What is Davide Scabin, the brilliant soloist of Italian cuisine, up to at Carignano in Turin, and why every menu of his is a must-try: "Allow the gut to ponder, our second brain." On the table, the all-sense of taste, devoid of aesthetics or ephemeral quirks.
The restaurant
If there has been an unexpected guest in the latest Italian food guides, it has undoubtedly been Davide Scabin, a standout presence at the Sitea Hotel in Turin for a year, continuing his revolution away from the spotlight. "Next year, I would like to bleach the term 'restaurant,' but I still don't know how," he growls.
"I'm not looking for spectacle or the wow factor, except in the mouth. I don't even provide photos to the media: since Bob Noto passed away, there is no one who knows how to interpret the dishes. The important thing is to let your senses flow, then you can like it or not. Without choosing like a herd. Let's talk about social media: there is a segment of gourmets who are forced and restricted. But I'm not interested; I want to get out of this swamp. When you don't sing in the choir, many think the song is out of tune. But I prefer to be forgotten rather than associated with something I no longer care about. It's the stomach that decides: let the second brain think."
On the 5 tables of his Carignano, five hourglasses rest, unraveling the thread of time ("Everything here is made at the moment, it's all a matter of time"). The theme of the tasting menu (without a printed menu, but also serving vegans) is Los Dias de Los Muertos, a Mexican festival already the subject of Disney's attention in Coco. The title on the menus (present in 88 numbered copies, in refined Turin typography) is LGBT # 1 (acronym for Long Gourmet Brainstorming Time).
"Food as a way to escape the control of linear time, allowing celebration to burst in. Eating as an event to break the routine, opening up to a dimension that escapes any categorization. Nothing is what it seems. Welcome to diasdelosmuertos," it reads. The price is three stars: 260 euros, plus any additional 140 for the pairing with plenty of French wines by Nicola Matinata.
"LGBT" alludes to the underlying theme, common to the festival, namely ambiguity: after the harvest, all that remains under the bare earth is the corpses. So, at the end of summer, the generosity of nature is celebrated, a passionate moment when the living are joined with the dead, the visible with the invisible, the past with the present. "Because I don't classify emotions: I always have everything in front of me, mourning as well as joy."
The experience
As in the case of the previous course, inaugurated with a sumptuous Barolo-flavored lamb tongue, about to move on to the bistro, the debut is classic: succulent Villeroy-style lamb chops, swollen with truffle butter, with a spring-like of 13 vegetables in white butter, against the playful backdrop of Vivaldi's Spring (RV269), where the season is synonymous with celebration. In the coming menu, there will be a "dogmatic" royal hare, as if the classic serves to set the right standard for the eruption of creativity. Following, the pattern is up and down, in other words, decreasing, following the curve of appetite.
The roasted foie gras with tomato and basil leaves a mark, a bold oxymoron that smiles in the mouth thanks to the perfect balance of Tomato Combal Blend, which, modeling itself on tobacco, rebalances the sugar of the pulp with the acidity of the seeds and the tannin of the peel; for garnish, a nest of basil sautéed like spinach; to complete the circle, the lemon zest. A disruptive dish that finds its meaning in taste.
The last youthfulness combines sweetbread, a gland that disappears in adolescence, and red mullet, a fish that was believed to favor sexual disinhibition in antiquity. Without excessive sauces, only seaweed, for a strange sensation on the border between ages. Meanwhile, oysters, green banana, and chorizo turn towards fusion, continuing the paradoxical reasoning on taste.
After the savarin, it's time for Cx5 + 9.3, a variation of an onion soup with cold and hot broth. It is a fetish of the chef, where the number represents the rating given, still far from perfection in color, taste, and "desire for life," after the similar birth from the clarification placenta. Then comes the vegetable: the fleshy roasted celeriac chop, cooked whole in a crust of salted bread, with cocoa, coffee, arugula, mandarin, and caviar; then the bitterness of burnt asparagus and avocado with mustard, a continuation of scattered reflections in Rivoli (the avocado is truly remarkable).
To conclude, Parabris, a shaved ice inspired by the frost on a winter night windshield, and +1, a last choice between sweet and savory, to move the horizon a little further on the line of ambiguity: the langoustine with pepper frappé, brown jelly, and black truffle, or the grilled mango with piña colada smoothie, awaiting the El Charro Negro cocktail, a symbol of festivity.
Contacts
Ristorante Carignano
Via Carlo Alberto 35, Turin
Tel: (+39) 011 51 70 171
info@ristorantecarignano.it
