If his father Alfonso is a monument of southern restaurants and the Mediterranean diet, his son Ernesto is his granite pedestal. And he is one with his father. Because the characteristic of the Iaccarinos, a dynasty that has reigned in Sant'Agata sui due gulf for 130 years, is that they know no solution of continuity not only in the work but also in the names: Alfonso Costanzo the great-grandfather founder, Ernesto the successor, Alfonso who in the 70s imposed the culture of the Mediterranean diet on the world bringing it in his preparations to sidereal levels, recognized with three Michelin stars, Ernesto who has taken up the baton and firmly leads the brigade in the kitchen of what has now become “Boutique Hotel Restaurant Don Alfonso 1890”. A story that is perpetuated under the banner of the most religious respect for the flavour, the colour, the scent of that extraordinary corner of the territory called the Sorrento peninsula, and its products. A creed which, however, has always been combined over time with the desire for modernity, which is not experimentalism, but a studied, meditated, elaborated gastronomic gaze looking forward, however, always keeping in mind the rooted history of the raw material. Because the Iaccarinos have this desire not to close themselves in the past but to go beyond the present in their DNA. Starting with the founder of the dynasty Alfonso Costanzo, who set up a pension in Sant'Agata. He could be satisfied with making money with the tourists who at the time went up there to breathe good, fresh air in the summer. No, great-grandfather Iaccarino, he did things on a grand scale, got into debt, took care of all the details, started an intense relationship activity to attract a higher level clientele and the gamble paid off big time.
Politicians, artists, industrialists and even a minister arrived at the Iaccarino pension. At the time, electricity did not arrive in Sant'Agata (that area of the peninsula had been isolated for centuries) and Iaccarino had it delivered at his own expense. There was no permanent connection and he got the first bus to come. There was no cinema to distract yourself in the evening. And he had it done. Obviously the pension restaurant with a clientele of that type aimed to pay close attention to the quality of the service.
But the great leap forward was given by Alfonso, third generation. While the gastronomic Italy of the 70s became inebriated under the banner of an improvised wellness cuisine made of prawn cocktails, farfalle with cream and salmon, penne with vodka, gnocchi and fettuccine with cream, peas and ham, farfalle with cream and saffron, and many gravies inspired by the old French cuisine with prolonged cooking, and sauces bound with flour and the inevitable cream, Alfonso Iaccarino jumps up, new Savoranola, and condemns this degeneration of Italian cuisine, advocating a "heretical" cultural model made of a return to the origins to respect the intense flavors of the field, the fish not made from sauces, the meat cooked in a way that enhances its sensory properties. A purification of the taste buds to put them in a position to savor nature with a cuisine made of high quality products – and therefore also of more expensive production cost – treated with sensorial respect for nature. And to give concrete effect to his messianic message, he bought a 9-hectare property at Punta Campanella, the extreme offshoot of the Sorrento peninsula stretching out towards Capri, Le Pieracciole, an uncontaminated place of extraordinary environmental beauty where he started the organic cultivation of all vegetables with an incredible flavour, which, then as now, cover 90 percent of the restaurant's needs.
He was listened to with distrust, criticized, and in some cases taken for madness. He created quite a few enemies even among the restaurateurs of Sorrento and the gulf who, satisfied with making easy profits with a cuisine aimed at current tourism and, therefore, not of sublime pretensions, rejected Iaccarino's gastronomic "presumptions". But time proved him right and that southern cuisine which before him seemed relegated to a phenomenon of folk tradition acquired a dimension of national and international excellence consecrated by no less than 3 stars in the Michelin Guide which for the first time in the history of the prestigious Red Guide they landed, with no small clamor, on a restaurant in Southern Italy, where Alfonso reigned supreme, his wife Livia proved to be an attentive and affable hostess, her brother Mario looked after the dining room and the precious cellar with great competence.
With such a legacy, that to call it heavy is an understatement, any young man would have lived on his laurels and family fortunes. This did not happen for Ernesto Iaccarino who threw himself into his studies, choosing economics and commerce at the Federico II University in Naples and graduating with 109. He had worked occasionally during his years of study at the restaurant, on weekends. And he liked it. But the degree was a goal to achieve. With the degree in his pocket one day while shaving he reflected: “I looked in the mirror, and I said to myself: but what can I do more than before? I did five years of theory, and if I don't work for what I studied for, I lose five years of my life and flush them down the toilet. I'm going to Milan to have an interview with a large company. There were 1500 of us, 70 of us were hired. And of those 70, after a year and a half of work, I was already the boss”. Nice satisfaction, but the worm from the kitchen had crept in and was gnawing inside his economic certainties. For someone like him who at the age of fourteen had run the 3000 meters in 9'28'' marking the third time at national level, challenges have always been his daily bread.
“One day I go to talk to my superiors and I tell them: in six months I'm going to be a cook, everyone looks at me shocked. For them it was an incomprehensible choice compared to the future that lay ahead for me in the company. I try to justify myself: I love doing other things, and the other is being behind the stove and creating flavours”.
And so a future as an international company ends but one of great imagination and creativity opens up in the family restaurant. “In reality – explains Ernesto today – the choice of Milan was a parenthesis, a personal journey from proud and competitive as I am, who doesn't like to lose, not even a friendly game of soccer. I wanted to get to prove to myself that I was capable of building a future of my own. But when things had gone as I wanted, I decided in complete autonomy without anyone having forced me to, that it was time to return to Sant'Agata and face many other challenges”.
In short, in line with the family traditions, Ernesto joins the company and while he cooks he wanders far away with his thoughts. Don Alfonso 1890 is known all over the world, he communicates with the great world chefs, he has a top-level international clientele. And then, as the saying goes that "If Mohammed does not come to the Mountain, the mountain goes to Mohammed" he begins to think big, a Don Alfonso restaurant is born in Marrakesh, one in Dubai, then in Macao and then in New Zealand where there is a complex with 800 hectares of land of pastures, vegetable gardens, woods, streams, lakes for the control of the entire food chain, the last in Toronto. In short, Neapolitan cuisine of excellence arrives on all continents and Ernesto who, since 2010, has taken over the reins of the restaurant, has been continuously rewarded with two Michelin stars (but many are convinced that another one will soon be added, deserved on the field ). Don Alfonso becomes a real holding company of the Mediterranean diet in the world. “There has been a generational shift, which is recurrent in our family. And at this point the Monument that you have in your family, you don't feel it as an impediment that paralyzes you but as an incentive to follow in its wake. And I take the liberty of saying that if every Italian company could make a generational leap like the one that occurred to us who went from one to six restaurants, the Italian GDP would have doubled".
Of course it takes a lot of courage to put yourself in the kitchen under the gaze of a father like Alfonso. However, Ernesto has metabolized this passion in his DNA without his knowledge. Not by chance his first successful dish comes from unconscious childhood memories.
“My mother and father always had a supply of truffles in the fridge – Ernesto recalls today – and in the morning when I was ten years old I drank a glass of milk as soon as I woke up, this was impregnated with the flavor of truffles. Gradually I got a taste for this flavor and I loved it. The memory of that flavor linked to my childhood guided me in the preparation of the first dish I made. When we think of a dish we always turn to our history, our culture, our traditions. I asked myself but which is the cheese that most resembles milk in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies? It's burrata. Well then I make a burrata mousse and develop a dish vertically and not horizontally. In the sense that I proceed in layers: truffle underneath, egg cooked at low temperature, placed on the truffle; a Sicilian fleur de sel, and burrata mousse on top with a grated white truffle. I made a balsamic vinegar vinaigrette to give it some color and proposed it for my father's scrutiny. Intrigued, Dad tasted it. He looked me in the face, and exclaimed between surprised and hesitant: Ah, did you do this?” Ernesto at this point takes courage and asks his father to be able to put that dish on the restaurant menu. What happens next is amazing. Many customers write in the positive comments about the restaurant that they were particularly impressed by that truffle egg and burrata mousse. “You can't imagine my satisfaction, dad I teased him for years….”. A star was born.
But in the kitchen, don't think that everything is roses and flowers. On the contrary, certain levels cannot be reached with just a stroke of imagination. Haute cuisine is study, concentration, tension, nervousness.
“Everything you see on television programs, with smiles, chatter, witty remarks, jokes, is not the real representation of what happens in a professional kitchen where there are monstrous hierarchies with a crazy amount of work. Those who approach our profession thinking they can put themselves in the kitchen and create masterpieces with that spirit go the wrong way, and risk bitterly repenting. It is true that TV brought the role of the chef to the center of social life. Today any television channel offers programs of this type. But believe me that is not the reality. There is the same difference between a trip in the car and a formula one race with everything behind it. Every time they invite me on TV I never tire of repeating: if you want to show the reality of a kitchen brigade, you have to take the cameras out of the studios where smiles reign and put them in a professional kitchen, and then, we will be able to make people understand the adrenaline, the tension, the rhythms, the unbridled attention to detail, that pure spectacle which is a professional kitchen. Pure adrenaline that is released with each course that comes out of the stove and goes to the table”.
And yes, because every dish has its own story, which can depend on so many things that you are not able to plan and keep constant over time once you have achieved a result that satisfies you. One of Ernesto Iaccarino's latest creations is a suckling pig in a crispy crust with oriental influences.
“I'll give you an example – he explains – When I put a new dish on paper you know there's a risk, you don't have experience. When you make the dish in the lab, you cook it for yourself and it always turns out well. But training is one thing, the game is one thing. In the game there are always the unexpected. In the specific case I establish a type of cooking then to make it crispy, increase the temperature, very high, for a number of minutes. I taste the smaller piece and tell myself if I taste the smaller piece and it's perfect and juicy the bigger piece will be even better. Mistake! It was the thickness of the rind which varies from pig to pig that had to give me the times and rhythms but who can tell you that? You have to stay with your head, you have to taste continuously, feel, eat, try, combine and always think with your stomach, head, instinct and heart to understand what you are doing and where you want to go”.
Only at this point can we arrive at real harmonic masterpieces of the table, which like great events, all have a date of birth next to them, such as an eel ice cream, Oscietra caviar, dog rose pasta and fennel seeds with mayonnaise grapefruit, a dish created in 2012 that never ceases to amaze, or Spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli pepper with soused mackerel, breadcrumbs, pine nuts, caramelized onion on Alalunga tuna sauce, another amazing dish or Nudi di ricotta e capon di sea in consommé with scents of lemon verbena, lemon peel and nettles, where you can feel the taste of the Mediterranean just by reading it, or even the black suckling pig with crispy skin, sweet and sour with tamarind, celery, turmeric mashed potatoes and onion chutney red fish from Tropea, or a very delicate cooked uncooked red snapper, coriander, sour lemon sauce, mandarin and chilli pepper (2015)
What to advise at this point to young people who, on the wave of the success of the many television programs dealing with food, want to embark on a career as a Chef?
“I would say first, go slow! Before saying I like this job, I tell them to try knocking on the door of an important restaurant, and understand what's behind the facade, which isn't the idyllic one they often show you, then if it's true passion, that's fine.
Unfortunately ours is a complicated profession, you must always be concentrated, you are like a tennis player, you cannot afford distractions for two, three hours of matches, which are played twice a day, you must have great physical strength, between heat and the long hours of a cooking day, love the material, its history, its cultural and territorial identity, enter into symbiosis with the products you use, respect them in the preparations, combinations, cooking times, and get excited about each dish, as if it were the first time you prepared it. They are the ingredients to ensure a happy marriage based on a mix of talent, passion, and sacrifice. This is the only marriage that can lead to success."
