Autumn in Italy | Flavors and gestures of Emilia Romagna

Paulo Coutinho, Milan*

Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia, Milan

Macau residents and tourists are pretty familiar with Italian products and flavors by now.
Over the past 10 years, all kinds of “salumi” and pasta have invaded neighborhood supermarkets and gourmet corners in Macau. Meanwhile, Italian restaurants have mushroomed up all over the place in the newly built hotel-casinos, bringing to town both experienced chefs and the real McCoy in terms of gastronomic experiences.
First pioneering Italian products and restaurants in the city was the Macanese-Italian Acconci family and a Roman couple, who back in the 1980s dared to open a restaurant called ‘Roma’ in Rua Nova a Guia – which now is known as the ‘pharmacy street’.
The next step, truly a landmark, was the opening of ‘Toscana’ in Rua Formosa, a narrow alley that intercepts Rua do Campo. ‘Toscana’ was a hit in town. Soon enough it grew in popularity and moved to a larger venue at the Grand Prix complex, for decades being the sole Italian cuisine experience in the city – apart from fast food chain Pizza Hut, whose first outlet opened in Hotel Lisboa in the early ’90s.
From a split over the initial ‘Toscana’ shareholders, two other restaurants opened in Nape (‘Trattoria da Isa’) and ‘La Gondola’ in Cheoc Van, Coloane.
These thoughts came to mind as I was travelling by bus from Milan to Bologna, crossing over the salivating Emilia-Romagna region, led by representatives from the Italian trade agency and the regional association of food producers.
The previous day, the Macau and HK press delegation was exposed to a fine dining experience made entirely from regional IGP food, or Indicazione Geografica Protetta.
Well, that is an extremely bureaucratic way to put it, when you are sitting at a two-starred Michelin restaurant in an affluent Jewish neighborhood of Milan founded back in the sixties by Aimo and Nadia, the Tuscan-born parents of our very host, gracious Ms Stefania Moroni; all the while listening to eloquent and passionate chef Alexandro Negrini talking and gesturing about how his food resembles music and his work that of a maestro. You have to have the basics right, the symphonic harmony, which translates into the traditional palate, but as in any great piece of music you have to take risks in order to gain the heart of the audience. He was describing his spaghetti alla carbonara that is made without bacon, replaced instead by vegetarian ingredients grown at an altitude of 1,400 meters in the Italian Alps.
Oh I get the passion, while savoring a deep fried sweet chili from Senise, southern Italy, covered by 36-month aged prosciutto… The authenticity of the ingredients is key to the integrity of the dishes: “We have friends [farmers] all over Italy that send us the products they grow to cook at the restaurant.”
Earlier yesterday, lunch went on in a more down to earth “osteria,” run by a Neapolitan family at 29 Magenta Corso. Hence, their paccheri sauce tasted different to chef Alexandro’s due to the way they work on the southern herbs used to cook the dressing that stuck to the pasta like skin to flesh.
Italy is territory of passionate people, who love food, fashion, art, wine and coffee and proudly boast 300 meaningful gestures to cheer up a conversation (as TK’s editor recalled citing a NYT post he had just read).
As we approach Bologna an intriguing experience is awaiting us: a home-cooked dinner with flavors and smells of fresh-made pasta, Parma ham, parmigiano cheese and, I’m sure, more of those articulated stories.

* The writer is in Italy at the invitation of the Italian Trade Agency