In just over forty years, the Mellino family's restaurant in Nerano, on the Sorrento peninsula, has transformed itself from a traditional pizzeria into a fine dining establishment capable of interpreting the powerful gastronomic tradition of the area with elegance and personality.
The story
How does a pizzeria manage to get one, or rather two, or rather three Michelin stars? It happened in Nerano, where the Mellino family had an idea and put it into practice, transforming the pizzeria opened in 1983 (between two bends in the road leading to Marina di Cantone) into a restaurant, then a great restaurant, and finally into a: wow, what a restaurant! The restaurant is called Quattro Passi and for almost two years it has boasted three Michelin stars, making Fabrizio Mellino (who inherited the role of executive chef from his father Antonio) not only the southernmost Italian chef in history to have three stars, but also the youngest currently and the second youngest in history to have achieved this milestone after Massimiliano Alajmo, who won the highest gastronomic honor in 1992 at the age of 27 and has never relinquished it since.
We wish the same fate for Fabrizio, who is 34 years old (born in 1991 in Sant'Agnello) and already displays a rigor and maturity that one would not expect either for reasons of age or geography, given that the Sorrento Peninsula has produced exuberant chefs, each in their own way, such as Antonino Cannavacciuolo, Gennarino Esposito, and Beppe Guida. Mellino, on the other hand, is austere, measured, unassuming, very work-oriented, someone who, as he confessed to us in an interview, devotes his limited free time to running, but only because the summer season is a marathon that must be run to the end. Fabrizio Mellino grew up in the family restaurant, breathing in the smell of fried zucchini from Nerano along with the balsamic and fragrant air of lemons from that paradise on earth. He then matured thanks to his experiences in France at the academy of Paul Bocuse in Lyon, which he joined at the age of 19 with no knowledge of French, recommended by Nadia Santini del Pescatore, who had been entrusted with the task of identifying a promising restaurateur's son to award a scholarship to. It was a somewhat traumatic experience at first, but one that he now recognizes as fundamental to his training, as it forced him to confront customs and traditions different from his own.
Then, of course, after wandering around a bit more, he returned to his Nerano—where, in the meantime, his father Tonino had already earned two stars with slow but steady growth—but at that point with the spirit of someone who, having seen other things, knows the strengths and weaknesses of his own world and can interpret it better. So Fabrizio not only managed to maintain his father's standards, something that is not always possible, as Italian gastronomic history teaches us, but also to improve on them, taking them to the highest levels ever achieved by a restaurant in the Romitian line of Abruzzo.
The restaurant
Today, his cuisine can be defined as neo-Mediterranean, jealously preserving all the flavors and fervor of Campania's seaside while viewing them from a different perspective that takes into account mastered techniques, cultural filters, and the Zeitgeist. A contemporary territory that does not renounce even humble fish, cereals, pasta (always the star of the show), lush and powerfully expressive vegetables, and all the elements of the Mediterranean diet that have found legitimacy here in Campania. He says he has a slow and thoughtful creative process, consisting of study in the service of imagination, analysis, continuous experimentation, abandonment, and recovery, a tortuous journey that feeds more on awareness than on fury, mostly solitary, even if, at the moment of tasting, the whole team is involved and listened to. Quattro Passi is a spacious and bright restaurant, suspended between post-modernity and a few oleographic touches that no restaurant in the area can do without. Elegant like a Vietri majolica, with imperfect geometry and clear colors. On beautiful days at lunchtime, light floods the room and the lucky ones can eat while looking out at the sparkling sea, while in the evening the view is like a marine nativity scene.
The dishes
The Autumn Equinox menu (€290) includes dishes such as All’Ombra del fico (In the shade of the fig tree), with lanzardo, fig leaf oil, and citrus fruits; Riflessi di nero (Reflections of black) with black Casertano pork and broccoli leaves; Riso Torbato with whisky that adds depth to mandarin and Lapsang tea, a reworking of the cinematic Fettuccine all'Alfredo with porcini mushrooms and maritime pine, Cod with escarole, capers, and quinoa, Cock with black lemon powder, mushrooms, and liver wafers, Almond with persimmon and prickly pear, and a dessert.
However, I ventured into the dishes on the Carta dei Sapori menu, as it was my first time there and I wanted to challenge the house classics: I started with Il Mio Giardino, a delicate dish that plays on the sharp acidity of Sorrento tomato water, the bitterness of arugula, and the elegance of basil, for a decidedly local start. Next came Il Fiore di Calamaro, a delicacy that Mellino also brought to Masterchef. The mollusk is expertly and patiently prepared with the precision of a miniaturist and enriched with a scampi tartare, Oscietra caviar, and green apple juice. Few ingredients are enhanced by impeccable technique and an uncommon aesthetic sense.
Then I am served a wafer of red mullet, and my first thought is: how much do top chefs, from Perbellini downwards, love wafers? But then I am overwhelmed by the perfection of this dish, divided into two side-by-side images; on one side, the wafer itself, essential and almost apodictic; on the other, in a round dish, a foam of potatoes, orange, and rosemary that resembles Giotto's O. Then it's time for the dish that I came here for: Linguine alla Nerano, a true gastronomic icon of the territory from which it takes its name, a dish simple in its ingredients, lightly fried zucchini, basil, black pepper, all creamed with butter and Parmesan cheese to create an enchanting creaminess.
Flavor and elegance, iron and feather: the true flagship dish of New Contemporary Gastronomy in Southern Italy. Then another super classic, Gnocco quasi alla sorrentina, in which the adverb ‘quasi’ (almost) refers to the light lamb filling that is inserted into the gnocchi themselves, then topped with a sauce of raw Piennolo tomatoes, mozzarella foam, and a lamb demi-glace glaze. Another first course, Fusillone al riccio di mare with savory custard and raw shrimp, a dish where the salty note is tempered by the sweet, creating a balance at the highest level. Then a taste of another of the restaurant's historic dishes, which is somewhat of a flagship dish for Tonino and which Fabrizio has made more essential and stylish, Lasagnetta with Neapolitan ragù and San Marzano tomatoes.
The many first courses leave little room for the second courses. I allow myself only the cod with escarole, capers, and quinoa, an excellent dish but perhaps the least expressive of the evening (perhaps I am a little tired?), although it must be said that the range of sensations it evokes is still remarkable.
The meal concludes with the Rinfresco, an intermezzo between savory and sweet (but leaning more towards the latter) with the freshness of mint and the acidity of lime and kiwi, a refreshing exercise. Then the actual dessert, a Millefoglie made with two crispy and very caramelized layers, resembling a stylized palmier, between which a light vanilla cream is displayed with an abundance of strawberries and basil, a virtuosity that showcases a very French technique at the service of delicacy rather than sugar rush. Finally, a chocolate soufflé, which is actually more like a Caprese, as indicated by the chocolate stamp on top.
At the end of this journey, which lasted almost three hours, Quattro Passi strikes me as a restaurant where the compass of contemporaneity is nevertheless oriented more towards tradition than innovation, if we want to follow the now trite but inevitable conceptual duality. Not because the technique is not there, but because it is used above all to impose a classicist aesthetic and discourse. According to Mellino, the avant-garde is not found in amazement or insurrection, but rather in a deep knowledge of the territory and its interpreters, understood as artisans, fishermen, breeders, and farmers. And consequently in the choice and use of ingredients. Sensational gestures are not necessary here in Nerano.
Quattro Passi remains a family restaurant. Tonino, Fabrizio's father, is always on hand with his wife Rita, while Fabrizio's brother Raffaele, who is more outgoing and cheerful than him, takes care of the enormous wine cellar and the dining room, where everything runs smoothly with elegance and empathy.
Address
Quattro Passi, via Americo Vespucci 13N, Nerano (Napoli).
Phone 0818081271.
Website www.ristorantequattropassi.it.
E-mail info@ristorantequattropassi.it.
Open daily for lunch and dinner, closed on Wednesdays
