Ilario Vinciguerra

Ilario Vinciguerra, winner of the V International Award for Extra Virgin Olive Oil Recipes “Jaén, paraíso interior”, is a chef with both professional dedication and natural gifts. Though he resides in northern Italy and his wife, Marika (with whom he works side by side), is from the Piedmont region, a southern Italian feeling is expressed with passion in his cuisine thanks to his Neapolitan origins (he is really fond of Naples). His constructions, always filled with talent and reflection, combine temperament with refinement–intense flavours with sapid purity. It is astonishing to see how well he maintains that difficult equilibrium, captured time and again in his dishes, independent of the quantity of ingredients that he uses in any given formula. The exquisiteness and generosity are always distinguished here. The historical memory is always venerated, especially through a specific ingredient: the tomato, omnipresent, which is treated as nowhere else in the world. 


With the new location of the restaurant, 2011 has represented an incredible leap forward in Ilario’s career regarding both atmosphere –this place is a real palace– and concepts. His amazing intellectual maturity is expressed in the way he conceives and builds his dishes as well as in the flavours he offers, always elegant and harmonious. This is a velvety, very elaborated cuisine. Except the desserts, all are new proposals. Let’s say it clearly: Vinciguerra has become one of the very best chefs in Italy. This is why he definitely deserves this 9/10. An outstanding mark he might improve over the next few months.
First flash: cherries stuffed with foie gras and a hint of their juice. To keep up with the same spirit, the cook proposes some poached green asparagus wrapped into belly pork and pine branches baked for three minutes and served with sweet honey zabaglione: intense wood perfumes with subtle and kind counterpoints. Mediterranean is expressed in all its intensity: charcoaled aubergine with roasted tomato, dried fruit, mullet roe and basil. More proximity and more historic memory impeccably executed: this is what we find in the rehydrated tomatoes with crunchy fried anchovies and seaweeds. The sweet and creamy egg noodles cooked in onion consommé, seasoned with saffron and pepper and enhanced with the salty touch of a slice of dehydrated ham is a perfect dish. And what can we say about the glorious handmade spaghetti with anchovy juice and slightly smoked endive: al dente, pure, with the genuine taste of pasta and a personality that is synonymous with great pleasure, like all the rest. Let’s repeat it over and over again: pasta reaches really high peaks, here. The tortelli stuffed with tomato, swimming into a juice of smoked Provola cheese and basil, taste like the warmth of the South –they certainly do! The risotto with garlic foam, parsley oil and hot pepper powder is really brilliant regarding doneness, sapid counterpoints and seasoning techniques; an extremely amazing way to reinvent ancestral flavours. The snails, impressive, immaculate and juicy, laid on black venere rice water and served with a spoonful of chocolate and julienned tomato are another silky and original proposal. The Norway lobster with caviar and liquorice reduction proves once again that raw materials used by Ilario are always the best in the market, that doneness is always impeccable and that nuances are commonly soft. The raw crayfish with anchovy cream, tomato sorbet and sprouts is expressed in its most natural way; exquisite! And as dessert, don’t miss the Gold of Naples, a kind of golden yolk that tastes like a delicate and ethereal pastiera napolitana. The rum baba, utter spongy, also deserves an excellent mark.