Going up to the top floor of the Hotel Eden nestled between the history of Villa Borghese and the past glories of the sweet life of Via Veneto is intimidating. From the Terrace the view is breathtaking, you have all of Rome at your feet. The sunsets here melt the soul with languid atmospheres. Once upon a time this was the enormous and panoramic estate of the wealthy family of the Ludovisi princes, who included in their history the rise to the papal throne of Gregory XV°. After the capture of Porta Pia and the transfer of the capital to Rome, the estate turned into a gold mine. The Ludovisi began to sell lands that the new state was starving for. And so in 1887 an imposing building was built on the ashes of woods and vineyards, designed to house luxury apartments. But shortly after a Swiss entrepreneur Francesco Nistelweck came forward sniffing out the business of building a luxury hotel for the world's greats who visited the new capital of the unitary state. In two years the hotel took shape: it was the first hotel in Rome equipped with a lift, electricity, heating and running water. Success was immediate and the hotel defined by Murray's Handbook Advertiser as “The best hotel in Rome, with breathtaking views over the city and surrounding countryside” became a favorite among travelers of the time. But it was in the modern 60s that the owners, with a bold choice, decided to move first the bar and then the restaurant to the rooftop, in the area originally considered as a service area on the top floor and used by all the hotels for drying laundry. A bold choice because until then hotel restaurants were conceived either on the ground floor or on the main floor, certainly not on the terrace. And in this too Eden was the first.
All this history, today, at the La Terrazza restaurant, rests on the shoulders of Chef Fabio Ciervo, 40, a native of Sant'Agata dei Goti, the pearl of Sannio, a Michelin-starred chef, who arrived at Eden years ago, after a cursus honorum of great international prestige, but which has been able to keep alive and meaningful the memory of its land, its traditions, the flavors of the past. Like the memory of the chestnuts that his grandfather accompanied him to collect in the woods, telling him so many stories that only the elderly know, and which in the evening they would roast on the embers or, better yet, or the memory of that Annurca apple which, always in the company of his grandfather, he went to collect from the trees in the countryside and which then, with a little cinnamon and cloves, wrapped in aluminum foil, was cooked in the ashes, releasing throughout the house an aroma of caramelized sugar that entered from the nostrils to go straight to the heart. And certainly it was precisely the memory of those fragrant home atmospheres that prompted him to abandon himself as a young man, after a respectable athletic journey (he had dedicated himself to free-body gymnastics reaching a good level: "I was good at the rings", recalls with a touch of pride) to enroll in the hotel management school of Benevento where he became passionate about his first learnings under the watchful and affectionate guidance of Carlo Maturo of whom he still has a grateful memory. This new world that opened up before his eyes immediately fascinated him: “When I started the first cooking class I was super excited and anything I started doing gave me joy and pleasure. I still remember buying my first knives, which I still keep with me today. And from time to time I proudly tell my team that some knives have as many as 25 years of cooking. That's my story there."
He therefore abandoned sport but the rigor of a tough and demanding sporting discipline such as free-body gymnastics remained in his bones, or rather, in his brain. And Ciervo didn't even think of sparing himself, but driven by that sacred fire that moves all athletes to their physical limit in order to achieve a result, he immediately set himself new goals. Thus, having finished the course at the Benevento hotel school, he went straight to the Ecole Lenôtre in Plasir, one of the most prestigious and rigorous professional training schools in France from which thousands of professionals have come out who are still the backbone of the gastronomic world of 'beyond the Alps.
Going out with the badge of this extraordinary school and being accepted, working – and growing – by the big names in French catering is a whole thing. In Ciervo the doors of Michel Roux open wide, one of the most acclaimed chefs in the world, holder of three Michelin stars for 21 years at the Waterside Inn in Bray, Meilleur Ouvrier de France (MOF) en Pâtisserie in 1976, Cavaliere de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1990, honorary degree in Culinary Arts from Johnson & Wales University in the USA, awarded the honor of Knight de la Légion d'Honneur in 2004, Officer of the British Empire. And we stop here to describe his caliber, but we could go much further.
Once again Ciervo is not resting on its laurels and continues to build and structure itself stone by stone passing from France to Spain, the new frontier of great cuisine, according to Martín Berasategui Olazábal, the giant of Spanish cuisine who prides himself with his Restaurante Lasarte-Oria in the Basque Country of three Michelin stars since 2001 and holds twelve stars in total, more than any other Spanish chef. And that's not all, because then it's the turn of the kitchens of Heston Blumenthal, three-starred chef and British television star, founder and owner of The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray in Berkshire, considered one of the greatest exponents of molecular gastronomy. Then fly overseas to Thomas Keller, one of America's greats, the only one who has managed to win three Michelin stars in two different and distant places, "Per Se" in New York and "The French Laundry in Napa Valley, perpetually featured in the annual list of the world's 50 best restaurants.
Now, someone who has gone through all these experiences to shake your wrists, in your opinion, if you ask him what was the first chef dish in his life, what would he answer? In a disarming way: "a spaghetti with tomato sauce!". And here we also understand the nature of man, solar and dynamic, determined and disciplined, animated by just ambition. A thousand miles away from certain star attitudes to which certain media Chefs who rage in the various television broadcasts have accustomed us, Ciervo keeps his feet firmly on the ground in his homeland even today, when he is an established Chef, in one of the restaurants more ''in'' than the capital, which has long since won a Michelin star, which has had the honor of cooking for Queen Elizabeth, for Heads of State, for great actors, singers and businessmen.
Spaghetti with tomato sauce is the proof of the return to the origins, of the search for the essence after the liberation from all the mental superstructures of a kitchen built over the years by addition and not by subtraction, but above all the adherence to a cooking style which aims at essentiality by combining healthy and healthy.
Illustrious guests arrive at Eden in 1890
For Ciervo cooking is in fact based above all on innovation, through the continuous study of the latest scientific methodologies, approved by scientists and nutritionists, for the improvement of the nutritional system and through the constant attention towards cutting-edge technologies. His cuisine therefore aims at the concept of well-being thanks to new recipes designed for the contemporary lifestyle and to satisfy nutritional needs in a healthy way. Obviously, in this context, the main focus is on the ingredient through a careful selection of seasonal raw materials from organic farming. In this way the characteristics of the foods remain unaltered and the ingredients can express their properties to the maximum. Once these fundamental foundations of a new culinary language have been established, it is evident that the search for taste takes place by pursuing the balance of flavors which, when balanced, enhance the texture of the food and guarantee its taste. Last but not least, for Ciervo art, aesthetics, creativity and design have an important value. His creations each have their own character thanks to the skilful combination of the symmetry of the ingredients and the geometry of the dish.
And the great gastronomic artifice is therefore composed in an apparently simple dish, which conquers for how apparently elementary it is proposed, in reality the result of a maniacal study that plays on flavors and textures to unravel in the mouth in dynamic harmony. Try to believe his 'sea urchin cream', or the 'ravioli filled with boiled broth my way' with horseradish or the cheese and pepper from Madagascar flavored with rosebuds, the 'beef intercostal stew with cauliflower caramelized and white onion' dishes that represent his cooking philosophy which is very incisive and elegant at the same time.
And on the legendary terrace of Eden from which crowned heads, politicians, grand commis of state, actors, industrialists from all over Europe and the Americas have looked out, Ciervo wanted to bring alongside his luxurious restaurant also the purest scent of his Campania setting up a pizzeria. Obviously high quality pizzas made with a blend of semi-wholemeal and stone-ground wholemeal flours, offering a product of taste, above all, but also highly digestible, made of Mediterranean ingredients, genuine but also original flavors. Just as his signature dish is very original, a tribute to the Roman world like his famous cacio e pepe, with pepper from Madagascar, scented with rosebuds, creamed by combining Roman pecorino and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
In doing so he succeeded in the most unthinkable of alchemies, to make the sun of Rome and Naples meet on the roofs of the capital, and the results of this astral conjunction are truly exceptional.
