BY CLAUDIA CIABATTINI
Simone Bianco and his family welcome us to their place of the heart, where the rolling hills of Chianti are the backdrop for a restaurant ready to amaze with the natural energy of innovation.
There is a real air of novelty at the Loggia del Chianti: from this year Simone resumes his role in the family business, determined to leave his mark in what has always been his parents’ place.
A professional rugby player, in the past he has dedicated time and love to this family project, but lately he has understood that to take a step forward he had to dedicate all of himself to the restaurant.
And so emerged his personal food offering, fresh and innovative: genuine products, which he himself grows in the garden or finds in the woods, local meats, a seasonal menu with firm roots in Tuscan tradition.
Simone’s challenge is to be able to present a weekly menu that is always different, thanks to the great variety of products that he can grow or find himself: wild herbs, for example, are one of the ingredients that enrich many of his dishes.
But there is another element that characterizes Simone more than any other: provocation.
One of his most daring dishes, in fact, is ‘double cooked Pigeon’ which appears in a new guise thanks to the idea of leaving the legs on the bird.
“Cooking is also provocation, you have to rely on taste and the senses in order to truly appreciate what is served on your plate. With this idea I try to bring cooking back to its essential values, without necessarily wanting to seek visual perfection which, at times, can distract us from the spontaneity of flavours”.
Who knows if Simone’s exuberant ideas will be able to change the way of interpreting cooking and raw materials, it’s certain that this authentic and straightforward experience in taste is really worth trying.
FILLED BUTTONS ON SMOKED PUMPKIN CREAM
Ingredients to serve two:
- 1 whole zucca (medium large)
- Rosemary sprigs to taste
- 250 gr. of porcini
- Garlic to taste.
- 200 gr. of 00 flour with a bit of senatore cappelli flour added
- 2 eggs
Procedure:
Put the pumpkin in a wood-fired oven, if that’s not available then a standard cooker at 100 degrees C for 3 hours alongside toasted rosemary sprigs to smoke it. When the pumpkin is ready, remove the peel and seeds and pass everything through a sieve.
Cook porcini mushrooms with rosemary and garlic over high heat and, afterwards, put them in a net to lose their liquids.
In the meantime, prepare a dough for the buttons using 00 wheat flour and senatore cappelli.
While the dough rests, pick up the now blended porcini mushrooms, beat them with a knife and put everything in a sac a poche to stuff the buttons.
Cover the plate with the hot cream and then deposit the buttons brushed with oil. Finally garnish with the mushrooms.
Info: La Loggia del Chianti Restaurant – Via degli Ulivi 1, Radda in Chianti (SI)/ Tel. 0577 738491/ Mob. 335 6244657 – 333 1764777/ restaurantelaloggiadelchianti@gmail.com/ www.laloggiadelchianti.it