Seeing her like this, with those slightly dreamy eyes, the very youthful sunny face, a little awkward in her gestures, like a country girl, the sly attitude assimilated perhaps by the love for her six cats, in a calm tone of voice and light, remember a little Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. But this is only the black and white photography of Antonia Klugman, Michelin-starred chef, one of the few in Italy, with her restaurant L'Argine a Vencò in Dolegna del Collio (GO), because its color photo actually gives a completely different appearance than a fragile and helpless creature. It is no coincidence that he is of the sign of Virgo. And for those who believe in sign language, we report from Wikipedia the main traits of people born under this sign which are: “rationality, methodicalness and analysis. Their personality often cannot ignore seriousness, rigor, organization, order, precision, perfectionism and attention to detail. They can be meticulous, obsessive and critical. However, they are concrete, reliable people with a strong sense of duty". It looks like a hyper-realistic portrait Chuck close of the young chef who in just a few years has literally exploded in terms of being appreciated by guides and experts as well as by the public. Born in Trieste 40 years ago, a city that gave the world determined women such as Claudia Coslovich, Olympic champion in javelin throw, Tanja Romano, multiple world champion in figure skating, Irene Kamber, the Italian foil fencer who won gold in Helsinki by beating the Hungarian athlete best foil player of all time, Fedora Barbieri, the great contralto who left so many regrets in the world of opera, the writer Susanna Tamaro, not to mention the astrophysicist Margherita Hack, Antonia Klugman, renamed Klughy by Joe Bastianich, from Trieste he inherited the character, even if his professional career took place essentially in Friuli.
Indeed, it was in Friuli Venezia Giulia that Klughy trained for four years working for Raphael Mazzolini past for The Dolada of Alpago, Giancarlo Perbellini a Isola Rizza and Peter Leemann al Joia, two Michelin stars earned by “Agli Amici” in Godia, a hamlet of Udine. And it is in Friuli that in 2006 he opens his own first restaurant the Antico Foledor Conte Lovaria in Pavia di Udine together with his comrade Romano De Feo.
The adventure of Foledor the first restaurant in Pavia di Udine
He thought about it for a long time. A bad car accident forced her into absolute rest for a year. She can't stand at the stove but can walk through the fields, devote herself to the garden, to wild herbs, to study botany in books and on the ground. And after a year the Foledor opens its doors. And immediately his cuisine acquires its own definite identity. “One of the first courses I created was green polenta allo sclopit (this is how we call silene in Friuli). A soft polenta creamed with silene green butter and served with poppy seeds, a few drops of sour cream, violets and a drizzle of oil. The idea was born when I smelled a freshly cut lawn for the first time in the countryside. Silene is the herb that best encloses this perfume”.
It's his limelight, Gennaro Esposito the two-starred chef from Vico Equense invites her to Festa a Vico, one of the most important events of great Italian cuisine in which Gennaro invites the cream of Italian catering to participate, over 80 starred chefs from all over Italy and here she is eyed by great chefs, Nino Di Costanzo, Lino Scarallo, Christian and Manuel Costardi, Bruno Barbieri recognizes his talent and he offers her an internship, to which are added other important internships at the Arquade, and at the Dolada, from the De Prà family.
The Foledor adventure lasts five years, then Antonia begins to think bigger. In 2010, you obviously bought land in the Collio Friulano. During the 4 years required to carry out the construction, you worked in Venice as Chef first of Il Ridotto and then of the starred Venissa on the island of Marzobbo a small jewel of the Venetian lagoon brought to light by Gianluca Bisol in terms of food and wine.
At the end of 2014 L'Argine a Vencò finally opens, in Dolegna del Collio in the province of Gorizia a few kilometers from the border with Slovenia, a small town that became part of the Kingdom of Italy only in 1920 at the end of the First World War.
Trieste by birth but Friulian by vocation. She is congenial to “that world apart – as she says ne “The Friulians are like this” Francesco Lamendola – Italian yes, but only in a generic sense; for the rest, neither German nor Slavic, but with something both German and Slavic; a world where rustic and urban architecture, the "villotte" and popular poetry, the cuisine and the rite of the glass of wine at the tavern, the way of speaking and that of keeping silent, the ways of thinking, of placing oneself in towards men and God, the link between the living and the dead, in short, everything, from the material to the spiritual sphere of existence, in visible and invisible things, had its own particular color, its own particular tonality, something that clearly distinguished it from that of the other Italians, starting with the neighboring Venetians, but also from that of the Germans and Slavs, of which there were also several linguistic islands within it".
The grandfather who made her taste the first raw anchovy
Antonia's multiculturalism is in her blood. His family that "always gathered around the table" is a small UN: the grandparents all had different origins: a grandmother from Emilia, a Jewish grandfather from Poland, a grandfather from Puglia ("he was the most passionate he took me to the fish market and made me taste my first raw alice”) and a grandmother born in Muggia, a small seaside village near Trieste, a very important source of inspiration for the formation of her character (“she was a free and independent woman who was raised only by her mother, a war widow”).
Perhaps this can be explained mental openness towards the contamination of peoples and cultures his decision to open a restaurant in a place like Dolegna so far from everything and so close only to the border with Slovenia.
“The border with Slovenia is just a few hundred meters from Vencò. The history of these places – says Antonia Klugman – has a lot in common with the city I come from, Trieste. For centuries peoples have continued to meet regardless of the movements of political borders. In this way cultures have stratified in a spontaneous process of mutual enrichment. We are aware of this history, which naturally influences us when we cook, without any melancholy. I would say that we are a local restaurant always trying to have an international perspective”.
It takes a lot of determination to achieve success from that almost remote village. But as for this Klugman is certainly not lacking. His life is all a choice following his instincts. As a young man she wanted to be an archaeologist, and perhaps this has remained in her blood when she searches for the ancient flavors of the place in the kitchen, discovering herbs and plants in the woods that allow her to dig deep into the meanings of the raw materials that the area offers her. But then, having passed the classical high school diploma, she foreshadows a future as a lawyer. And perhaps this too is felt in the ability to mentally construct his dishes from the study of materials and flavours, as if he had to prepare a demanding case in which nothing can be left to chance. “A recipe is not tried and tried again to perfect it, I usually cook it already in my head and then put it into practice. A minute can pass between the moment in which I imagine it and the moment in which I realize it, or two years can pass".
But the moment comes when his "serene" and "happy" childhood collides with the first adversities of life when he grows up. Her parents, her cardiologist father and her university psychoanalyst mother decide to separate. Suddenly the family harmony that had existed up to that moment in the Klugman house is shattered (“my family gathered all around a table…”). And a love relationship that Antonia had cultivated for three years living with a boy from Trieste is also broken. It's too much all together. Antonia falls into a kind of depression and he understands that he must live by indulging his instincts and not his duties. And instinct tells her that cooking can give her satisfaction and console her for many bitternesses, and makes her understand that through the kitchen he can express his creativity, that kitchen that contains happy memories. Having said that, her toga was placed in the attic and Antonia Klugman enrolled in a cooking class at the Alto Palato school in Milan. She di lei li lei arrives at Raffaello Mazzolini where she starts working first as a dishwasher and then as a commis and head of batch. With a Chef who declares “It is the vegetables, the sprouts, the herbs that change every season that create a dish” or “you have to hear the products speak, listen to what you have to say and then be able to silence them” Antonia-Alice yes she feels in full harmony in the discovery of a world of nature, of the environment, of harmony that enchants her with its wonders.
The Michelin star a few months after the opening of L'Argine in Vencò
With the Argine a Vencò helped and supported by her Romano, who takes care of the hall, Antonia Klugman literally took flight. In 2015, a few months after the opening of the restaurant, she received the Michelin star ("restricted choice to ensure the freshness of products that undergo few transformations, original combinations, wise use of aromatic herbs, the hallmark of his creative and elegant cuisine"). The spotlights of her turn on her: in the same year is the restaurant “News of the Year” for the Gambero Rosso Guide. The following year, another affirmation: according to the Guida di Identità Golose it is the “Cook of the Year”, to follow the Guide of the Restaurants of theEspresso awards her the three hats.
By now she is a cooking star invited to events and TV broadcasts in Italy and abroad, such as "Parabere Forum" in Barcelona and "Food on the Edge" in Ireland, she participates in the fourth season of "A mind of a Chef", the cult program by Anthony Bourdain that explores the creative processes of international chefs, in Italy she is even called upon to replace Carlo Cracco as the fourth judge of the seventh season of Masterchef Italia alongside Joe Bastianich, Bruno Barbieri and Antonino Cannavacciuolo as the first female judge of the programme.
He also publishes a book with Giunti Editore in which he narrates his experience with a title that says it all: "Di cuore di Coraggio".
Courageous of course but also – in her words – “stubborn, messy, determined, selfish and self-centered. All essential characteristics for a chef” especially in a context that can only be meritocratic. “This – he underlines – is perhaps one of the most beautiful things about this environment. If you are good, you acquire the esteem of the colleagues you work with. It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman. Handsome or ugly. Likeable or unpleasant".
As for the heart, it is enough to hear how she selects the people who have to work with her: “I walk with them in the garden and in the countryside. I show them how to harvest herbs and then leave them alone to deal with the harvest for a few weeks. I observe how their mental process changes, because those who are not used to it, especially those who come from the city, have an initial insensitivity dictated by inexperience”.
Walking in the woods, on the banks of the river or in the wild meadows, the children thus learn to recognize herbs and flowers, to cultivate them, to harvest them and to cut them: these are gestures that change the flavor of the product and therefore of the dish.
And this becomes a school of life and a fcooking philosophy, where sensitivity tugs at the heartstrings in the preparation of a dish and gives the happiness of living a unique and fully satisfying experience.
And it is the interpretative code of his cuisine that interprets the typical ingredients of the place where he has chosen to work, enhancing them through a very feminine and delicate creativity. A non-random choice but dictated by love for a countryside, the Collio Friulano, totally immersed in nature, with her times and evolutions and of which Antonia feels a faithful interpreter.
