Executive chef at Balzi Rossi, Enrico Marmo offers spontaneous, rigorous cuisine based on vegetables, local fish and simplicity, with a terrace overlooking the Mediterranean and an eye to the future of fine dining.
The origin
There is a type of cuisine that does not raise its voice, does not chase special effects, but works deeply on the ingredients, on memory, on the territory. This is the cuisine of Enrico Marmo, born in 1987, raised in Piedmont, in the heart of Monferrato. A cuisine that starts by listening to nature, passes through precise gestures, and translates into essential dishes. Now executive chef at the Balzi Rossi restaurant in Ventimiglia, Marmo is one of the most authentic and measured voices on the new Italian gastronomic scene. His path has not been linear, nor has he followed predictable trajectories, but every step and every detour has contributed to refining an identity that today is expressed in a coherent, personal, and conscious cuisine. After his first experiences in trattorias and restaurants in his homeland, he trained at ALMA in Colorno, where he stood out for his talent and dedication. There, a path paved with important names opened up for him: an internship with Alessandro Breda at Gellius in Oderzo, followed by an intense year at the court of Carlo Cracco, where he moved from the pastry lab to the role of chef de partie. But it was with Davide Palluda, chef at the All'Enoteca di Canale restaurant, that Enrico grew and refined his gastronomic personality: five years alongside the sous chef, two of which as his deputy, in an environment that taught him the value of technique as much as instinct.
Arrival at Balzi Rossi
In 2016, at just 27 years of age, he received an important call: Balzi Rossi in Ventimiglia, a legendary restaurant right on the border with France, was looking for a young chef to revive its cuisine. Enrico accepted the challenge, restoring the restaurant's solid reputation and winning numerous awards. In 2019, his desire to grow led him to leave Balzi Rossi, and new experiences allowed him to continue his evolution: first he worked at Castel Monastero, a luxury resort in Tuscany, then he returned to Piedmont where he took over the Osteria Arborina in the Langhe, confirming its Michelin star in 2021.
A few months later, the daughter of the founder of Balzi Rossi, Giuseppina Beglia, contacted him again to entrust him with the reopening of the restaurant after two years of closure. There is a touch of magic in certain comebacks: they smell like home but shine like achievements. And it is there, in the comfort of the familiar, that you realize how much you have grown. You rediscover your roots, but also the awareness of the journey you have made, the steps you have taken. You come back different: more mature, more ready, more clear-headed. Enrico reunites part of his old team and reclaims the place he now feels is his own. The goal of bringing Balzi Rossi back to the top of Italian cuisine is soon achieved: in 2022, he receives the “Tradizione Futura” award from Gambero Rosso, and the Michelin star returns to shine on the restaurant.
The philosophy in the kitchen
Today, his cuisine is a balance between spontaneity and moderation, between vegetables, aromatic herbs, fish, and cooking over high heat. Marmo brings with him the concreteness of the Langhe and the gentle strength of Liguria, with a slow approach, capable of listening to nature and restoring its value and power. His mood is to “make a virtue of necessity,” making the most of what the sea and the land have to offer. Every day he relies on the fish auction, working with whole fish and trying to use every part, making the most of the day's catch and creating sauces and bases using as much of the scraps as possible. Everything that can be created from scratch is prepared in the kitchen, such as fresh pasta and bread, and anything that cannot be produced is purchased nearby from suppliers who share the restaurant's approach of respecting nature and its rhythms. The oil, which is served with bread at the start of dinner, comes from the historic Frantoio Sant'Agata di Oneglia, which has over 190 years of history. The fish comes from expert fishermen who know the Ventimiglia and Bordighera area like the back of their hand, and the vegetables come from the restaurant's own garden, which is part of a farm that uses the ancient terraced system. Enrico Marmo's rule is “No freezers, no vacuum packing, no large suppliers,” also with a view to supporting the dying supply chain.
Each ingredient is allowed to express itself, enhanced in its essence with balance, lightness, and flavor. “Simplicity is a way of earning respect,” explains Marmo, “with these raw ingredients, you are completely naked, this is what it means to be a chef” and “the more naked you are, the more you are playing, in a challenge only with yourself.” A “material” approach to cooking, intense, without frills or shortcuts.
The menu
The tasting menu, entitled Momento, is available in two versions—five or seven courses—and is a surprise journey guided by seasonality and the availability of ingredients. A sensory itinerary that clearly reveals the chef's signature style: lively cuisine made up of gestures, intuition, and immediate joy. Alongside the tasting menu, a concise but carefully curated à la carte menu offers a selection of dishes that reflect the restaurant's identity, including signature dishes such as Ligurian rabbit and Pina's ravioli, stuffed with roast rabbit and fragrant wild herbs.
The menu, precisely because it depends on the availability of the day's ingredients, is constantly evolving, from service to service, sometimes even from table to table. “If something isn't available, we don't cook it,” explains Enrico Marmo. “People who come here don't ask for anything anymore; we've built a relationship of trust.” And you can't go wrong trusting the kitchen staff, because it means enjoying all the freshness of the Mediterranean.
The restaurant
The restaurant reflects the cleanliness of the dishes, with a minimalist and bright interior and a terrace overlooking the sea, which is sure to thrill: dining while gazing at the French coast with the lights of the Menton marina or scanning the ships on the horizon brings with it a good dose of poetry, which certainly puts you in the right mood for tasting. And when this atmosphere meets the dishes prepared by the kitchen team, the welcome of the recently renewed waiting staff and the expertise of the sommelier, you are in for a treat.
Marmo himself says that “when you leave, you must have eaten well and been well served. Everything else is secondary.”
The dishes
Three tomatoes stand out on the immaculate table, the only decorative touch in the mise en place: dinner starts here, in the garden, with a bull heart tartare, where the flavor of the tomato is concentrated by drying it in the oven at a low temperature, seasoned with sunflower seeds, Moroccan lemon, soy milk mayonnaise, and tuna bottarga; as a side dish, a delicious savory snack also made with beef heart and powder obtained from the scraps. The acidity that ties the different elements together starts with the fermented lemon in the tartare, continues with the lemon gel that accompanies the savory snack, and ends with the fermented cucumber water in a delicious Bloody Mary. The trio works and immediately transports you to the emotional core of Enrico Marmo, who explains that “the beefsteak tomato is a memory of my grandfather, who ate it freshly picked, seasoned only with salt... something unattainable.” The combinations are also the result of a simple love of food: “The savory snacks because I could eat a thousand of them, the Bloody Mary because I love it.”
After an excellent vegetable start, we dive into the Ligurian Sea with roasted scampi served with fish stock; tuna collar in a “ciuppin” sauce (traditional Ligurian fish soup), accompanied by a white miso Bernese sauce, reminiscent of bouillabaisse; filet of red snapper with thyme butter, tartare of unripe plums, smoked escarole, and begonia leaves. The flavors of the dishes are always clean, even when they play with elements such as butter and sauces, dancing gracefully on the border between opulence and elegance, alternating French and Ligurian notes, like this borderland. Sometimes intense flavors can be found, such as that of the crostino with tuna stew, which revives a tradition of fishermen who, after filleting the fish, removed the strips of meat left attached to the bones and cooked them slowly in a stew. A rustic, genuine intermezzo, from which all the strength of the sea flows.
Acidity, one of the characteristics of Marmo's cuisine, which drives the meal forward and takes you slightly out of your comfort zone, reappears in an intense and interesting dish: linguine alla puttanesca, cooked only in tomato water using the scraps and served on a sweet tomato concentrate with roasted tomatoes, capers, olives, and onions.
Even the dessert is consistent with the menu and brings things full circle, reusing the same oil we started with in a dessert made with 72% Ecuador chocolate, faba water, and Taggiasca olive powder.
At the end of the dinner, Enrico Marmo talks about himself in a pleasant and informal chat (in which he never uses the word “chef,” always referring to himself simply as a “cook”), and it is wonderful to find in his words and attitude everything that the dishes themselves embody. A successful connection between personality and taste, between intentions, promises and the experience that customers enjoy as they sit on the terrace of Balzi Rossi. “My only intention is to get up in the morning and give my best in what I do. I am focused on the pleasure of doing this job, I don't care about the limelight,” says Enrico, reiterating that “naturalness always wins... with a little technique, experience, and burns from the pan on your arms.”
For some, cooking is thought, speculation, extreme control, but for Enrico Marmo it is something more intimate, connected to his true nature, albeit on solid foundations. “I only know one way to cook, something that has to come out spontaneously. I'm trivializing, but in reality I study and learn every day.”
His cuisine does not aim to impress, but ends up doing so precisely because of its sincerity. His dishes have nothing to prove, but much to savor. And perhaps it is precisely in this authenticity that the most credible future of fine dining lies. After all, “Cooking is a passion, a love, nothing else.”
CONTACTS
Ristorante Balzi Rossi
Via Balzi Rossi, 2 – Frontiera di Ponte San Ludovico, 18039 Ventimiglia (IM)
Info & reservations
Phone 0184 38132
