Pepe Rosa opened in 2021, but it was in 2022 that Domenico Perna, a chef born in 1994, was recruited to make a more decisive leap toward fine dining. Today the kitchen does not disdain admixtures, with oriental references and a constant dash of acidity to gracefully lighten the recipes.
History and restaurant
The view on the clearest days, from Capo d'Orlando, is incomparable: not that it is not always a spectacle, but the Aeolian archipelago, seen sharply from this coast, has something magical about it. In a town of ancient splendor, known for an administrative management that brought events of international stature here long ago, Miriam and Antonio Magistro have given birth to Pepe Rosa.
They did this in the context of a modern and functional facility, that of the marina in the Marina, creating a restaurant project that challenges a restaurant world that is rather traditionalist in its gastronomic expression with its cuisine. Antonio, a decidedly eclectic 37-year-old who does not lack an authentic gourmand spirit, told us how he took his first steps practically in the dark: "I've been doing this job for 10 years, in 2016 I opened the first restaurant downtown. I actually came from the world of soccer, I was a sports director and a prosecutor.
I got into the hospitality business from the ground up, I didn't even know what a glass was (laughs), although as a boy I always wanted to have a restaurant. My brother-in-law, who had a nice restaurant in Castelbuono, pushed me to open a first small restaurant with eight tables. We immediately focused on quality, as I'm a competitive guy, I have to be well prepared." So Antonio attended the F&B management course at Alma and other training areas, until he became a trainer himself: “I also learned a lot from my mistakes, everything I could do wrong I did, but today we work at a good level.”
Pepe Rosa opens in 2021, but it is in 2022 that Domenico Perna, a chef born in 1994, is recruited to make a stronger leap toward fine dining. Antonio reiterates, “In this area there is nothing, it is worth trying.” Nothing is lacking at Pepe Rosa, starting with the elegance of the interior spaces with the beautiful windows and understated style (which, however, on the right days cannot compete with the live sunset overlooking the harbor). Giuseppe Migliazzo, Miriam's tempting brother-in-law and husband, has put together a remarkable cellar, six hundred and fifty labels with Sicily and Etna in the foreground but with ample references from the rest of Italy and France and other important wine areas from around the world. Then if someone was looking for satisfaction in some blended wines, they would find those too, done properly.
The chef
The chef is a young man who here at Pepe Rosa has had his first direct responsibility for a kitchen, something he does well, as we shall see, thanks in part to an interesting resume. Domenico, sincere and unfiltered, amusedly tells us how his story as a chef began almost by chance: “Compared to many of my colleagues who perhaps tell us that they took this path thanks to their mother's or grandmother's cooking, I found myself in it because at school I would have liked to choose anything else, but in the end I decided on hotel management with the excuse that maybe there was less studying. Then I started doing my first internships in the kitchens, I got hooked and that's where it all started. When I finished school I started to travel, I went to London, then to Positano to Le Sirenuse in the year the star arrived with Matteo Temperini."
Two more years in London at Baglioni, then in Geneva at La Bottega, in Naples at Comandante with Salvatore Bianco. After the pandemic "I took the ball and went to Therasia in Vulcano, did two 2 years there at Cappero with Giuseppe Biuso as sous chef. And once I got a taste of Sicily again, I decided to move closer to home and I found Antonio, a very dynamic person who relieved me a lot with the new experience as chef, I got lucky."
Perna is a capable and concrete chef, aware of a path that has started well and at the same time always in search of stimulation: “Every kitchen is a world of its own, I have absorbed a lot from my experiences and made my own thinking, my line is still under construction, because I am of the opinion that without training there is no future: you risk standing still, so the study is continuous. Capo d'Orlando is definitely not an easy place for such a big project, but the goal is important and the fact that I can bring something different here, make it known, stimulates me and gives me the strength to move forward and do better and better."
His is a cuisine that does not disdain blending, so in addition to ingredients from the island, there are elements that can come from anywhere, as long as their quality is ascertained, with oriental references and a constant dash of acidity to gracefully lighten his recipes. The work on vegetables is also excellent, and the remarkable experiments with cured meats and fish charcuterie are successful, served with excellent self-produced bread and a lemon-ginger kombucha that mitigates the intensity.
The dishes
"Pomod'oro" is bursting with flavor, with a macerated cuore di bue, shallots, roasted tomato sauce, dehydrated cherry tomatoes, tomato water and ricotta forte: aside there is a crostone of bread and oregano for scarpetta. It could not miss a Km0 product (the name of the dish), in which the roasted eggplant is glazed with its own water, with the addition of sour eggplant cream, goat cheese and fermented prickly pear sauce. The eggplant, having undergone four days of processing, having lost all its liquids, takes on a pleasantly meaty texture.
"Sinfonia di cocomero" involves the use of an osmosis watermelon cooked on barbecue, with ginger extract, mint oil, whipped buttermilk sauce and crispy caviar: the result, flavor-wise, is excellent. The Plin of fresh pasta stuffed with lobster with its garum and lemon also definitely convinces. It is served with shellfish butter and some mouthwatering Iberian pork stew patties, with the finishing touch of a sauce of Parmigiano Reggiano aged over 100 months.
The strings of flavors also vibrate for Green rice with bear garlic, kefir and homemade smen (this is a fermented salted butter, an important ingredient in Middle Eastern and Maghreb cuisine, made from sheep's milk). Tonkatsu is a succulent Mangalica pork rib, served with koji, miso-glazed carrot, its own stock and melting spring onion; the meat is smoked at the table with maritime pine cones and thyme.
It has rightly become a signature dish because of its great personality, the Ventresca dimenticata: made of tuna, it is matured 100 days and accompanied with carob caramel and fermented leek water hollandaise; to top it off, a chlorella vulgaris seaweed powder. The pastry doesn't go down a notch, thanks to Alessio Magistro, brother of the owners, a diploma from Alma and experience at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence with pastry chef Francesco Federici, at Berton in Milan and at Mori Venice Bar in Paris. Remarkable is his version of Piňa colada with oxidized pineapple, a veil of the same fruit marinated in rum and coconut-mint sauce. A place to try without delay.
Contact
Pepe Rosa
Contrada Bagnoli, 16, 98071 Capo d'Orlando ME
Phone: 0941 426076
