"Many important restaurants in the world are outside big cities: for me the province is the future and has enormous potential." After significant experiences, he returns to his hometown to rediscover and narrate the territory of Tuscia: the bold cuisine of Andrea Astolfi.
We live in a country where beauty is so widespread that we sometimes struggle to notice it. Just discover an art town like Tuscania: wonderful, rich in history, in a panoramic position, on the promontory overlooking the Marta valley. The view from here, in the heart of Tuscia, can roam freely over the greenery. We are in the province of Viterbo, just over an hour from Rome, between Lake Bolsena and the Tyrrhenian Sea. Andrea Astolfi, born in 1997, began cooking right here, at his home; and here is where he wanted to return after several important experiences.
The chef
The chef's professional journey begins almost by chance: "I didn't have a great passion, even though there was a lot of cooking at home and it was done well; nor had I ever approached the stove except maybe as a teenager with friends: I always prepared the classic midnight spaghetti." Anyway, Andrea decides to attend the hotel culinary school, and at sixteen, he starts his journey. "I was in a small restaurant that also offered catering; I started from the basics: I immediately liked it much more than school, so I got to work."
It was in this place that he met Domenico Napodano, a few years older than him and now his right-hand man: "Fate wanted the roles to be reversed, since he was my first teacher. He was the one who told me about fine dining, about the Michelin guide. So I fell in love with this world with the idea of becoming a great chef myself, one day." His journey continues with Roy Caceres in Rome at the time of Metamorphosis, for a six-month internship: "I liked it a lot, and for the Italian gastronomic scene, it was a bit out of the ordinary: Roy was the first Colombian chef to earn a star and, several friends had worked in his restaurant; a nice environment, then we ended up with Domenico. Caceres was a great mentor, I went back to him twice in a row and left my heart there."
A very important experience, later on, was at Mirazur in Menton with Mauro Colagreco, where Andrea stays for a year and a half, first as a commis and then as a demi chef, with the team that would earn the third star: "A very tough but truly enlightening, beautiful, and formative journey: I was fortunate to work alongside great professionals." From the French Riviera, Andrea moves north, and throughout 2018, he goes to Maaemo in Oslo, Norway, where he consolidates his skills: "Very nice, but at a certain point, the head chef changed, and the spark was gone. So it was a very formative experience from a technical point of view, but it didn't leave me much emotionally.
For Andrea, the human side of work is crucial - "it's the main thing because, from this perspective, the lessons I received in the kitchen shaped my personality: as the chef of my restaurant, I try to convey serenity to the people who work with me, for a matter of health but also because I think it's an aspect that is part of the sustainability of a venue." The idea of returning to Tuscania matured from a reflection on the time spent with Mauro Colagreco: "What I learned there was crucial; I realized that even in my own home, there was potential. As a young and ambitious boy, living in the province, in a small village, felt too confining for me, so I always disliked the village. That's why I tried to go elsewhere. Then at a certain point, I realized that I needed to carry on my origins and instead of seeking glory elsewhere, I needed to embrace my traditions and my land; which is actually very rich and yet often talked about too little.
We are close to both the sea and the mountains, Umbria is a stone's throw away, and so is Tuscany. It's an area with many excellent ingredients, and the cuisine can range widely. While working with Mauro and spending a lot of time in the garden, I understood that the beauty lay right there. Even Menton is beautiful but it's not a metropolis: many important restaurants in the world are not in big cities: for me, the province is the future and has enormous potential." That's why, Andrea continues, "I am trying in every way to be a spokesperson for this fantastic territory with so much history to tell and so many ingredients to cook with, but above all with so many young people who are eager to work. This is no small thing."
The restaurant
Convivial is located inside a large, evocative space, with very high walls and the kitchen completely visible next to a fireplace with a large grill. It's the only part belonging to a private individual of a complex, that of San Francesco, owned by the curia: it has been, looking back, a cooking school, a monastery, a hospital, and even before that a slaughterhouse.
Andrea started the business in March 2022, but just after a year, he was forced to undergo a long closure: "I managed to reopen only in December of last year, an increase in voltage was needed, and there were a lot of problems." But finally, here he is, in this beautiful setting where he can express his cuisine: by his side at the stoves is Domenico Napodano, managing a room full of very young and talented people is Alessandro Pesarini.
And speaking of the sustainability of work, Andrea likes to talk about a restaurant that doesn't work 6 days or worse 7 out of 7, but only with four services a week, one at lunch on Sundays: "I believe that the future of catering also depends on these things. I care about making the people I have with me feel good." When we asked him about the origin of the name Convivial, he replied: "We had just come out of covid, a bad time that kept us divided and separated. Moreover, the table in a kitchen is one of the most convivial places, especially for us Italians who have a high food culture, so it came naturally to us."
But what is Andrea Astolfi's cuisine like? He says he wants to conceive it as "genuine as possible, made of very visible gestures because there are no barriers between us and the customer during dinner; and then very natural, with a lot of technique. But we try to make it accessible to everyone, even to those who are approaching this type of cuisine for the first time, even if simplicity itself is a very complex thing."
The kitchen
The tasting menus, at 38 and 55 euros, offer an extraordinarily convenient ratio between cost and outcome, and in our opinion, the chef and the restaurant will provide us with many pleasant surprises. Like the beginning of a very enjoyable dinner, with (among other delights) a snack based on Cinta Senese pork ham raised in Tuscania by a Sardinian shepherd friend, slaughtered and processed by him, with wonderful fat; and then an irresistible focaccia with homemade bacon and head cheese. All the vegetables are locally sourced: the first appetizer is a flavorful endive cooked in osmosis in seaweed dashi broth, grilled, glazed with mandarin reduction, and enriched with a few drops of basil oil; at the base, a sort of satay with peanut cream and coconut milk base. Next is the chicory, blanched and then grilled, served with its cream and powder: under the susianella, a typical Tuscia salami made from pork with a small portion of offal, chili, garlic, and wild fennel; and then, wildflower honey and homemade black garlic: "I wanted to propose a 'rebellious' pairing with an oyster emulsion, not even, because actually, the ancient Romans ate oysters and cold cuts together." Delicious dish.
Another flavorful dish arrives with 'Potatoes, razor clams, game,' which Andrea defines as punk: "a connection with Tuscany and Umbria. We're close to the sea, but we start with the Onano potato, a town near Lake Bolsena. The tubers, very peculiar, grow in volcanic soil. First, they are cooked in osmosis with Cinta Senese pork fat, then grilled and glazed with sautéed razor clams, bay leaf oil, and a foam made from wild boar and wood pigeon game." The barley risotto, of course, is a sequence of precious morsels, it's now a flagship: although Andrea defines himself a risotto’s lover, rice is not found in Tuscia, "so we decided to bring a cereal like barley to the same level.
We cream it with mushroom cream, add hazelnut miso, sheep robiola cream, chopped hazelnuts, and a red fir powder collected in the beech forest." Succulent dish is 'Cod, citrus, marrow, Swiss chard' in which the fish is wrapped in chard and accompanied by a Swiss chard sauce, made of bitter oranges, dog rose jelly, and a beef marrow sauce.
The savory part concludes with one of the best sweetbreads ever tasted, cooked in milk and finished on the grill, glazed with veal jus, and accompanied by a fermented cherry ragout. The dessert, 'Rocher, white chocolate, and fermented apricot,' is of great freshness. Truly two nice surprises, Andrea Astolfi and his Tuscia.
Contacts
Convivial
Largo della pace 17/19- 01017 Tuscania (VT)
Phone: +39 328 393 1967
