A team with an average age under 30, new dishes, and a new chef with a distinguished track record of combining taste and elegance: the turnaround of Villa Della Pergola's Nove with Antonio Romano.
The hotel
Alassio is a place of uncommon beauty: gazing at its sea from above, from a silent and hidden position, is a spectacle worth witnessing. Ideally, for lovers of whispered, unglamorous luxury, it can be done from Villa della Pergola. The story of what is now a hotel in the brilliant greenery of an extraordinary botanical park, born at the end of the 19th century and saved from building speculation that would have made it disappear, is the result of an act of love by an entire family, starting with Antonio Ricci and Silvia Arnaud.
Today in the Gardens of Villa della Pergola, 22 thousand square meters of area of which Alessandra Ricci, with whom we explored them, knows every nook and cranny, one can admire an impressive variety of plants, including the most important collection of wisteria in Italy with more than 40 varieties, and that of agapanthus -in this case the varieties represented are more than 500- which in the flowering period between June and July give an incredible range of colors, including shades of white, blue and azure. Sister Francesca Ricci, restaurant manager of Nove, a Michelin-starred restaurant inside the facility, tells us the story of this place.
“It was 2006 and Villa della Pergola was saved from a major project that would have destroyed part of the hill, demolishing the garden structures and all the buildings. Dad is from Albenga and we are three sisters, all born and raised by choice in Alassio: so the link with the territory is very strong. Initially, as my father has stated in the past, it was a gesture of love. Then it was trying to rationalize and figure out what to do after winning the judicial auction. We went in and did the first work in 2007, and we started a huge renovation project, both of the villas and the garden, which was the most challenging ever.
It took six years just to get it back on its feet properly, because it was completely abandoned. Until the 1980s, it had been in the hands of English families since the mid-1900s, including the Hanburys, and each one brought something different." The first rooms were opened in 2009, and the idea, Francesca explains, “was to bring this place to the community in as many facets as possible. It was decided to arrange them without touching anything of the original spaces, apart from adding a few bathrooms, recreating with a very extensive research the history of Villa della Pergola through images, photos, postcards.” Instead, the gardens were inaugurated in 2012, after six years of work.
The restaurant
The restaurant was born later, at first embryonically: “At first we served only breakfast, but customers wanted to spend more time inside the villa. At that time we had a housekeeper, a German lady, who prepared very simple dishes for those who stopped here for dinner, based on what she found in the market." Come 2015 and “we start grinding out the idea of opening a gourmet restaurant.” It is Giorgio Servetto who follows him from 2016 to 2021. “We worked on the tradition of Liguria, and in 2020 came both a Michelin star and Relais & Chateaux membership.” For a couple of seasons it is another Giorgio, Pignagnoli, who is in charge of the kitchens at Nove; the partnership, however, breaks up due to a different vision.
Francesca also tells us about the many projects in the pipeline, including the development of Orto Rampante, the farm adjacent to the property, on land that belonged to Carlo Levi's family. A big project that has met its bureaucratic hurdles but has finally started and should see the light of day in a couple of years: "The idea is to bring the farm to life in 360 degrees. Over here a pleasure garden, beauty, unbridled British luxury. Over there the Liguria of land and agriculture. The project includes Villa Levi, and three greenhouses: an educational one, the restaurant and another greenhouse with four rooms: you learn, eat and sleep inside each of them. The project was entrusted to Renzo Piano (family friend, ed.), there is a blend of Liguria to the utmost power."
Francesca's meeting with new chef Antonio Romano was professionally a bolt out of the blue: "Mutual friends put us in touch, we spoke ten minutes and I felt like he was finishing my sentences and thoughts even though we didn't know each other: it was easy for me to think of him as the next step for Nove and Villa della Pergola. ”Romano, born in Rome in 1993, definitely has quite a resume: after graduating from the hotel school, he left for England, and the most significant British stop was with Heston Blumenthal.
"He trained me a lot, then I spent six years with Heinz Beck, two of which were at Pergola; I did a lot of openings, I was one of the youngest, and I found myself within a short time being one of those who took responsibility, until I became head of events abroad even if unofficially. I always wanted to grow, I had so much hunger and ambition, so in my third year Chef Beck sent me to Milan as sous chef in the Attimi interlude, which lasted two years, then he decided to entrust me with Castello di Fighine, my first experience as a chef. Six years passed, I felt I had closed a circle, that I had given all there was to give: I wondered how much I could be worth as a chef without having a big name behind me.” So that's when Antonio, without a contract in hand, said goodbye to the world of Heinz Beck and took a leap of faith, until an opportunity came his way to replace Alessandro Mecca at Spazio 7 in Turin. What happened, namely the ownership decision to leave the business after two years, is chronicled.
“A bit of a closure, but in spite of everything I feel that I have grown a lot, in a situation that did me as much good as bad, but in the end it brought me here, that's okay!" Francesca Ricci tells us how the chef, here at Villa della Pergola, was given carte blanche: “Of course it is important to contextualize, but in my opinion you should not force too much on the territory, especially if you are in a place you don't know yet, you risk doing damage (laughs).” Of course, one day after another, Antonio is also beginning to become familiar with the raw materials of a region rich in magnificent ingredients. Francesca continues, “We looked at the whole proposition together: hotellerie, breakfast, rooms, all day: we opened in a hurry, there wasn't much time, but I have to say he quickly settled in-it will come naturally to him to include more and more Liguria.
As Villa della Pergola, we feel we are custodians of excellence, and we want this to be recognized as a place where the concept appears at its best, in all its facets-one of the biggest compliments for me is that there is great cohesion between everything. There are many of us on staff this year, with 19 rooms in total. For us, it is essential that the human factor is coordinated and consistent across all roles-it is difficult and requires a lot of commitment." But, we add, there is a lot of freshness, because we are talking about a team that gravitates to an average age under 30, except for Francesca and the chef, who, however, are only slightly over that.
The dishes
Antonio, in the kitchen, expresses himself with elegance and taste: “The idea is that, more than making ‘covers,’ it is important to use local products to make something personal, even at the level of identity.” Our dinner was a remarkable experience, without a detail out of place, from the amuse bouche onward, including, just to name a couple, the Gillardeau oyster in tuna sauce and the cauliflower cloud with masala creme fraîche and black garlic honey confit. Leavened items such as, in addition to bread, the mouthwatering focaccia with hazelnut butter and lemon are also excellent. Fennel, Ligurian saffron, ras el hanout is the first, very fresh appetizer, with a salad of the vegetable marinated in saffron and the Moroccan spice flavored creme fraîche, fennel gel and saffron mayonnaise.
We continue with another green dish, again fresh and full of flavor: melon, zucchini scapece, squash blossoms. The cantaloupe is pan seared over a creamy zucchini scapece sauce, trumpet zucchini in oil, battered squash blossoms, candied pumpkin seeds, mint oil, and squash blossom and mint ice cream are added. Purple shrimp, coconut, plums and cucumber: delicious local shrimp, marinated in the extraction of its own carapace, with cucumber emulsion and the same pickled, yellow plum gel, red plum cryo-extraction, dehydrated coconut rapé, coconut milk sauce, tarragon oil and plum 'snow'.
Amberjack, toasted spelt, lovage and plankton also centers the flavors, with the fish caught in the Ligurian Sea and marinated in a Chardonnay dressing. To complement, toasted spelt, seaweed and plankton gel, lovage mayonnaise and sea herbs. With stale bread, tomatoes and green gazpacho, there is a return to great summer freshness: bread is revitalized with tomato water. Yellow dates marinated in yellow tomato vinaigrette and tomato vinegar, melting spring onion, pickled cucumber spheres, and confit red date tomatoes are used. The composition, completed in the room, includes more than 30 elements of green vegetables and herbs.
Of explosive goodness is the raviolo del plin stuffed with blue cheese from the upper Elvo valley with apricots and roasted peppers: mustard and apricot vinegar are added to the cheese, all of which is whipped with a cryo-extraction of red peppers. It also seduces with the taste of sole, also locally caught, served with avocado sheets, sea fennel tsukudoni, Savona chinotto gel, and burnt lemon mullet sauce.
Juicy and soft, with flavorful meat, the veal tenderloin with jackdaws, tomato and almonds: the meat is cherry wood smoked, an almond emulsion, tomato sauce and jackdaw oil are added, sautéed jackdaws with confit tomatoes, tomato water ketchup and finally pickled almonds. High-school dessert: "cabossa", buttermilk brigasca, dill and watermelon. Creamy cocoa fruit, watermelon mousse and gel, watermelon in osmosis in cordial of the same, brigasca sheep buttermilk custard and dill, buttermilk and dill ice cream; to finish custard, crumble and cabossa tuille. Just as with the canapés, the result is also excellent for the small pastries. For a Ligurian stop not to be missed.
Contact
Villa della Pergola
Via Privata Montagu, 9/1, 17021 Alassio SV
Phone: 0182 646130
