Niko Romito, Chef of the Year in Europe
Self-taught chef but three-starred by the Michelin Guide : his story is peculiar and his career is meteoric. ** Niko Romito ** has been able to convert a 40 square meter family run trattoria into the 6 hectare estate it is today Casadonna Reale (Castel di Sangro, Abruzzo, Italy), a boutique hotel in a former 16th century palace which houses his successful restaurant for 30 people.
In less than a decade (from 2007 to 2014) he has achieved the 3 star , the maximum recognition of the French guide. And, although it is not his best historical position, in 2019 he also occupies the position No. 51 in the famous ranking The World's 50 Best Restaurants , which, despite his name, always chooses the 120 best in the world.
We ask him how so much has been possible in such a short time: “I don't know either. I can only tell you that during these years I've been in the kitchen from morning to night and I have worked tirelessly in my italian kitchen model but personal, based on my idea of simplicity but with its own identity, dedicated to ingredients, with great flavors but very light . And all this was very new for Italy”.
And for half the world, because **Romito, the new Chef of the Year 2020 in Europe according to the XVIII Reale Seguros Madrid Fusión International Congress**, is considered one of the best italian chefs of all time.
He is influencing the new generations and has created a school (also in the light sense), but above all, a very personal code, which critics and the Michelin Guide like, and which he himself defines Traveler.es as: “ my kitchen, true and italian , is born from a model of domestic kitchen , but in which we have inoculated a tandem of research and complexity to achieve simplicity as a great point of arrival. This requires a lot of searching, reasoning, vision and many hours of study and practice ”.
Niko Romito in Casadonna
It is also very important to him healthy component : “I work with n natural ingredients I always seek to eliminate fat or incorporate ingredients that add sweetness but do not take away from truthfulness. that's why i like them common italian products , those that Italians eat at home every day , those that we all know, but that have helped me create a new gastronomic path”.
For example, cauliflower , one of his latest dishes, which is the synthesis of all the work he is doing with vegetables. “This dish today represents my idea of cooking and my concept of simplicity. It is made with a single ingredient and is 100% vegeta l, but it can easily replace a meat or fish dish. It mixes a multitude of techniques and reasoning to achieve a change in structure, temperature, consistency, acidity... but it tells it in simple language. It is a complete dish. , but visually it's just a cauliflower. That's why I always say my kitchen must be food , not only photographed, because in a photo you don't see all the work behind it”.
Your other fetish products? “ The onion : I work a lot with its extraction to create a liquid with the density of water but that is not water, and poultry meat ”.
With all of them, and with so many others seasonal products and easily identifiable by the diner , create your 2 tasting menus , in addition to an extensive letter in Reale. But this restaurant is only a part, perhaps the most visible, of all his work.
Niko Romito's cauliflower
We ask him about his next challenges, but apart from the future, he also tells us about the present: “In Reale we will continue to evolve to grow, but we have also opened restaurants in Bvlgari hotels around the world: Beijing, Dubai, Shanghai, Milan Y in September it will be the turn of Paris . In 2022 us we will premiere in Rome and in 2023, it will be Moscow and Tokyo," Romito told Traveler.es
And he continues: "I am also very excited about our cooking school, Accademia Niko Romito , from which 32 young chefs a year come out, who then work in the group's restaurants: Spazio (Rome or Milan), Reale, ALT or in the PANE laboratory ". Another of my favorite projects is Pane, a farm that produces breads made with grains from old varieties, thus creating a local system that is self-sufficient”.
Romito, pioneer and visionary, is not short of ideas... or desire.