“My line is about simplicity, few ingredients and a lot of flavor.” Emin Haziri's cooking does not move by extremes. His menu is a lingering treat which activates the tongue in its most comfortable zones, the sweet and the savory.
The chef and the restaurant
Posters and billboards have not disappeared. They resist social advertising, even in a major way. Digital multiverses cannot, for now, dent that need for physicality, for the analog so appealing. Even if you belong to the gen-z or the new letter generation to come. In Milan, on the three bridges of Viale Forlanini, at the top right, there is a chef on a billboard. He is Emin Haziri, chef and partner in the Procaccini restaurant, which opened a few months ago right on Procaccini Street, where one of the restaurants of the Cocciuto chain of pizzerias stood. We had never seen a chef who uses billboards as a means of communication.
Unless he is hired by a cheese, chips, cookware or kitchen brand. Here in fact is a chef promoting himself. We can't say it's an advertisement with great creative impact: there's a picture of the chef, the name of the restaurant, presented with a premium chic type of treatment. We learn that the billboard on Viale Forlanini is not the only one. Do restaurants do marketing strategy? In our opinion, they must do so, taking into account their scope of work as industry experts would say, their geographic location and reputation. So many are structuring themselves with a social strategy and tone of voice.
Few choose billposting. Perhaps it was the second partner, an active air conditioning contractor, who suggested this communication option. Because of a previously made agreement or perhaps just because he really believes in the power of billposting. Certainly Emin's face on the posters got the Milanese restaurant and hospitality community talking. Some even seem to have turned their noses up at it.
Emin is originally from Kosovo. In 2002 he arrived in Trieste as a refugee, after what, ever so slightly, we call a journey of hope. Perhaps because we have managed, alas, to get used to that, too. For a child like Emin there were two passions. The first was soccer, the second cooking. The first is cultivated well; there is even talent in the family, as evidenced by the professionalism achieved by Emin's cousin, Mërgim Vojvoda, a current defender for Torino and the Kosovo national team. An injury, however, crushed Emin's dream right in his prime. All that remains is the kitchen, in which Emin shows as much promise as in soccer. It goes without saying that for someone like Emin, the locker room spirit, the pre-service tension, the non-Venetian game, are more than legitimate, almost indispensable parallels.
"I feel like a coach. As a character I feel like a coach. However, I am also a guy like them, I am a crazy guy and I have fun together with the brigade. At some point my job is to reestablish and convey seriousness. I am both a teammate and an aloof figure. I have to know how to be friendly, to let the team know where to go, but in the meantime I still have to remain authoritative in the group, so as not to let that levity prevail, which then results in careless and distracted work. Occasionally I have to make a few tackles. I then help them get back up, though."
Milan is not an easy stadium. Curves, badges, VIP and half-gods. Locals, foreign guests. Keepers of tradition, shy searchers of experimentation. Showbiologists and osterians. Gastrophiles and truckers in modern trattorias. Not to mention that the stadium is shared not between two, but between thousands of teams. In this league, having someone to sing you an anthem and be loyal to you is a feat.
At Procaccini's, the game module is that of a restaurant that makes your eyes, taste buds and even ears sparkle. A guard at the entrance immediately sets the type of place. This is followed by the décor in which a 1970s style is mixed with the “naked” of the industrial. Onyx stone banquets with white oak. There is no lack of a cocktail bar or even a chef's table. A grand piano is not just a piece of furniture. At every service, a master sits at the stool and runs his fingers nonstop to the petit fours. In our memory, there are no other Milanese restaurants that serve covers of Coldplay, Radiohead and Oasis or from the soundtracks of Forrest Gump and The Pianist on the Ocean. We also remember Morricone.
Marketing? Why not. Anything can serve to generate word of mouth and keep people from wanting to return to Procaccini's. "My idea has always been to open something of my own, with my own style. Before we became partners, Paolo was my customer. He would come to eat and he never showed up. He was one of those customers who would come back. Then one day he sent me a message via linkedin and we started talking from there. He wanted to invest in me completely. We got to know each other, became friends. There is great mutual respect between us. At Antonino's I was fine, I knew everyone, the chef gave me carte blanche, but I had come to have too many comforts. The time to break away and put my ambition to good use had come."
The juxtaposition equation between Emin and Cannavacciuolo is all too simple. For four years he was at Bistrot in Turin and became its manager, retaining the star. Now the only name on his jacket is his own.
The kitchen and the dishes
Emin's cooking does not move by extremes. His menu is a prolonged pampering that activates the tongue in its most comfortable zones, the sweet and the savory. A glance at the tasting menus and the carte is enough to understand that seasonality coexists with that desire to exaggerate a bit, of lush exoticism, of tangentiality to opulence. That is why we find dishes with lobster, caviar or wagyu or even a raw-only menu. Procaccini is not a trattoria, it is fine dining without edges and with many caresses.
"My cooking is about simplicity, few ingredients and lots of flavor. It has to please everyone. There will never be airs -there is the piano one - there will never be a fake carrot. My focus is that people have to come, take their heads off and most importantly come back. We are not at Noma where you have a one-shot experience and it ends there. My cuisine is about tradition and remembrance." The welcome is informal; in the dining room, you don't feel the pressure of being observed as special. Although what is special is certainly the cutting of bread at the table and a sumptuous cheese cart. Our menu debuts with Mazara del Vallo red shrimp, salted lemon, almonds.
The layout of the dish did not convince us; the crown of cut-out almonds gave us the impression of little care in presentation. Different shapes, chipped edges. In short, the eye saw more glitches than anything else. The dish actually pleased us. Potatoes, mushrooms and nasturtium is a comfort zone pot, in which the combination of potatoes and mushrooms almost overflows. The choice of nasturtium to act as a bitter, savory counterbalance is interesting. Although the large amount of creamed potatoes did not help the full balance of the dish.
Mackerel, beet, yogurt and chicken ristretto: undoubtedly the most interesting dish of the evening. Because it breaks the mold of sweetness as well as being perfectly laid out, unlike the first one. The dish in which Emin's technique and ability to enhance the poorest ingredients emerges. We are in a film where the underdogs win against the daddy's boys, who may have the convertibles and designer clothes, but not the grip on life and talent of those who sacrifice themselves for revenge or personal growth. There is an underlying sour noise in this dish that sounds synchronous to the intensity of the chicken ristretto. Clear the way.
Short-lived however. A tsunami of sweetness floods the palate, caressing and enveloping it with Pastificio Graziano's Linguine, lobster and champagne sauce. They are seductive forkfuls, soft porn. The large amount of bisque drags down the finish a bit, weighing it down. Fortunately there is excellent bread to pick up the slop. In closing, lightness is restored with Cod, cod tripe and smoked onion. A well-executed smoked cod, in which an earthy background goes to “soil” the sea, with a current of intensity and substance.
On desserts definitely better Baba and passion fruit than Chocolate, cocoa grue and hazelnut. We are at the last mile, freshness will always win over opulence. Honorable mention to Edoardo, histrionic sommelier who made the service not at all congealed and at times bubbly.
Contact
Via Procaccini 33 Milan - MI
Phone 02 7709 1277
milano@procaccini.com
