A false signature can sometimes ruin a person, sometimes it can positively mark the fate of another. That's what happened to Enzo Di Pasquale the Chef of the Bistrot 900 Restaurant in Giulianova Lido in Abruzzo.
34 years old, tall, thin, lanky, with marked features and tousled hair, a cross between Mac Ronay, the famous French comedian who raged on television in the 70s and 80s, when he gave life to the character of Wizard, clumsy and clumsy , who presented himself as the tamer of an ideal flea circus enjoying international success, and Franco Franchi, the wiry companion of Ciccio Ingrassia with whom he formed a duo of irrepressible comedy.
It can be said that Enzo Di Pasquale today best represents the new generation of chefs in this region which today can boast a national and international level of catering whose standard-bearer is the great Niko Romito 3 Michelin stars in Castel di Sangro, has now also crossed the European borders with the three restaurants, managed with Bulgari, in Shanghai, Beijing and Dubai. And it's not just Romito because Abruzzo can boast other Michelin-starred flagships, such as Nicholas Fossaceca of the San Salvo Marina Metro, Archangel Tinari of Villa Maiella in Guardiagrele, David Pezzuto of D. One in Montepagano di Roseto, Marcello and Mattia Spadone of The Flag of Civitella Casanova. Needless to say, a nice parterre.
The false signature that marked the life of young Enzo was the one he affixed at the age of 13 on the application form for enrollment at the hotel management school of San Benedetto del Tronto (AP)., facilitated by his height which could deceive about his real age. A signature that the father would never have affixed because he had other plans for his son.
But the spark had already been ignited and the young Enzo faced his father's wrath – who as a good Abruzzese had a strong character to the point that even today, when his son can be defined as having arrived, he remains anchored to his idea – and, as soon as his father, he decided to continue straight on his way.
What is striking in the path of Enzo Di Pasquale's professional life is that, apart from that initial false signature, it seems that everything happened to him without major obstacles or setbacks.
His family has peasant origins, but his father in the 60s decided to abandon the land as many did in these parts, to look for a safe place on the State Railways. He had a wife and three children and had to guarantee them a certain future. And so he stayed on the railroad until he retired. And then? There has been a return to his origins, he has returned to working the land but this time to ensure genuine products for his son Enzo who offers them to the customers of his restaurant knowing how they were grown, how they were treated, and what flavors they can release .
Theirs is a solid family, with two sisters older than him, and he the youngest. "But - he is keen to say - I was not the most pampered of the family, indeed the problems were precisely the generational gap" for which the young Enzo grew up developing an unsociable but very independent character.
Enzo smells the first cooking scents when at the age of four or five he was next to his older sister who worked in a school canteen. Entering the kitchen, he smelled those smells which then remained imprinted in his mind and which, combined with the memory of the garden cultivated by his father, then directed him towards a life in the kitchen. Smiling, he recalls today: "the snacks that we used to prepare with my sister and my best friend (both chefs) from an early age, often and willingly took shape as real banquets..." And he is influenced by the culinary experiences with his sister and by the father's agricultural activity the first dish that Enzo he cooks himself at the age of 12: half sleeves with vegetables and seasoned ricotta, a recipe from a cookbook found somewhere in the house. The result? More than satisfactory. Life is marked.
A life that has been all downhill, he admits it himself with disarming sincerity: "I've been very, very lucky, I've worked with masters and I've been to many places where I really wanted to work. Always paid, without internships or courses. So I have encountered few difficulties. Instead – and here the words take longer and more ponderous breath – a different discourse that deserves to be explained better, however, the real difficulty is when, in the middle of your career, you meet love…”. But that's another story and the discussion is dropped.
And therefore, if it is true that fortune favors the bold, it must also be said that the bold are then gratified by their choices. And Enzo di Pasquale has always been guided by his great, boundless passion for cooking, his determination in always wanting to look beyond the hedge, his stubbornness in wanting to achieve a set goal, a goal, at all costs, quality that they have put him in a good light with the great chefs who have had him by their side. And let's assume that, at times, his lunacy often leads him to question himself, to confront himself, to push himself towards risky challenges even when he thinks that this could cause him some problems, but he doesn't give up until he is convinced that that undertaken is the right path.
Of course, the departure from the hotel in San Benedetto del Tronto was an excellent start. From there came Davide Di Fabio, who ended up as sous chef at the Osteria Francescana; Danilo Cortellini, chef at the Italian embassy in London and ambassador of our cuisine in England; Leonardo Di Teodoro, pastry chef at the Tosca starred restaurant in Geneva.
From there di Pasquale takes off.
Three names, among loads of ninety make him grow in his professional career, three unforgettable cooking experiences.
The first is that of Lucio Pompili, of the Cartoceto Symposium, a real poet of the Marche region and its products, of sky (game), land and sea who knows how to present his dishes with a modernity that never borders on the beyond, who knows how to manipulate all the most modern latest generation inventions without that no one can see, an illusionist. Explosive man with a thousand ideas.
The second is that of Enzo Santin, the great chef of La Cassinetta in Lugagnano, forge of great starred chefs, one who, having entered the kitchen for the first time at the age of 39, manages to make his restaurant an obligatory stop of Italian taste, becomes friends with Gualtiero Marchesi, is the second Italian chef to take three Michelin stars after the prophet Marchesi, but he also finds the incredible courage, at the age of 73, to renounce the Three Stars of the Red Guide, as well as Marchesi, stuff to make your wrists tremble.
Then there is Fabio Barbaglini, the Chef of FOOO, Florence Out Of Ordinary at the Fortezza da Basso, entered in the list of the thousand best restaurants in the world, compiled on the basis of the most important international gastronomic guides and columns, a chef dedicated to nature in its most engaging expressions. Di Pasquale met him at Santin's then followed him to Val d'Aosta learning how to blend Santin's rigor with the teachings of the French school.
It's still Massimo Guzzone, chef at the Agnelli house who opened a restaurant on the roof of the Lingotto "La pista", to abandon it after two years, to take it back and relaunch it making it a reference restaurant for Turin's haute cuisine.
In a different way, everyone marks and imprints his professional growth. He testified to this in an interview: “The one who directed me into this world is certainly Lucio Pompili: he gave me the key. Ezio Santin taught me the trade and what it means to be a professional, with him I opened the door to this fantastic world. Then I brought out the "man" character with Massimo Guzzone who taught me that this fantastic world is full of unexpected events and obstacles for which we must fight day after day".
Our Di Pasquale travels in Italy and abroad but the desire to establish himself in his land is strong, Abruzzo pulsates in his blood.
And with his stubborn and tenacious character he succeeds. He learns that an entrepreneur has taken over an old abandoned 900th-century Liberty building in Giulianova to make it into a hotel. He doesn't think twice, he doesn't wait for anyone to call him. He introduces himself and proposes. The idea is to create a restaurant that gets people talking. Initially the family of hoteliers was hesitant, Di Pasquale threw out the idea of a rehearsal, a lunch for a few people. Needless to say, the delays fall immediately, the owners realize that the guy has many numbers, far too many. It starts in 2014. The stages are burned. Only two years later Di Pasquale offered to take over the management of the restaurant as Chef patron, however also ensuring the hotel's catering.
And here all the experiences in Italy and abroad, all the characteristics of his character, his curiosity, even his moodiness, take shape in an eclectic, very personal proposal, which takes the name of "Bistrot 900" where Abruzzo and Northern Europe, America and Japan merge into something unique.
For Di Pasquale, the comparison with other cultures becomes an indispensable baggage of knowledge from which to draw in a wise and disciplined way, for his creations.
In his Bistrot 900 you don't traditionally sit down to order a first course, second side dish and fruit or dessert. But to experience new emotions, based on the creativity and personal freedom of the chef who goes deep into her beloved land like an excavator capable of bringing new inner sensations to light.
In his kitchen the degree of gustatory intensity reigns, on the basis of a completely personal score from the Chef, which evaluates the gustatory components from acid to bitter, from sweet to mineral so it can also happen that a pasta arrives towards the end of the lunch.
His becomes a “theater of taste”, within which guests can find the pleasure of discovering stimulating sensations for the palate and for all their senses, in an intimate and cozy atmosphere, in which the healthy habit of sitting at table, and to be pampered to live a real taste experience".
Try, to believe, the spaghetti with beetroot juice and curry and coconut sauce, or in season, or the oxheart tomato, datterini tomatoes and watermelon, with caciotta broth, a dish that comes from the memory of a summer snack, bread and tomato, plus a slice of caciotta finished with a slice of watermelon that never fails in summer. But also Cuttlefish, nduja, lemon-orange powder, black bread, sea fennel or Onion, black beans and seaweed, wild chicory and mustard to understand that we have landed in another way and world
In short, Ristorante Bistrot 900 in just four years has become something that certainly does not go unnoticed in the Abruzzo gastronomic panorama but ours, just like Mac Ronay who blew fleas in virtual exercises on rings and trapeze, could still have some surprises in store. Won a bet, he is not sure to sit down.
“I'm still not convinced that a career in cooking is what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll think about cooking in a school canteen like my sister, to bring the little ones closer to food. Our careers without food education go nowhere." What do you think of a new dimension? Ah to know, as the late prof said. Riccardo Pazzaglia from the Theater of Those of the Night…
