CASTEL DI SANGRO: Niko and Cristiana Romito have reopened their 3 Michelin star restaurant Reale on 10 June and have decided to pursue the route they took last year. They want to make their cuisine and restaurant more inclusive and also a reflection of the chef’s vision of what it means to eat well today.
“Each of us is a child of our own experience. Whether we like it or not, it determines the attitude and approach towards the choices that shape our future,” said Niko on the reopening of the restaurant. After this long pause, I feel a stronger need to share my gastronomic thoughts with my guests and also past customers who will perceive a decisive yet consistent evolution,” Niko said.
And while waiting to welcome guests again from all corners of the world at his restaurant, he also wants a new audience that wants to experience gastronomy at Reale for the first time. He is turning his attention in particular to younger generations who will be protagonists of the world to be.
At the restaurant, he is serving 15 course tasting menu, 10 of which are entirely new and which will change periodically on the basis of the seasons. The menu is aimed to showcase Niko’s gastronomic journey, his functional creativity and the knowledge that he has accumulated over year’s of relentless research.
It is an opportunity for many to get to know the chef more through a more inclusive and increasingly accessible approach. The menu will cost EUR 150, which might actually make it one of the most accessible high-end restaurants in the world.
Niko Romito is know for his ‘deceptively simple’ cuisine and his focus on getting the best of flavours. “In these months of in-depth studies, of thinking and of endlessly testing, I have perceived a growing enthusiasm like when you take a path that gradually takes you to an unexpected place. I have sought the essence, the extreme cleanliness in all the new dishes through a creative process that was both challenging, fun and at times even a little daring.”
Speaking about the new tasting menu, he said that it is an autobiographical statement. “It explains what eating well and making good food means to me today. It is the clear, precise and sometimes striking taste of ingredients that have been processed and distilled to get the quintessence of flavour.
“The more you push in your quest for simplicity, the more the creativity of the chef but also the raw material becomes important to create a dish that embraces a new vision,” Niko said.
Niko is aware that this has been one of the most complex historical moments in human history and it has led to profound considerations on the evolution of cuisine, on the centrality of food and nutrition in the community and on the significance of the social and anthropological role of haute cuisine. Both Niko and Cristiana have always embraced the themes of education, dialogue with younger generations, the desire to pass on the knowledge and values that also affect the future of society and this is their statement at a moment when everyone hopes we are heading towards a more normal future.
In this regard, they are building on last year’s experience of serving 15 iconic dishes that have been part of the restaurant’s history. That decision to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the restaurant allowed them to reach a new audience of young people, curious and motivated to discover Niko’s gastronomy identity.
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