From his island, Gabriele Muro, 36 years old, took, as a young man, the eternal sleepy indolence with which this handkerchief of land, nestled in one of the most spectacular seas in the world, all bays, little bays, small fishing villages, piled up nets , hidden beaches, paths, colored houses like an innocent drawing of children, it has witnessed the passage of Mycenaeans, Greeks, Romans, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, Spanish, French and English, always maintaining its own magical identity. It is the Procida loved by Juvenal, Stazio, Virgil and Boccaccio who set the love story of Gian da Procida for the young Restituta on the fifth day of the Decameron, it is the same island where Alphonse de Lamartine described his dramatic love for her Graziella, is above all the absolute protagonist of L'isola di Arturo (1957), which revealed the great Elsa Morante to the literary limelight by making her win the Strega Prize, the first woman in the history of the prestigious literary event created by Maria and Goffredo Bellonci.
It is the island that served as an enchanting film set for The Postman, with Philippe Noiret and Massimo Troisi, for The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Matt Damon, for Francesca and Nunziata, with Sophia Loren and Giancarlo Giannini for Prisoner in Waiting of judgement, with Alberto Sordi.
Also Gabriele Muro, like Arturo, the protagonist of Morante's novel, with his father always away, who lives life through the books he reads and exploring the island, has a father who was often away from home, "he spent his whole life at sea, a seafarer on oil tankers around the world, like most of the Procidans and like my brothers do ". The housewife mother carries on the family, but she leaves much to be desired in the kitchen… “she doesn't love cooking and she never did, quite the opposite”.
Gabriele didn't even have grandmothers or aunts who introduced him to the world of cooking. He lived his carefree childhood without rhythms or frenzies in absolute freedom, "on the island you live protected, safe and free". By managing her time and thoughts of him. Even when his father, between one trip and another, during a break in his free time, took him fishing, his indolence came out: "Living on an island, fishing is a bit of everyone's passion, my father dabbled in diving, unfortunately I have not been a good student. In my life, besides a few mussels, two sea urchins and a few sea snails, I don't think I've ever caught anything”.
And even in everyday life he didn't get too busy: "I'm not even able to change a light bulb, for any small job around the house I ask friends and relatives for help".
In short, there was no mention of cooking at home but young Gabriele felt a certainty inside, that when he grew up he would have been a cook. Where he got the idea from, he can't say. There was no electrocution, a message from heaven. The only thing he remembers with sadness about his childhood is when they sent him to bed without supper for some disobedience or prank, for him it was not a renunciation but a real condemnation, an enormous sacrifice "much more than preventing me from going out or to go and play with friends”, because he really liked eating!
In short, the fire was smoldering inside but unknowingly.
Let's now take a leap in time, let's leave Procida and get to the present day. Gabriele-Arturo is another person, at the age of 36 he was called to manage an exclusive kitchen in a very exclusive hotel that opened a year ago in Rome, the VILÒN, charming hotel, member of the Small Luxury Hotel of the World, 18 rooms and suites , where you can breathe the charm and emotion of an aristocratic Rome. The only hotel in Rome in Travel&Leisure's 2019 it list of the most beautiful new hotels in the world. And here is Adelaide, the très chic novelty of gourmet Rome, the restaurant housed in the wing of the imposing Palazzo Borghese, considered one of the "four wonders of Rome" for its architecture. The name is a tribute to Princess Adelaide Borghese de la Roche Foucauld who generously in the mid-nineteenth century wanted to host a school for poor girls in the seventeenth-century wing of the building entrusted to the French nuns Daughters of the Cross. One therefore breathes history, an air of nobility and refined elegance, but also of discreet conviviality, in the Adelaide restaurant which enjoys an exclusive view of the private garden of Palazzo Borghese, the work of Martino Longhi the Elder, with an arched shape surrounded by 100 columns of granite and statues, which has also preserved the "secret garden".
This is the realm of Gabriele, who has maintained a shy and shy character from his childhood, even if very sociable, today he supervises Adelaide with a decisive attitude, and as a new doctor Jekyll & Mr Hyde he transforms himself into a rigorous and determined chef , fussy and self-possessed, always personally present throughout the catering process, from the identification and choice of raw materials (which he does not delegate to anyone) to the cooking, to the service, which he oversees and leaves nothing to chance. Saying goodbye to Procida's indolence, Gabriele is today an attentive captain of a luxury ship, in fact, he interprets the culture of the table with the love and passion that the cook of an aristocratic family of yesteryear could have. He is the "house cook", of a large house, a dwelling where hours are dedicated to the kitchen and where the Chef can also be asked for a "heart" dish of family tradition. Dishes that refer to the cuisine of the monzù, that entirely Neapolitan culinary art although of French ancestry, which offers iconic dishes such as sartù, gâteau, ragù, crocchè, and which Gabriele Muro sometimes offers either on request or with slight disenchantment as a finger for an aperitif at the In Salotto cocktail bar.
Certainly quality cooking was in his destiny and it was by following his instinct and his inner voices that his gastronomic learning knew no hesitation or setbacks, he went forward like a caterpillar without ever taking a step back at first and subsequent difficulties encountered in this profession.
The young Gabriele began working in the kitchen at the age of fifteen. “On the island, in the summer, the kids always find a little job, right from the start – he is keen to underline – I took what I was doing very seriously. I knew exactly what I wanted, I was very determined and since then I have never had any doubts that I loved cooking”.
The Ippsar Vincenzo Telese of Ischia was the school where he took his first steps “which marked the most beautiful part of my adolescence. Not so much for school - he recalls today with a wink - also because attendance in the classroom was very few. With my group we preferred the Maronti beach or the walks in the pine forest in Ischia instead of the boring French, administration and technique lessons. In an interview with her parents, the French teacher asked: “but Muro and Landola (my inseparable classmate) where do they go on Saturdays? Certainly not at school." The blush of shame of our parents unaware of all this – she confesses – is still alive in my mind ”. But the young Gabriele soon fell into line, and set off on the right foot: still very young, he attended a course at the Joia Alta Cucina Naturale run by Pietro Leeman, the starred chef, the first in Europe to receive a star for vegetarian cuisine, chef-preacher of values of vegetarian science, developed from a food, philosophical, social, healthy, psychological and agricultural point of view. From there Muro flies to Spain and lands at Ramòn Freixa, the two Michelin star chef from Madrid whose restaurant is “A place where the senses awaken to discover that nothing is what it seems and where are the flavors that to reveal what the eyes cannot see” and creates dishes in which “madness and common sense meet to make the gastronomic experience an unforgettable moment”. Unforgettable experience also for Muro who today says: "I wanted to live strongly to look at molecular cuisine when it was not yet cleared through customs in Italy as it is now".
From there it was the turn of Philippe Chevrier the Swiss chef of the Domaine de Châteauvieux in Peney-Dessus near Satigny two Michelin stars, awarded in 2001 as Gault Millau Chef of the Year, Chevalier de l'ordre du Mérite agricole, in short, a school of very high level and for him a "Strong training experience, Swiss rigor and French cuisine".
With this school, his name now travels throughout the Italian restaurant scene: Gambero Rosso calls him in Rome as a teacher at the Gambero Rosso Academy, at the same time he is called for restaurant consultancy and Muro signs start-ups for numerous venues, to then stop , for over a year, as Executive Chef at the Achilli Enoteca at the Parliament, one Michelin star.
A year ago, the big occasion: Gabriele Muro arrives at the Hotel Vilòn, 5 Star Luxury built in a wing of Palazzo Borghese. An ambitious and demanding project for the young chef from Procida. The ownership of the hotel that he has invested in the recovery and redevelopment of the historic seventeenth-century residence aims at a level of catering appropriate to the prestige of the historical and cultural context in which the restaurant is set.
In homage to the benefactress princess, the restaurant bears the name of Adelaide, with an amazing view over the private gardens of Palazzo Borghese.
Muro sets up and launches the restaurant, which is also open to external guests, with a fine dining cuisine full of flavor, the result of careful research on the product, often fish but not only, in the awareness of traditions and roots reinterpreted with lightness and balanced flair.
A cuisine that is immediate and cultured at the same time, aware, strong in a solid technical background acquired in Italy and abroad. His is a style that combines simplicity and memory, inherited from his origins in Procida, with intuition and creativity, elaborated and metabolized in his experiences with the prestigious masters who trained him during his rapid career, having essentially the cuisine of a great master of the Mediterranean like Alfonso Iaccarino, three Michelin stars, the first chef who brought the stars of the prestigious guide to Southern Italy, a real living monument of Italian and international cuisine.
Some highlights of his menu bear witness to this, such as 'Il capriccio d'estate', linguine with sea urchins with carpaccio of bream, powdered dehydrated capers and candied lemon; 'Alice in the garden of wonders', bread with anchovies, green peppers and burrata, “dishes – he says – that tell my Procida, starting from tradition, reviewed with the eyes of someone who has traveled a bit and has acquired experiences to see things in a different way but without ever abandoning one's roots" because "in a five-star hotel you don't necessarily have to serve foie gras caviar". A statement that alone is worth more than any other argument to explain the original path that Muro has been able to impress on the kitchens of Adelaide, where the winning card is the seasonality of the products, light cooking techniques in full respect and enhancement of the raw materials found only from small producers. But also imagination and innovation with geographical explorations in other territories as occurs with 'Una Nobile Anatra', duck in cooking oil, boulangère potatoes and barbecue sauce, or with 'Vegetarian proposal that of cabbage and goats, cauliflower fondant, broccoli and goat's cheese' . A mix of tradition and modernity that never falls into style because for Gabriele Muro the product is always the star of the dish, the ingredients must have and maintain their own identity in a cuisine that he loves to amaze with simplicity by drawing on history.
