Chef Luca Ludovici along with partner and maître Lorena Cavana has found a place to express his cuisine, made mostly of ingredients refined within tufa walls that allow them to challenge the seasonality of products.
Photo credits: Ivan Sommonte, Alessandro Barattelli
The restaurant
In the Castelli Romani area, a territory of wine production, typical fraschette and restaurants that pay homage to the Lazio tradition, there is a restaurant that has been intriguing and convincing since May 2022. ConTatto is the sign of the couple (also in life) formed by chef Luca Ludovici and maître Lorena Cavana who, eager to open a restaurant in Rome, have instead found their second home in Frascati.
“We decided to start our new adventure here after visiting our own underground cave,” confesses Lorena, who together with Luca was thunderstruck by this intriguing tuff cave that has become ConTatto's ‘natural refrigerator.’ “It is an inspiring and identifying place, which in the past was used for wine production; then during World War II these caves, typical of the area, were converted into shelters because of the bombings ,” Lorena says. ” We have been using it since the opening to preserve, experiment and produce different products: from kombucha to the fermentation of lemon and grapefruit, from rice, which in these environments gains volume and reduces its cooking time, to the cultivation of mushrooms, radicchios and tomatoes. Of course, we also refine cheese and cured meats for different periods of time."
Wine projects: the link with the Cotarella family
A real production and preservation laboratory that makes it possible not to be subject to the seasonality of products, because the constant temperature-which never exceeds 16 degrees-and the darkness allow the cultivation of vegetables and greens all year round. A restaurant that in the last year has also seen the birth of a major collaboration with the Cotarella family, one of the best Italian wineries whose labels are featured on the wine list curated by sommelier Paolo Abballe. A key figure in the Roman sign's dining room who conveys his experience with great personality and a rigorous knowledge of the wines he presents to guests on a daily basis.
"We came into contact with the Cotarella family a year ago. From our visit to the company, we were impressed by the quality of the products and, not least, by the human value. Although they are an excellence at the international level, they still preserve a family dimension, made of will and daily commitment. In this, Luca and I saw ourselves a lot,” says Lorena Cavana, whose words are echoed by those of Enrica Cotarella, Image and Communication Manager of the family of the same name. “We met ConTatto about a year ago. Lorena and Luca came to visit the winery and the spark immediately went off. From there a friendship, as well as a professional relationship, was born."
The dishes
“Sub-zero kilometer” products are, ça va sans dire, widely present on the menu. Right in the grotto begins ConTatto's tasting course (there are two courses available, of 5 and 7 courses respectively), to make the experience even more immersive. The appetizer consists of a Sfera di pasta fritta with a filling of eggplant alla Parmigiana reduced to cream, a Fake Tomato enclosing panzanella, and finally a pickled Broccolo romanesco that with its sour note cleanses the palate and prepares guests to sit down at the table upstairs.
It starts with bread whose rising takes place in the cave for 48 hours, to be accompanied by a mock ricotta - made from the whey of goat ricotta production - to be spread on the thunderous leavening. The appetite grows as does Luca Ludovici's skill, which is sharp already in the first course: roasted cave Cardoncello, pecorino and nori seaweed. The mushroom is treated as if it were a steak given its meatiness, sautéed with a base of roast veal, fondue of cave-aged pecorino aged nearly three months, and lightly flamed nori seaweed that enriches the dish with iodine scents that complement the cardoncello's flavor profile.
In the Risotto ai tre latti - buffalo, goat and sheep - with under-salted caper powder (grown in caves) and grated gentian root, one grasps the texture and voluminousness of the carnaroli rice aged downstairs and the cleverness of cooking in the milk blend. Also excellent is the saltiness brought by the capers, less so the use of gentian, but the idea is correct. If Cardoncello is one of the signatures of the sign, the chef also fully convinces with the Gnocchetti with field herbs, candied lemon and cave-aged stracchino; a preparation that is appreciated for its enveloping taste and the texture of the pasta format, composed only of water and flour. The herbs used? Spinach, lettuce and wild chicory.
Also excellent was the test with the only carnivorous dish of the evening, Beef with buffalo blue and cave radicchio. The bavetta -- one of the most tender parts of the animal -- is cooked at a low temperature for eight hours and then pan-seared, accompanied by its base and fondue starring cheese aged about two and a half months.
The dessert is a tribute to Frascati - “the place that warmly welcomed us even though we were not originally from here,” Lorenza Cavana is keen to point out. Sospiro a Frascati - the term used in these parts for a glass of wine, a moment of pause-is composed of a white chocolate ganache, a lightly salted dark chocolate earth, a 14-day cave-aged chocolate mousse and a cocoa tuille to complete the dish. Also at the base of the course is a gel of Malvasia Puntinata (an indigenous variety of the area) with which Luca Ludovici completes his delightful dedication to the small town of Lazio.
CONTACT
ConTatto
Via Gioberti, 11, 00044 Frascati RM
T. +39 06 21700957
