Background at Enoteca La Torre and Pulejo, lots of ideas, and the passion of someone who, at less than 30 years old, manages an entire hotel dining offer: Simone Lezzerini is a young man to keep an eye on at Antico Borgo di Sutri.
It is called Antico Borgo di Sutri and it is located in the town of the same name in the Viterbo area, in that magnificent Tuscia that offers stunning corners as well as - as we will see in a moment - great products and remarkable cuisines. The hotel is a modern and comfortable facility, nestled in the greenery of a large eight-hectare park.
It is the ideal setting for events, an important business for the owners, Francesca Pozzi and Federico Fortin , who, with director Riccardo De Santis, have chosen to rely on a very young chef since February 2023, entrusting him with N'Uovo Vino e Cucina, a gourmet restaurant with high ambitions and, in our opinion, also definitely legitimate.
The chef
Simone Lezzerini , born in Rome in 1996 , graduated from the Spoleto hotellier school. He started early and worked with several restaurants in the capital, cutting his teeth in a modern bistro. He also helps his father, a traditional cuisine restaurateur, in his restaurant in Palombara Sabina: “We have a small countryside where we used to make oil: I grew up between there and the city, I helped him open his trattoria, but I felt a bit limited and still needed to be scolded.”
The turning point came with Enoteca La Torre and Domenico Stile: “I told him I would go even without pay, just that I needed to see this world of haute cuisine. He took me in and after a few months he sent me to Capalbio where he had a consultancy, where I was head chef. Then he wanted me back: I stayed there almost two years."
Simone is eager to learn, attending training courses on baking, gaining experience in Via Veneto, and then deciding to set up something of his own: “After Covid we opened Saporie, a small bistro with my partner in Bracciano. Then we happened to be lucky enough to have a baby: we were on our own, not having anyone watching our back, so we decided not to risk it again, and closed the shutters." While becoming a father was a great joy, for Simone there was some working darkness.
His experience at Davide Puleio's in Pulejo Ristorante, back in Rome, came to his rescue: “It gave me back motivation and desire toward this industry; I stayed there 8/9 months. My partner, however, could not make it on her own, so I got reacquainted." Moral of the story, Simone arrives at Antico Borgo di Sutri as head chef and, after some time there, he takes over the kitchens of the whole structure: “They gave me the task of executive: some guys who worked with me from Saporie came and we built a nice brigade. Now I manage everything: events, weddings, meetings; in one year we have grown so much, and we are very happy because besides N'Uovo, there are 50/60 ceremonies every year and other important events."
The restaurant
As for N'Uovo, Lezzerini's approach is complex but successful: "We work with small producers, although with them managing orders is very difficult - the tricky thing has been standardizing supplies. There are a lot of farms around here. We get our meat, there's a lady who brings us eggs and guys who grow our mushrooms; we also have our own garden outside."
Simone tells us that, in his dishes, he wants to express a cuisine that uses technique to focus on taste; admittedly, he succeeds, because his dishes are all undoubtedly from very good up. Grilling is a recurring theme, as is the clever idea of keeping some dishes untouched, to replace the vegetable side depending on seasonality. Likewise, attention to waste reduction is utmost.
The dishes
In the steamed egg with grilled mushroom mousse and "prataioli" mushroom ragu, an organic egg from hens raised on hemp seed is used. According to Lezzerini, “It's constantly evolving, and a few weeks ago we added a vegetable roe grated over it, that we make thanks to the fermentation of mushrooms, playing with the dehydration and rehydration of the resulting mixture, finishing its seasoning inside a vegetable casing.” And it is also an excellent idea not to fall into the usual cliché of the low-temperature cooked egg, that comes up in a thousand similar versions.
Veal sweetbread with apricot mustard, goat milk and sour chard is another evidence of this young man's talent, in which the balsamic note of the self-produced mustard and the savoriness of the milk lend a touch of finesse to the masterfully cooked offal. Lezzerini's signature dish is the remarkable raw milk risotto, with straw-smoked robiola, watercress and bay leaf; "it is now a signature dish that was born while I was cooking risoni with robiola for my son. The rice is cooked directly inside the milk without broth or water, halfway through the cooking process, we insert a bay leaf butter to flavor it and give vigor to the 'flat' flavor of cooking in milk and its sweetness. We finish by creaming with live-smoked robiola, with embers made with straw, and finally, around the risotto, we place the watercress sauce that is used to give the herbaceous part."
Also very good and convincingly flavorful are the grilled gnocchi, stuffed with wild herbs and blue from the local sheeps. Lamb, artichokes and garlic is the first of the main courses: “We get it whole from a farm nearby, processing all its parts. In this case, we combine the different cuts in a terrine, which then undergoes a direct cooking and is napped with butter."
Beautiful is the feeling given by the layered meats, with their fatty and lean parts alternating in the bite. "We don't waste anything, and with the carcasses we go to make the stock with which it will be glazed at the end. We join the barbecued artichokes garnished with their cream and finally the wild garlic, which is delicate because it is kept in milk for days before being cooked." Also a small masterpiece is the eel with local apple and pear quince and roasted cauliflower: a small eel is used, which is more difficult to work with but, Simone explains, "it's tastier than the capitone, we fillet it and, so it doesn't dry out too much, we steam it and finish it on the grill. It is stuffed with the same eel, seasoned with garlic, oil and chili. The quince is used to tone down the important flavor of the fish; we roast the cauliflower well and puree it; we finish with a green herb-scented oil."
Freshness and gluttony are also in the dessert, which is rather unique: in "tobacco" the main part is a milk froth infused with Tuscan cigar, inside there is whiskey ice cream and it is finished with a 70% dark chocolate pudding; for the crunchy part a cocoa meringue is used. Yes, Simone Lezzerini needs to be kept an eye on.
Contacts
Antico Borgo di Sutri - N'Uovo
S.S. Cassia, Km 46/700, 01015 Sutri VT
Phone: 0761 586988
