The square that D'O overlooks has over the years become a food court of impressive status with the birth of Olmo and Next D'Oor. But the stop is not only catering, there is the recovery of beauty. And the driving force of a “free” team, beyond the hand of a great chef.
The chef and the projects, from D'O to Olmo
In the middle of the square, the elm tree is bare. The air is laden with moisture. Water is held back by the gray blanket, who knows how much longer. From a gentleman, as canny as the sky, a greeting rains down, Davide Oldani takes no shelter and responds with a short joke. The good day passes from one to the other unfiltered, but charged with a meaning beyond the rules of good neighborliness that I still do not understand. The elm tree is always bare. In its roots is the promise of the coming spring and many more. Among its wrinkles there is history but also novelty, a photograph of the past, and above all the beauty of so many small changes, which you hardly notice.
Fabio BozzaniOlmo is also the name of the new restaurant of Davide Oldani, the boy from Cornaredo who in just over 20 years has managed to change everything here by staying here. We jokingly tell him that by now the town should be called Cornared'o. Davide smiles with his eyes. What he cares about is being recognized as a good person, if someone then says he is also a good cook all the better. You can't please everyone, many do though, he confesses that he would like that. The square that D'O overlooks has over the years become a food court with an impressive level. D'O, Olmo and Next D'Oor, a leavening laboratory where bread, breadsticks, cookies and panettone are made for his businesses. The stop is not only restorative, there is the component of the recovery of beauty, of order, of that eye that wants its contemplative part, even if it is only passing through.
DAVIDE OLDANI E ART WOOD ACADEMY
"Beauty is the result of sacrifice; beauty is not taken for granted. One needs to pursue it and toil to achieve it. Years ago the elm tree and the square around it were not as we see them today, but they still had the value of the history and tradition of this country-an enormous value-that deserved prominence and care. I was committed to this by dialoguing with the municipality until we understood each other on the project, and I think the square today gives reason for the effort put into making it happen."
Davide Oldani needs to discharge his positive energy somewhere, his contagious adrenaline. The impressive thing is that he has not stopped for more than twenty-two years and like the roots of a tree, he sticks to the same soil bearing fruit. Oldani has chosen not to exploit a territory, but to make himself useful for it, and with his team he helps keep the common areas clean as well: the attention and care do not stop at the door of the restaurant, but are a constant service that he lives as a small mission.
The team
Also within walking distance is the school Oldani wanted. A training course where a student can learn everything from cooking and hospitality to leavening and desserts. No wonder Davide keeps mentioning his bishops-Alessandro, Davide, Manuele, Wladimiro, Riccardo and Filippo-throughout the interview. He really seems to depend on them and not because of a careful staff selection strategy, rather because he firmly believes that alone he would go nowhere. Some of them encouraged them to move away from D'O even for long periods of time. He took the risk of losing them forever rather than being told “yes chef” for years. Alessandro Procopio did seven years abroad between Troisgros, Ducasse, and Le Gavroche. Davide Novati ditto. With them Davide does not act as a patron but as a guide, and they have become so responsible that they do not need directives.
"The most important thing is how you deal with people. I sometimes maybe forced their hand because I always believed that they would bring back knowledge and experience if they came back to me and that the freedom to choose is priceless. They called me because they wanted to come back. My satisfaction is that these guys are respectful because they were respected, in the family as in the work. Let's make two less tables because this is too much I say, and they respond, chef we can do it. They have some dependence on me, probably because of their age, but I feel totally dependent on them. I don't call myself an entrepreneur but an enterprising artisan, I undertake in the craft and I think if the guys want to come back it is because they believe that here their life can grow again, even after being in prestigious places around the world. They are not my employees, they are not mine, no one is anyone's. Freedom is quite another thing. Two guys are out now, one in Monte Carlo and one in Paris, it is not written that in a few years they will come back, but they know that if they want to, there is a place here where they can grow again, all together."
Hearing someone admit to being dependent on someone else does not happen so often, if it is the “boss” who says it, it seems almost anachronistic. After all, if one can preserve a modicum of curiosity, even one's being influential will always turn out to be less than the influence of reality and all the comparisons it throws in front of you. Oldani cooks, yet he found plenty of time to design various objects and furnishings dedicated to enhancing the experience of his spots, or even to think about how to make the lighting in Elm Square something enchanting. Beauty and order represent his adrenaline rush. Useful projects that inject happiness into those who experience them, even to avoid ending up on a couch pointing fingers at others.
“My excitement is comparing myself with others. I am really lucky to be the president of Le Soste so I can compare myself with my better colleagues. Outside of the industry, I'm happy when I can dialogue with people who do sports, who work in finance or art, fields that I don't know and from which I want to learn. You only avoid routine if you always have something to chew on for a living. That brings with it the risk of making plans and getting them wrong, sure. The one who doesn't repeat the same mistake wins, the one who keeps making mistakes, but different ones, because at least it means you are trying. Comparisons are the driving force. Being a listener is great motivation. Many of the contacts the trade has given me are deep relationships, not just networking, they give me opportunities for growth, because they are people who don't think with my head, but with other criteria.”
Do you say that at D'O there will be a sense of stress? Perhaps in moments of too much calm.
A thunderous applause resounds on the kitchen floor, and David jumps up and dumps me in front of a box of chocolates. He went up to celebrate with the whole brigade the birthday of one of them. Everyone left what they were doing for a few minutes, that too means dependence. Was there a need to open another restaurant? To put the competition at home? Because Olmo is not the bistro of D'O, not an offshoot, not even the cantera. They are also probably the closest starred restaurants in the world, they are practically contiguous. Olmo is the place where you sit down and you can have the same quality that's at D'O, yet with different ideas, with different choices.
"Why one goes to D'O and one goes to Olmo, it seems trivial, why one is called Olmo and one D'O and why the menu has a vision of Roots, different from those of Harmony, Exactitude and Multiplicity, taken from Calvino's American Lectures. The colors are different, the proposals different. It deceives because it is attached here. Riccardo Merli is a different head, he does his own dishes. We go against the grain, there is no gourmet and bistro. Here is rice, over there is pasta. Riccardo made a noodle that we have never made here. It's its own thing to put in other ideas, mine and the boys', different from this one. we did it to broaden the possibilities of growth and work."
And these guys he is talking about are really the co-trainers, the ones who bet on the Oldani method to combat routine. I provoked everyone a bit by asking if fidelity contradicts growth. Each of them gave different answers, but all of them were certain that fidelity, despite the fatigue, always pays off if you allow yourself to be provoked and if you rebound by being a provocateur. The heaviness of reality does not crush you if you keep looking, amid the schizophrenic heaviness, for what is beautiful there is, making it last, giving it space. Manuel, a sommelier and beverage manager, had arrived at D'O more than 20 years ago with the title of Italian Champion. At first he could only handle about 30 labels, now there are about 1,200. “You grow together if the place is healthy, if you always have a little gas that doesn't make you feel boredom. Just working like a donkey is not good, it's a period we've been through before. When we are in a period of suffering we look at each other in the face and slow down, decide to do a few less covers and get back on track.” For Davide Novati, “fidelity helps you to have security for your life, we have remained so attached because it has always stimulated us. Events, consulting. We never do the same things here. And we are also stimulating him."
Davide and Manuel have really stayed the same. I remember them during the first sorties at the first D'O, the one closest to the provincial, the one where the caramelized onion was the frontman of the Pop kitchen and - crazy stuff - at lunch you could eat for 11.50 euros. They haven't changed, because they already had the positive sap in the beginning that they have now, which has made them grow and made D'O grow as well, without too much of a rush, without burning lives and turnovers. They are the anti-all and sundry, and look what they have done. Wladimiro Nava has even moved from the kitchens to the leavening rooms, accepting a new challenge. Alessandro Procopio has returned to D'O after living and working in the midst of different blazons, he has “married a project, something not done and finished, something to be built together. Anyone can propose an idea, from me to the last of the guys. I always let everyone taste everything, because I want to see if the excitement comes over the face."
The dishes - Olmo
Riccardo Merli is still dosing his adrenaline and Olmo is still breaking in. Yet the differences with the D'O are already stark, at least for those who have tried it. It comes naturally initially to compare them. Because they are each other's offspring and because they share several things, if only for mere business optimization. A restaurant after all can only excite if it can remain open. And open is Olmo's kitchen, a window to the room, with a spacious counter where you can desinate chef-front and feel all the details: tension, speed, detail and care. Seating is limited, sixteen in total if I remember correctly, with the possibility of reserving the whole restaurant to organize a convivial dinner. In fact, the tables in the room have been conceived and designed - by Oldani - so that they can either stand apart or “interlock” to form one. Another relevant detail concerns the seating in the dining room: comfortable and spacious chairs that incorporate a dedicated armrest to accommodate the cell phone, preventing it from “dirtying” the table, and a bag holder made exactly under the seat by lacing the four legs of the chair at half height.
Shades of green prevail, relaxed tones prevail, informality could be even higher. Riccardo does not deny that he struggled in the beginning, struggling to adapt more to the stage, to working outdoors, under observation. Counter-service restaurants are not theaters, they are more like courtyards where interaction is not unique. Sides of a square where neighbors can mind their own business looking out the window without saying anything, or have a more authentic, life-sharing interaction. We imagine it also takes a lot of self-control to be back there, as well as out front. Riccardo and his two boys never stop during the service, there is no end first act. Even when they converse with you and stop, it is because you will see them speed up in recovery a few minutes later. The counter in short is a symbol of respect. There used to be a wall there, now there is an interactive space, not dialectical totalitarianism.
The Radice menu is the only one you will find, concept and substance taken from the master elm tree that cares for the whole vicinad'o. It reads from the bottom up, as you can see here.
After the welcomes comes immediately the dish of the day, which in some ways is an homage, in others an evolution. Hot and cold caramelized artichoke, Grana Padano Riserva 27 months representing the legacy of Oldani's famous Caramelized Onion, in its third stage. Before the artichoke, caramelization had fallen to pumpkin and carrots, with varying successes, the chef confides to me. Incidentally: the Caramelized Onion is one of the great dishes of Italian cuisine in recent years, a signature for gourmet comfort food, a dish for everyone, a treat for all palates. But totally devoid of taste edges, except those perhaps due to temperature contrasts. Oldani has always sought balance. He still seeks it in his cooking. Riccardo's artichoke has plenty of edges, and perhaps therein lies the big difference, glimpsed now, that we will see in the months and years to follow. Olmo has gnarled roots, which grip you and make you uncomfortable, because they propose an idea of cooking in which balance falters in favor of contrasts. The caramelization of vegetable and not simply sugar, exudes even more bitter intensity, concentration. And that's not enough, Riccardo also adds that of licorice ice cream. The Grana Riserva cannot in the least mitigate or sweeten, it can only soften the blows of this great dish.
The second dish that took us by storm was Pasta sheet of burnt savoy cabbage, stewed grains with fine black truffle, a totally vegetable version that winks at the Piedmontese Capunet by taking the “poor” grains to carnivorous levels. Duo of rabbit and hare, dolceforte sauce and clementine mustard was the most talked about dish. While the salmi fully convinced us, as did the tangerine mustard, the cooking of the meat created dialectic. Hare and rabbit do not have the same muscle tone, and one gave us the feeling of being drier than the other. Dessert is a happy ending, a being in the fronds and not underground, as should be every end of a meal by those with stars, hats, forks and shades of best.
It was not at all easy to achieve this with a “bunet.” Here spooned with bitter almond, amaretto ice cream and arabica powder. Sugar bomb avoided, the sweetness comes softly through the amaretto ice cream, a true final pampering. We said Elm is still in the making. Riccardo is pawing, we can see it in his eyes when he confides that he would like to make his Lucanian soul holm as well. He says “pecorino” and then corrects himself. The afflatus is enough for us to turn on and poke him. It will come sooner or later, it will come. Theelm tree outside is already big, with solid roots; the one we are sitting in is a plant that is learning to drink one drop of adrenaline at a time. Only in this way will we never stop, only in this way will the routine always remain outside.
Contact
D'O
Piazza della Chiesa, 14, 20007 San Pietro all'Olmo, Cornaredo MI
T: 02 936 2209
Ristorante Olmo
Piazza della Chiesa, 7, 20007 San Pietro all'Olmo, Cornaredo (MI)
ristoranteolmo@cucinapop.do
T.: 0039 335 70 46 596
Openings:
Tuesday - Saturday
12.30 - 14.30 / 19.30 - 21.30
