Long-lived team, the “Cascone method” in the dining room and a technically evolved kitchen that, however, keeps the focus on taste and satisfaction. We tell you the secret of the success of Acquolina, a Roman two-star sign where Daniele Lippi's dishes travel in perfect harmony with the rhythms of service.
The restaurant
Rome, literally a stone's throw from Piazza del Popolo, a narrow alleyway and First Roma Arte, an elegant five-star luxury hotel that holds two Capitoline gastronomic gems. One is on the top floor, on a terrace with a wonderful view, the kind the eternal city has accustomed us to from different angles: it is Acquaroof Terrazza Molinari, Bistrot di mare, with its seafood cuisine and excellent cocktail bar offerings. The other, however, Acquolina, is on the ground floor and is fine dining with two Michelin stars, achieved very quickly thanks to the experience of those involved.
Muffled and elegant atmosphere, furnishings played on blue tones and the cuisine of Daniele Lippi, a Roman talent still anagraphically young but with a cuisine that becomes more and more interesting from menu to menu. And decidedly out of the chorus, just as different is the service idea of Benito Cascone, the hotel's catering director, a dining room man with international experience and a professional not aligned with the mainstream. As far as he is concerned, in fact, “my training was French, let's say it is much more technical: what I am most concerned about is offering a service that is basically technical. Here we have a situation that is very standardized: from the moment the customer comes you do certain things, in a certain amount of time the kitchen starts, the service is never dissimilar. Against everything and everybody, I don't think the service has to be tailor-made for every customer, because if you standardize it and make it good, it has to be the same for everybody. What has to change is not the service, but the way of posing, keeping the line firm and adapting it to the context.
If a couple comes or there is a business dinner, I don't change the service based on who is at the table. The work that has been done by us is to structure it, making it unique for everyone." All this does not mean that the atmosphere in the dining room at Acquolina is aseptic: far from it, because everything 'runs' in souplesse, with great naturalness. Cascone, smiling, reiterates: “In my opinion, a customer who comes to eat in a luxury restaurant simply expects a certain type of service and cuisine. So many people say 'if there's the connoisseur at the table you have to give him all the information in detail, but if there's the couple cut it short: it's not like that. If you come to experience us, whoever you are, I have to look for ways to get a unified message across." A winning approach, it seems. And ultimately, for Cascone, based on the technical aspects.
"For everything to work, in a restaurant like ours, there has to be technique in the kitchen and the situation is reflected in the dining room and sommellerie. For example, you should never change the dish with a particular table and its members in mind. I was taught that it is the customer who in the case asks to change the settings. So if a customer says 'I don't like al dente pasta, make it more cooked,' he is the one who changes the rules. The same in the dining room: if the customer soils the table, I cover the stain or remove the crumbs, unless the guest himself asks me not to. Then, you never know exactly who the customers are, because what you may think many times can be wrong. It is not that you personalize your ways because you think you know who you are dealing with. It may be correct, but it may also be that the one you judge as clueless has gone around to all the starlets in the world."
A key fact, for this restaurant, is the longevity in service of the team, from restaurant manager Andrea Menichelli, to Francesco Aldieri, the hotel's wine manager, to Valerio Erba who is Acquolina's sommelier, to bar manager Alessio Grimaldi. Cascone again: “I think our strength has always been, first of all, having the same figures for years, the same people who started with me a project, assembled and created together, and continues today in the same way, with the same idea and the same goals.” Speaking of wines, the wine cellar is remarkable: about a thousand labels strong, it forms an international list, with an excellent representation of Italy, many small producers, a part of natural wines: “We have tried to keep a logical thread on everything, starting with the blending (in which they are very strong here, ed.), which in any case follows the style of the kitchen. While the wine list includes other areas of the world, on the pairings we are strict and follow the philosophy of the kitchen, with wine pairing based on wines from indigenous grape varieties from the various areas of the Mediterranean basin, because when the customer sits at the table he has to discover new and not obvious things."
The cuisine
A misconception to be cleared up, or a myth to be dispelled if you prefer, is that Mediterranean cuisine is proposed at Acquolina. In reality, what Daniele Lippi works on are exclusively raw materials that come only from the Mediterranean basin, but that is quite another thing. He tells us, “We try to be as autarkic as possible, it's a major commitment, being inside a hotel in Rome our clientele tends to be international. In a five-star establishment and with a two-Michelin-starred restaurant you tend to feel a little bit with your wings clipped by the usual canons and clichés; in my case I was not comfortable at the level of cuisine and identity; you always find similar dishes and tastes, the same china. From there I said to myself 'you have to find some kind of personal and identity path, try to get out of the cliché,' so I wanted to embrace the idea of products from the Mediterranean area. I have Umbrian origins but I also worked a lot of fish,wanting to combine the two came up with this concept. Coming out of classicism even today is hard, however, we certainly managed to make a very fresh cuisine."
Fresh, with unusual elements, direct, certainly difficult to confuse: "We try to enhance less usual products, such as sheep or tuna heart (dried, grated and served with smoked butter and acorn bread, of absolute goodness, ed.). We have to try to be a bit truthful, in some respects even courageous, but at the same time with responsibility, because in the end substance must prevail at the table. We try to be very concrete and bring, as they say in my parts 'to eat chicken with your hands,' without many flights of fancy." Over time, the cuisine of Daniele Lippi, at whose side is sous chef Pietro Piazzoli who 'has been with me for a long time, he is my right-hand man and also my left-hand man', has acquired an ever-increasing finesse without losing a minimum of the great taste that has always distinguished it.
A true tribute to fine dining: “If I scroll through old photos of dishes or rehearsals, I see that there is definitely a more responsible hand now, where taste and customer fulfillment are at the center. There is a very 'easy' cuisine: you don't have to put yourself to understand it, you don't have to think about whether you like it or not. I always tell the guys in the kitchen: in front of a dish you don't have to think, from the moment it happens there is something wrong. We are insiders and from a certain point of view we have a 'sick' palate. The 'normal' customer, in the vast majority of cases, doesn't go through all this spiel. In the kitchen with me are all young people abundantly under 30: I stimulate them, they stimulate me, a nice bond, we are very happy about it. We never rest on our laurels, doing the job done right, the strength of the brigade lies in studying together the raw material in its facets, understanding its nuances."
The dishes
When Daniele says 'easy cooking' he means direct, understandable and immediate, because the research and technique behind it are important, likewise never self-aggrandizing. It is flavor that is targeted, in both menus, Periplo, offered at 220 euros and Anabasi Catabasi at 240. From the amuse bouche sequence onward, just let yourself go. Most elegant is the play on langoustines: raw centrifuged kohlrabi, kiwi, roe and tarragon oil; seared langoustine, kale and beurre blanc with green kiwi: a kiwi distillate is used, allowing its acidity to be harnessed to whip butter. A large sweetbread with Moroccan salted lemons, rue grass, and aïoli sauce with mantis shrimp, with the crustacean protein used to whip the sauce, replacing cow's milk.
It's explosive - spaghetti, citrus, sea urchins: “This dish was born out of a collaboration with a small company near Rome that planted a citrus grove with different varieties of oranges, lemons, and citrons about 30 years ago. In this case, the spaghetti is whipped in an infusion of citrus leaves and served with sea urchins and citrus leaf powder.” A softer, more relaxing transition occurs with Avezzano's potato gnocchi, borage, buttermilk and oysters: “In this case we go to use borage with its very brackish undertones reminiscent of seaweed.”.
Formidable are the eliche with rosehips, anchovies and capers, with their wonderful, vibrant acidity: "In this case the helix is cooked in a rosehip extract, then we go on to reconstruct a marinara-type sauce, but using rose berries. The dish is finished with Pantelleria capers, marinated anchovies, a chopped parsley, oregano and pickled garlic." In the mouthwatering cuttlefish , roveja “ there is a reinterpretation of a kebab, with the cuttlefish being finely sliced, each slice interspersed with one of lightly smoked Romagnola blackberry lard. The skewer is marinated in a roveja miso made by us and then passed over the barbecue. We finish the dish with a yogurt cream, pickled cucumbers, a flatbread baked on the barbecue, and topped with zaatar; to garnish, cuttlefish tartare and pomegranate." The side, equally tasty, is a cup with cuttlefish lactume served with a sauce made from smoked fish broth, parsley and vinegar.
With Ventresca di tonno, rye, celeriac Lippi continues to ring out mouthfuls that are captivating. He tells us, “This dish was born from the idea of giving new life to old bread. We took rye bread, so very fragrant, with toasted and honey notes, which undergoes a double fermentation. In the first it is inoculated with koji and in the second it is lacto-fermented to give acidity. The ventresca is simply roasted and is accompanied by this bread extract that is very reminiscent of soy sauce, but in a Mediterranean style." Also notable is the revisiting of pecorino in fricassee, a sheep loin from a farm in Abruzzo. “Originally the dish started as a stew, in which eggs were integrated at the last to bind the sauce. We used fresh mullet eggs to accompany the sheep, which is cooked on the barbecue.”
It ends in absolute goodness with carob and chicory, a sui generis interpretation of bread and chocolate, in which the latter element is not used. "We completely replaced the chocolate with carob flour and combined a chicory coffee to add a bittering part. The bread, made from carob flour, is kept overnight in milk, sugar and vanilla. The next day it is blotted, dried and then baked on the barbecue. Glazed with the milk reduction, it is accompanied by ice cream made from carob and chicory coffee." Very elegant, making for a repeat experience.
Contact
Acquolina Restaurant
The First Roma Arte
Via del Vantaggio 14, Rome
Phone +39 06 3201590
info@acquolinaristorante.it
