In Turin, Stefano Sforza's Innovation between sustainability, research and flavor: a cuisine of depth that protects the environment, eliminating endangered species and “unethical” luxury products from the menu. All with an important focus on vegetable.
The restaurant and the chef
The soul of the Opera Ingegno e Creatività restaurant in Turin is chef Stefano Sforza, born in 1986, who embraced the Cometto family project after consolidating his experience in the kitchen in renowned restaurants such as Bellevue in Cogne, Trussardi alla Scala in Milan, Del Cambio and the Turin Palace in Turin. An intense and sensitive soul at the same time, he follows the philosophy of the master Gualtiero Marchesi in the search for the essentiality of the dish, eliminating the frills to achieve the essence of the ingredients and the purity of their flavors. The restaurant offers a cozy ambiance spread over two floors with exposed brick and barrel vaults, and reflects the attention to detail that is also found in the dishes.
Menus and dishes
Chef Sforza's cuisine is a search for balance, an enhancement of the freshness and quality of raw materials, and creativity expressed through dishes that are colorful and elegant to the eye and vibrant and balanced to the taste. The menus are seasonal and enhance specific ingredients: recently the "Crucifere ” menu came to life, after Fabaceae and Tuberi & Radici, a new in-depth study of the vegetable families that Stefano is pursuing in his gastronomic project, to honor the seasons, the products of the earth and their peculiar flavors. The vegetarian tasting path leads guests through a lush garden of cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli and turnips, declining in six courses, such as cabbage and tofu rolls, with soy and clementine cream, or purple cabbage gnocchi, paired with pistachio and nashi pear.
Gli accostamenti di sapori sono sempre originali e svelano il palato attento dello chef e la sua capacità di dosare gli ingredienti, trovando sempre una godibile armonia. Il dessert non esula dal percorso: lo chef propone infatti “rapa rossa”, osando il non facile vegetale insieme a yogurt e cocco. È molto interessante pure l’inusuale proposta di pairing con tè e decotti.
The Opera menu was also recently revamped, and it too reflects the ethical drive that has been driving Chef Sforza for years to advocate a concrete change in the choice of ingredients, eliminating endangered fish species, such as eel and monkfish, and foie gras. Stefano has taken up the challenge and made it a horizon of growth: giving up some recurring ingredients in fine dining menus is a stimulus for him to continuously search for new elements, new flavor encounters, new dishes. Here, then, that fruits and vegetables become the backbone of many proposals, even within the “classic” menu, just in continuity of the choice of sustainability, giving space to the creativity of the chef who plays with cooking, textures and aromas.
But also part of this attitude is the search for small producers, the shopping done at the Porta Palazzo market, the use of unrefined sugar. The result is dishes with a strong identity, where entirely vegetable proposals such as the appetizer “corn, Belgian and blueberry, ” alternate with freshwater fish, the fifth quarter, always linked to fruits and vegetables processed with different techniques such as lactofermentation.
The Vermouth
Opera 's latest innovation is the creation of its first line of Vermouths: the Vermouth di Torino Rosso Tetti Battù, made by Cascina Tetti Battuti di Chieri, a historic company owned by the Cometto family, which owns the restaurant. Its first peculiarity is the base of Piedmont Chardonnay grapes, a rarity in the Chieri hills from which it comes; the second lies in the aromatic notes with the presence of three different varieties of mugwort: wormwood gentile, wormwood ponticum and Roman wormwood, which give depth to the bouquet. A vermouth made in the image and likeness of the property and the chef, it is a perfect match for sommelier Fabio Ferrari's proposal, served either on its own or as an ingredient in mixology.
We really enjoyed the restaurant's proposal at the Fuori Salone of Vermouth for which chef Stefano Sforza devised a special menu, using some of the spices present in the Vermouth di Torino Rosso Tetti Battù in each of the dishes tasted. “Pairing with Vermouth is an interesting challenge that tests a chef's creativity and sensitivity,” explains the chef, who plays in the sphere of aromatics with intense and persistent ingredients, making them dance together with grace and refinement. The opening dish, “turnips in carpione, pomegranate and cardamom, ” is a colorful ode to turnips, of different types, prepared in different carpione or pickled, with the aroma of cardamom recalling Vermouth to refresh the pomegranate broth.
The raviolo with anchovies, bell bell pepper and bay leaf is excellent , as is the duck, radicchio, saffron, where space is also given to the less noble cuts of the animal, such as the neck, stuffed with thigh meat. All the compositions, in addition to telling Chef Sforza's approach to cooking, accompany, chase and embrace the botanicals of vermouth, celebrating and enhancing this excellent Piedmontese product with flair, enthusiasm and respect.
Chef Stefano Sforza confirms his ability to transform each dish into a complete and satisfying sensory experience, in which the purity of ingredients is blended with a creativity that never ceases to surprise. The restaurant Opera Ingegno e Creatività thus embodies a successful synthesis of tradition, modernity and sustainability, reflecting a continuous desire for evolution in contemporary cuisine, where taste becomes a celebration of nature and its biodiversity.
Contact
Opera Restaurant - ingegno e creatività
Address: Via Sant'Antonio da Padova, 3, Turin
Phone: 011 1950 7972
Website: https://operatorino.it/
