Trattoria Zappatori

  After his sports career as a professional cyclist (he even took part in the Giro d’Italia in 2002), Christian Milone, aged 32, decided to run the former restaurant owned by his family. Although he had studied hotel management, he waited for a while before entering the culinary world. He is basically a self-taught man who, during two or three years, decided to spend his holidays in the kitchen of the Piazza Duomo restaurant, in Alba, together with Enrico Crippa. After offering traditional cuisine intermingled with more modern proposals, he made a qualitative leap forward early in 2012. He nowadays proposes his gourmet cuisine in a small dining room (only two tables) whose big windows look onto a little zen garden. The large dining room hosts a solid, elaborate, more traditional and more commercial cuisine (the place is always full). A formula which is very efficient to fight against the crisis that affects haute cuisine… We wish him a lot of success for this new project, because Christian is a real talent who deserves the opportunity to express himself towards a greater public and to go on cultivating his skills in a provincial city such as Pinerolo, apparently little glamorous and not very likely to appreciate this kind of cookery. A cuisine that is characterized by a very personal, convincing and reflexive style.
The appetizers immediately reflect his fulfilment, his culinary knowledge as well as his originality, his good taste and his refinement. We particularly remember two of them: the feminine foie gras kiss (a perfect shortbread biscuit) and the light salty meringue clouds with curry. His salad is one of the best proposals: a cube of crumb soaked with blended herbs, strips of pepper marinated in grape juice (a kind of vinegar, typical in the Piedmont region) and roe shavings. Terrific! The execution of the dish is really precise, both the cut of the crumb and the quantity of the soaked liquid (the inner part keeps dry, fresh and white). The flavours of the ingredients (all of them preserve their wonderful personality) and the variety of the consistencies are synonymous with harmony and precision. In short, this is a panzanella (Florentine salad made with vegetables and stale bread) that has been dismantled and reassembled and that turns to be more elaborate than the Paolo Lopriore’s “zolla della Certosa”, which, according its creator’s style, is much more direct regarding presentation and taste (aromatic herbs, chlorophyll, cypress). Another little masterpiece that is definitely more gourmand is the chopped crunchy pig tail served with potato cream, pistachio oil and “truffle juice” caviar; a neoclassical dish that is excellently executed, impeccable, devoid of greasy sensations. Pure good taste. Minimalism, courage and fantasy are clearly expressed through the carrot juice, served with raw crabs lain over some praliné and herbs. Don't leave the place without tasting the crustacean seasoned with this hint of praliné cream and feel this unprecedented and amazing exquisiteness.
The best dish of the night was the risotto cooked into a moss infusion covered with three raw oysters. One of the best risottos we have tasted this year! New forms of expression, constant refinement and lightness, without detriment to delicacy and creaminess. Palatal contrasts between the subtlety of the moss and the fleshiness and the iodized and cold sweetness of the oysters. We then tasted some green tagliatelle soaked with purslane (without egg) cooked with concentrated fragrant geranium: aroma, ecology and lightness. We finished the meal with another proposal marked by minimalism and clarity, synonymous with more palatal precision: cream of buffalo mozzarella, fleshy and crunchy –excellent– veal trachea (traditionally served in tripe dishes) covered with red and green tomato concentrate, red tomato seeds, dehydrated olives and fresh oregano juice.
We would like to finish challenging the chef: as he has shown himself to love and to make good use of herbs in the kitchen, we invite him to reinforce this passion looking for wild herbs in the valleys of his mountains in order to amaze us during our next visits (the hot seasons are arriving), just like Paolo Lopriore and Giorgio Parini, the two great hunters, connoisseurs and cooks of the wild herbs that grow in their regions.