ports of Italy to the tables of land-locked and previously fish-shy,Bergamo. Incorporating fresh seafood from all of the Italian peninsula’s waters continues to be one of the many features that sets Da Vittorio’s apart. In addition to zeroing in on the elegant property that formerly hosted Da Vittorio in Bergamo’s Upper City and the antique-furnished Viennese-style pastry store, “Cavour,” the video shows the pristine property that houses the Da Vittoiro Relais & Chateux in the surrounding hillside, located in Cantalupa, eight kilometers from Bergamo. The film also profiles Da Vittorio’s founding parents and all five Cerea siblings.
From cooking, to sommeliering to catering, all members of the Cerea family are featured as being active team players in the family’s restaurant and hospitality ventures. Variously trained and talented, the family is committed to high quality standards in food and hospitality and in delivering a pleasurable family atmosphere.
After the video, a one hour long recipe demonstration segment began. It consisted of four recipes alternately performed by Chicco and Bobbo. IAC students distributed recipe handouts to the audience. Unfortunately, English translations were not provided for any of the recipes. Both chefs’ clear, generous and methodical presentations however, more than compensated the diminished reach of the handouts.
The presentation program was comprised of three courses, but Chicco and Bobbo added an additional pasta course. The demonstration instructed on all phases of cooking from how to shop for the right ingredients to cooking techniques to plating and styling. Chicco proved particularly fastidious with styling and expressed disappointment with working with dill garnish that had not been pre-treated with ice water to give that fresh and verdant look.
The operative mantras throughout the demonstration were high quality ingredients and taste. Taste everything you make, Chicco exhorted, “no great chef ever served a dish without tasting it first.”
For the sake of time economy, Chicco and Bobbo prepared certain components of their recipes in advance.proved to be particularly necessary with the tomato gelatin required for the appetizer, which needed to rest in a cheese cloth overnight.
The first dish was prepared by Chicco. It was an appetizer of King crab salad, whipped guacamole and tomato gelatin. In Italy, Chicco explained, the King Crab would be a species that can be attained from the Veneto region. The King Crab used for the recipe was Alaskan, which was far less laborious to work with because the large size provided ease of extraction. Chefs and foodies from within the audience interjected, offered ready translations and expanded upon North American substitutes to products that were exclusive to Italy.
The end result was an elegant glass filled with clearly distinguishable layers of tomato jam (bottom), tomato gelatin , whipped guacamole topped white, meaty chunks of King Crab. Combined these flavors and delicate, velvety-smooth textures exalted the palate. The composition of the dish caused the flavors to combine and recombine in ways that added dimension, sophistication and surprise. The combination of King crab and avocado is by no means uncommon, but in Da Vittorio’s interpretation of it, it becomes exciting. Every spoonful revealed an insurgence of flavors: sweet, subtle, bold–all culminating in a lingering taste of creamy, harmonious freshness. The nuance in textures delivered its own pleasures: plump toothsome King Crab was exalted on the chromatically-rich layers of increasing softness from the lightness of guacamole cream to the slippery smoothness of the tomato gelatin.
Bobbo demonstrated an elegant and labor-intensive pasta course that was not on the program: conciglioni con zuppa di pesce (pasta shells with seafood broth). Composed of stuffed shells filled with a delicately ground shell fish mixture atop a sand floor composed of cous cous, the dish was conceived to evoke a beckoning seascape. Since this dish demands a great deal of time and must be prepared ala minut, there were not enough specimens for the audience to sample. Bobbo limited the demonstration to the preparation of the filling, which he later offered to the audience for sampling. The audience duly obliged consuming every last smear of the pasty-like texture of the mixture in communal fashion.
Chicco Cerea demonstrating the preparation for baccala' carpaccio
Chef Chicco took back the podium with his baccala’ carpaccio with pancetta foam and espresso, hazelnut crumble. Delivering complexity in both flavor, texture and variety in temperatures, the tastings of this inspired dish revealed a triumph in taste and inventiveness. Out of all the courses, it was the one that impressed me the most, and for that reason I’ve translated the recipe into English and have published it here as a separate post.
During the presentation, Chicco went on an excursion on curing salt cod (from where baccala’ derives) and where to find the best baccala’. In Europe, the best salt cod is had in Portugal. Chef Chicco and Casella cured the baccala used for the carpaccio at the demo themselves two days in advance. During the presentation, Casella intervened with useful tips for North America–the best baccala’ is made from cod from St. John’s in Canada. To New Yorkers, Casella recommended shopping for baccala’ on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.
Chef Bobbo returned to give a presentation on the beloved traditional dessert, torrone morbido–soft torrone (almond nougat). To the audience’s–and no doubt his, as well–delight, his presentation was stocked with generous samplings for audience members several times over. The torrone was pre-made, but Bobbo explained the procedure in clear detail and gave some background on the popular dessert from Cremona.
At the end of the presentation, the chefs took questions, shook hands with audience members and exhorted them to visit Da Vittorio in Bergamo. I was left dreamily entertaining that delicious prospect and asking myself and then Chef Chicco, whether Da Vittorio has any plans to open in New York City. A thought that the Cerea family has seriously entertained, I learned from Chicco, but shelved due to current market forces in New York. My head nodded in acknowledgement of an all too familiar refrain. All the while my palate was still reverberating with the melodious flavors of creamy pancetta and briny cod covered by sweet toasted almond, and my mind, purposefully slow in processing the fullness of the joy it had just experienced, as if to prolong the pleasure. When it did finally catch up, it pined invariably.
