You can spend an entire evening with him talking only about the carob mushroom, a rarity in this remote area of Sicily, with a unique flavor that recalls pork - it almost even has the consistency - so rare that some farmers when they see it appearing on the trunks of carob trees – they stand guard near the trees until they can pick it, or wild herbs from the Iblei mountains, or Cuturro, a sort of polenta of Arab origin which owes its name, which means coarse in Italian, to the fact that in times of scarcity the peasants, in order not to pay the taxes of the ground, worked this grain at home by pounding it between two stones obtaining a very coarsely chopped but also very tasty flour.
Because Claudio Ruta, Chef of the Michelin-starred La Fenice restaurant in Ragusa, is a man deeply in love with his land and would never get tired of talking about it. He does it with great enthusiasm, involving you in his stories about him but also very politely, always careful not to get too entangled in his storytelling about him, which in reality, however, are very pleasant.
He is a self-made man and this does not forget him to the point that the Michelin star has not changed his character in the slightest, and in the kitchen he loves to create an atmosphere of cheerful brigade with his collaborators, in which we discuss, intuit, discover, study flavors, correct each other, create new culinary paths, always keeping our feet firmly in this extraordinary land of Ragusa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and in its products. Its history is quite linear. As a boy at the end of compulsory school he feels that the school path is not for him, it takes too much time to achieve a result in life, and life flows like a river ... you have to seize it. For this he enrolled in a professional course, remembering how much pleasure as a child he followed his mother preparing dishes in the large kitchen of the house. He is fourteen years old but has a great desire to do things and his super-activism does not escape some interested eyes. In fact, the course included practical lessons in a nearby restaurant. And the restaurant owners who have seen him at work, at the end of the course propose that he go to work for them. It was supposed to be an experiment, it lasted three years. Claudio remembers that first experience with pleasure in a pleasant and very youthful work environment. But there is always the problem of the flowing river water… and frankly that experience after three years had offered him everything that he could offer. He begins to look around. And if he wants one day he will be contacted by a gentleman who runs a luxury village in Sardinia, French property, who is looking for an organizational assistant.
At the age of 17, omnibus manager of a club in Sardinia
“Do you feel like trying?” A little scared but also excited by the proposal, Ruta replies, with the humility that she has always stuck to his skin: "If I can be suitable and respond to their needs…." And he leaves with the director for the village of Budoni in the province of Olbia. It was March April at the start of the season. “I remember like it was yesterday, we just opened the doors of the village which had 250-300 seats. The foodstuffs arrive, I've never seen so much stuff together... I once received two trucks of goods, I got confused. I was only 17, but the director was very understanding and we left." After the experience, Ruta returns home to his beloved Ragusa next to his parents. But a new adventure awaits him immediately. In Pesaro they are looking for a chef for the restaurant of a three-star hotel, where the owner was directly in charge of the kitchen. Dario leaves, introduces himself to the owner who tests him and, selling him so young, is appalled, it's not what he expected. The situation is embarrassing: "If I can be of use to you, I'll be happy to help you, otherwise - young Dario reassures her - don't worry, give me one or two days to get organized and I'll get out of the way". But things go to the point that the distrustful owner is forced to change his mind, the restaurant is in good hands and the proposal arrives to return the following year. Winter is coming and Dario is back in Ragusa come on. He can't stay too far from his land. But the big moment arrives which will definitively mark the course of his life as a chef.
The big occasion is called Hotel Airone in Venice on the Sottomarina beach, the hotel from which the great entrepreneurial adventure of the Boscolo family started.
Claudio Ruta arrives there at the age of 18, works in the hotel, works in the kitchen but above all Rossano Boscolo who opened the first Italian school of professional training and specialization, the by now legendary Boscolo Etoile which has produced thousands of cooks over the course of its history, today scattered the world asks him to give him a hand to organize the courses.
Eight years have slowly passed since then. For Dario, who spares no effort between Albergo Airone, the restaurant and the courses, it is a unique experience.
The Etoile experience rubbing elbows with great French chefs
"I worked 36 hours a day, he recalls, but working with Rossano was extraordinary, he gave me freedom at 360 degrees, a special person in all respects, like the whole Boscolo family to whom I owe a lot". In those eight years, in fact, several teachers passed through the professional training courses, first and foremost great French chefs, who brought about a real revolution in cooking techniques, ("it was as if we worked in France, and we absorbed a lot from France" ) but also Italians, such as Giorgio Nardelli, a life spent in culinary training, chef at the Park Hotel Laurin in Bolzano, rector of the professional order of masters of cuisine, or Cristian Beduschi, world pastry champion in Lyon in 1997 with the setteveli cake, o Beppo Tonon winner of the ice cream world cup in 2006.
“It was a sometimes tough but extraordinary apprenticeship. Think what it could have meant to attend 10-15 training courses a year for 8 years in a row, and to work alongside the biggest names in the restaurant industry who came from France, Spain and Italy. If this isn't luck with a capital F..."
But suddenly things at home get complicated. health reasons in the family. Claudio takes leave of Rossano Boscolo, and returns to Ragusa.
A new chapter opens. The Malandrino family, entrepreneurs in the pastry, restaurant and hotel sectors, didn't miss it. After the pastry shop founded by the progenitor Gino, and a large room dedicated to banqueting, Al 318, the Malandrinos intend to give a boost to the La Fenice restaurant inaugurated in 2002 inside the Villa Cartlotta restaurant, and call Claudio Ruta. Ours throws himself headlong into the enterprise. The Marauders have asked him to fly high and he certainly doesn't hold back. He is too proud of his origins, of his land, of his family from which in reality he never mentally and philosophically distanced himself in his wanderings.
With his brigade to discover the flavors of tradition
The kitchen is for him a land of memories and ingredients, traditions, recovery of old flavors and old cultures that time has never completely erased, it is above all a re-proposition of raw materials that are unique in these parts and that can be confused with any other. But in all of this, careful risk, unpredictable combinations, experiments that are not experimentalism, new notes that are never out of tune with the past, because they say "this land cannot be betrayed" play a fundamental role. He is so in love with his land that he often closes everything up for half a day, takes all the kids, not only those in the kitchen brigade but also the others, the room attendants and those in charge of the laundry, and takes them around to discover local products, from farmers, cheese makers, livestock breeders, olive growers, winemakers, because "Sicily offers a unique microcosm of ingredients, both land and sea, it offers scents, colors and warmth in the dishes they turn into a tremendous explosion.” An emotional excursion that involves everyone, but which can then also be told and transmitted to the customers of his restaurant
Never distort the raw material, but work it with great technique
He always recommends to his collaborators: our cuisine must be simple with very few steps, with short cooking times to religiously respect the raw material, in its pure state, without the combinations altering its meaning. How I taste a dish in an experimental phase with my boys you have to understand ingredient by ingredient then you can taste it for how it was designed to respect. “My cuisine is technical, then refinement of raw materials and then territory”. His creed is "simplicity in the dish, in the processing of the ingredients, not distorting the raw material, not distorting it, but working it with the utmost respect and serving it in the simplest way possible but with a lot of technique". This is how real masterpieces of balance are born such as Ricotta ravioli with red lamb sauce, bitter chocolate, sugar and spices plaques, an ancient dish of the Ragusa countryside or like Chicken roll, baked green onions, green bean puree cinnamon and scented focaccia wafer from Tonda Iblea a dish of poor and simple origins that was prepared in the Ragusa countryside when spring exploded in the fields, through its colors and seasonal vegetables. And since we are talking about the territory, what about an Arancino di Cuturro stuffed with Ragusano primo sale, sanapo, stale bread with bitter chocolate and green tomato sauce, which looks like a walk immersed in the scents of a wheat field?
He likes to consider his kitchen as an experimental laboratory, where one experiments, invents, dares, studies a thousand preparations, tastes and harmonizes. Thus it happens, and not infrequently, that a successful dish arises from a choral comparison in which each of the participants provides his contribution, his experience, his imagination and his sensations.
He had to fly high and he succeeded. In 2008 he was silver medalist at the European Catering Cup competition in Mulhouse, France, the only chef chosen to represent Italy. In 2010 he participates in the "Bocuse d'Or", but above all in 2010 comes the great recognition of the Michelin star, always maintained to this day. “When an important legitimacy like this arrives, you realize that the figure and professionalism of the chef are very important – he says with his own generosity – like the entire brigade and the dining room staff: only the perfect combination of all the protagonists allows the achievement of important goals. Objectives that it was possible to achieve thanks to the farsightedness of Mauro Malandrino who immediately sensed the need to give the structure a new identity, directing La Fenice towards important goals to achieve, as it has been". And now? All that remains is to wait for the other goals.
