It defines itself bold, special, rebellious. nonconformist, enthusiastic, real. And for those who haven't yet framed her – which is very difficult in the traditional sense of the term with someone like her – she throws one of her thoughts in your face, which she also wanted as an introduction to her restaurant's web page: "the flame burns, it's amazement and colour, it is idea and feeling, the joy of creating, and the hunger to do, to be alive”.
With this baggage of thoughts that refers you to Giordano Bruno and Masaniello on one side, not by chance his countrymen, ea Gabriele D'Annunzio on the other, a very young Viviana Varese left Salerno, where she was born in 1974, with a smattering of cooking fed in her father's fish restaurant, to move to the north with a specific objective, to break that barrier, once almost insurmountable , for which the protagonists of haute cuisine had to be only men.
With that temper that Viviana Varese has, she was not seized by the slightest awe in choosing to go and do an internship at the Albereta di Erbusco with Gualtiero Marchesi.
She knew that the rigor of the great master would have been the best life training for someone like her who wanted to face the kitchen head on. Study, follow gods creative cooking master at "La città del Gusto" of Gambero Rosso in Rome, specific masters in pastry, and above all on chocolate, conducted by Maurice Santin, enrolls in courses at Alma, the European Institute of Culinary Arts whose Rector is Maestro Gualtiero Marchesi, and in a creative cooking course with Moreno Cedroni, does not pay he follows a specialization course in pastry at Cast Alimenti in Brescia with the world champion Master Pastry Chef Leonardo DiCarlo and at only 25 he was able to open a restaurant in Orio Litta in the Lodi area: “Il Girasole”.
Great challenge for a Salernitana landed in the north but not enough to satisfy Viviana Varese's strong will to establish herself at the highest levels of cuisine. The meeting with Sandra Ciciriello, Apulian from Ostuni but Milanese by adoption, who has been working at the fish market in Milan for 17 years is essential for the breakthrough much coveted.
Viviana with her flair, her imagination, her desire to break the rules, and Sandra with her knowledge of the catch and who will also become the restaurant sommelier, set out on a journey that is in many ways exceptional and will last 17 years. They will even be the protagonists of a lucky one television series "The chef and the boss" on RealTime.
However, Il Girasole and the province of Lodi are close to Viviana and Sandra who decide to disembark in Milan and open “Alice”. We are in 2007. The restaurant immediately commands the attention of a heterogeneous clientele who know they can find in the restaurant a choice of raw materials of the highest quality, from pasta, disgorged from Campania, to fish – ça va sans dire – to meats, cheeses, on which Viviana never compromises and on which the chef builds her highly inventive cuisine that finds inspiration in the most genuinely Mediterranean tradition. The Michelin star that arrives in 2012 it doesn't come unexpected. Two years earlier Viviana Varese has already obtained the prize "emerging youth" by the Gambero Rosso guide and the “Identità Golose” guide elected it “female chef of the year”. A further reason for pride is the following year the transfer of Alice which becomes with an acronym in which the initials of the Chefs connote her iron will, VIVA Viviana Varese at Eataly in the former Teatro Smeraldo in Piazza 25 Aprile in Milan.
And then after the TV series comes a successful book: "The book Alice and the wonders of fish" by Viviana Varese and Sandra Ciciriello (Giunti Editore). And then Expo 2015 arrives and Viviana Varese is appointed chef ambassador. A dazzling career but if you remember her self-portrait at the beginning you can well understand that it was all written, or rather until today, then there is the future to write and that promises to be full of surprises with that flame that has always burned inside her accompanied by his "fame to do".
To make Easter lunch special and important, Viviana Varese offers a dessert that can be considered the synthesis of her culinary philosophy: feet firmly planted in the traditions of her land, the Pastiera, and a mind that wanders in swirling modernist latitudes. It's not easy to prepare. But it is worth trying to try your hand at the enterprise in time to be able to obtain a starry "Sun" with a great visual effect and refined flavor with which you will certainly be able to surprise and amaze all your guests.
The recipe of the Sun by Viva Viviana Varese
Ingredients for people 12
For the base of the sun with cooked wheat
250 grams of wheat
a liter of water
a liter of milk
100 grams of eggs
50 grams of sugar
125 grams of buffalo ricotta.
For the ricotta bavarois
50 grams of buffalo ricotta
12,5 grams of chopped Candied fruit,
12,5 grams of sugar
25 grams of egg white
0,5 grams of gelatin sheets
50 grams of semi-whipped cream.
For finishing and assembly
300 grams of gold glaze
300 grams of English cream with orange
8 round biscuits of 6 cm.
For the base of the Sun
cook the wheat in water and milk for about 4 hours if the liquid evaporates too much add milk and water always in equal weight.
When the wheat is cooked let it cool. Whip the eggs with the sugar, add the ricotta and then the wheat. Spread the mixture on a tray and cook in a preheated oven at 180° for 20 minutes. Cool in the refrigerator and then cut with a 6 cm diameter round pastry cutter.
For the ricotta Bavarian cream, chop the candied fruit, sift the ricotta and bring it to 25°C then whip it with the sugar in a planetary mixer. Add the egg white and the candied fruit, rehydrate the gelatin in water and dissolve it at 40°. Incorporate the jelly and cream into the mixture.
Insert the Bavarian cream into hemispherical molds of 6 cm in diameter, filling them up to two thirds. place the disks of cooked wheat previously prepared in the molds and freeze.
Gold glaze
85 grams of absolute Cristal
30 grams of mandarin juice one gram of edible gold powder
Combine all the ingredients in a jug and mix well then heat in the microwave to 25 degrees
Orange creme anglaise
400 g of milk
600 grams of cream
200 grams of yolk
200 g of invert sugar
the zest of two untreated oranges
10 grams of orange blossom
orange essence
Mix the milk with the cream and bring to the boil. Mix the egg yolk and invert sugar. Pour the orange zest, flowers and essence into the milk and cream mixture. Incorporate the yolk and bring to 84 degrees, cover with cling film and leave to cool in the refrigerator.
For finishing and assembly
Arrange the frozen hemispheres of Bavarian cream with cooked wheat on a grill. Heat the golden glaze and coat the Bavarian creams, then let them defrost in the refrigerator. Take soup plates, place the biscuits in the center, cover with the orange creme anglaise and place the golden Bavarian cream on top
Viva Eataly restaurant
Piazza Twenty-five April, 10,
20121 Milano MI
