Dario Torabi's cuisine at Old Friend Bistrot is one without geographic or gustatory boundaries. It’s one that brings great Sardinian products into the game of international contemporary creativity.
Old Friend Bar & Bistrot
The Restaurant
Cagliari is changing its skin: forearms both tanned by the sun and embellished by tattoos. What has been missing in the Sardinian capital is a gastronomic proposal like that of Old Friend Bistrot (for us, the restaurant-revelation of 2022 in Cagliari), an eatery that brings a cosmopolitan and international air to the center of town; it is underground without ever questioning its geolocation on the island.
Chef Dario Torabi, after all, is Sardinian in his own way, and still has ties his homeland as he is literally a child of crossbreeding. Cooking runs in his blood: he can’t recall much about Iranian restaurant his father Bahram led in the city, as Dario was very young when this took place. Mother Eleonora, on the other hand, was from Piedmont, and shared a love for the island along with her husband, deciding to move overseas.
"The offer was an ante litteram mix of traditional Persian recipes and local elements. I remember pomegranate and the scent of saffron. Even at home it depended on who was cooking at any given time, but we hardly ever saw a Sardinian dish go on the table." Cooking made its way back, like a dominant gene, after his graduation from classical high school, when he began working in some Italian restaurant in Monaco.
"But I wanted to return to Sardinia, the opportunity to open a place of my own came up and I took it. I had long felt the need to offer creative and personal cuisine." Old Friend Bistrot opened in 2016, then in 2020 moved downtown to a custom-built space with wall paintings by Emanuele Boi aka Skan. And self-taught artist's flair immediately the amazes.
"I really love to travel, to taste new flavors and textures. I started with the idea of interpreting Sardinian products in a contemporary and international way, without any previous schemes, according to what I crave at any given moment. My experiences in Denmark, Berlin and London were influential. New Nordic was a flash, because of the informality of the service and a way of thinking that I felt was similar to my own. In Copenhagen they care about the food product, but you also find a lot of spice and an essentiality that paradoxically sounds almost Japanese. It is a cuisine without limits or boundaries, favored by the absence of traditions."
The cuisine
Also at Old Friend, the cuisine is born from scratch: there are no typical recipes, neither Sardinian nor Italian. Dishes take shape by thinking about the combination between food products, which are never the same and always preserve their original flavor, while techniques are varied. Pasta dishes, an Italian icon, may be present, but they are not a dogma. There are a couple on the menu, always inspired by abstract gustatory reasoning. This is the case with Felicetti monograno spaghetti rehydrated in cold water and cooked in a sauce rich in butter and lemon, and they act almost a side dish for the sea snails, the real protagonists and stem cell of the dish. It has nothing to do, in the end, with the classic Coastal offerings.
Felicetti spaghetto monograno rehydrated in cold water, butter, sea snails and lemon
Or risotto, which is practically never missing as a tribute to Mama Eleonora. Now it's a celebration of local mushrooms (shiitake from Nurri, chanterelles, cardoncelli, porcini, leccini), finished off with blue cheese and with coulis and raspberry powder, more porcini and parsley powders, and a cascade of crunchy hazelnuts. For an exquisitely wintry taste of the woods.
Risotto with mushrooms, gorgonzola, raspberries, parsley, and hazelnuts
The menu, however, changes once a month, although some dishes are hard to take off from it. For example, in summer, the brains with peppers and licorice, a declaration of love to offal; or the seafood pancake, a miscellany of raw shellfish and crustaceans that are drizzled with IPA beer batter and whiskey for smokiness, then baked in the ring to make a juicy, iodized flatbread, which is soft on the inside and crispy on outside, served with a very sour mayonnaise and a cascade of wild herbs.
Seafood pancakes, mayonnaise, and wild herbs
The choice is between a dozen a la carte dishes, without partitions, costing between 12 and 20 euros, and the tasting menu with 9 dishes for 50 euros (but sometimes there are two tasting menus offered). The ingredients are largely proximate: shepherd's sheep and lambs, used whole if small; Sa Marchesa raw milk cheeses, used in contrast to tradition; vegetables from the San Benedetto district market or from Cocchiland, a small biodynamic farm that also does foraging; fish from the market or from a fishmonger that sources directly from boats.
There are also vegetarian and vegan dishes; again, not by choice, but because they came out that way. Finally, the wines are selected by Matteo Atzori along with Matteo Deidda and Enrico Mascia (who also oversees the beers): the list has a hundred or so labels that change often, almost all natural, with some orange wines too.
Those who sit down immediately receive bread, accompanied in summer by Sardinian extra virgin and in winter by Breton butter molded into the shape of a skull. The amuse-bouche is already outside the box, such as "chicken butts," (small pieces of flesh located in a hollow on either side of the tail); they are roasted, fried, mushroom and herb-glazed. The local squid is purely fragrant and tender; they are in season when the water is cold. They inspired the recipe, without being distorted. Scored and seared on the hot skillet, they are plated on a pinwheel of sauces: chicory cream for bitterness and herbaceousness, a lightened and sweetened bagna cauda, 'nduja oil for animal spiciness, and more chicory leaves and lots of lemon to summon contrasting primary flavors.
Totanetti, bagna cauda, chicory and 'nduja oil
Snails are brought back to their natural habitat: classically prepared in a sauce, as at home, they are served on an earthy cream of celeriac, underneath a salad of wild herbs and a pecorino cookie that mimics the shape of the shell.
Lightly spiced snails, celeriac, herbs, and pecorino wafer
Offal is the star ingredient of the in cordula, a traditional Sardinian dish that is taken out of context. Roasted lamb intestine braid is served on a warm lentil salad with oysters and frothy, silky beurre blanc, plus Iranian black lemon powder as an affective telltale and vector of acid-free freshness. It is prepared at home and used as a spice, but the legumes themselves are braised with the resulting broth.
Lamb chordula, lentils, black lemon, oyster and beurre blanc
Alternatively, there is beef tartare served in a crab shell and topped with the Insalata Russa-like pulp, arugula, and fried breadcrumbs reminiscent of sand, for a surf-and-turf-like dish. But fish becomes a detail in the cream of caramelized, almost burnt cauliflower, with the cauliflower also roasted and pickled in vinegar, according to seasonality and availability; or the scallops or shrimp, whose heads presented on pieces of coals are to be squeezed onto the plate, which is scented with tarragon.
Cauliflower, scallop, celery, tarragon
The not-sweet desserts, which are plant-based and even animal-based, also favor the atypical over what is cliché. For example, the ricotta espuma with caramelized pumpkin brunoise, yuzu peel and pumpkin glass or the chocolate mousse with tangerine gel, crispy fried Jerusalem artichoke, white chocolate wafer and powdered veal heart for a kick-starting finish with iron-like taste notes.
Pumpkin, ricotta, yuzu
Chocolate, Jerusalem artichoke, tangerine, veal heart powder
Pictures by Natalia Ghiani
Address
Old Friend Bar & Bistrot
Via Giuseppe Abba, 51, 09127 Cagliari CA
Tel: 070 464 7988
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