"The sea is the voice of my heart, it is the voice of your heart, which still unites us...": Thus sang a dreamy Sergio Bruni at the Sanremo Festival in 1960. There is no Neapolitan who does not feel the sea inside like something that throbs in you.
Ivan Silvestri, 38 years old, today a rapidly growing Chef of the “Hosteria Alicina” restaurant in the refined Porto Ercole, is no exception. As a good Neapolitan, the sea, with its stories, its life, its colors, its feelings, it carries with him in his kitchen in an indissoluble relationship.
Orphaned as a child, he was forced, dividing his time with his studies, to go to work as a dishwasher in a restaurant where banquets were essentially held. Tiring stuff for 800 covers a day. And he thought he was redeeming his future by taking marine engineering.
But then that ragù that he pizzed on his grandmother's stove on Sunday morning and that he stole, hungry, after a game of soccer with friends, greedily dipping pieces of bread devoured at the moment, making his grandmother not a little angry. Just like those potato croquettes and those arancini that went down like a marvel, suddenly appeared in his mind as a more handy way to be able to give himself a job.
The idea actually came to him while camping with friends. There was only a country stove and young Ivan instead of throwing down two easy scrambled eggs or spaghetti with garlic, oil and chilli pepper, as is used in these cases, he thought well, for that sense of unconscious challenge that animates young people, to try nothingpòpòdimenoche in pennette with prawns, clams and courgettes. They didn't throw them at him, on the contrary, from that moment on he was appointed cook of the company on the spot. And so it was that in a certain sense he got off the ships he had to design to embark on a culinary journey that would take him around Italy and also abroad to then land on the shores of the Argentario sea in Porto Ercole, once a fishing village transformed into an elegant tourist centre.
King Farouk of Egypt, the Dutch royals who built a beautiful residence, the Happy Elephant, Princess Soraya, Anita Ekberg, Ava Gardner, Sofia Loren, Gregory Peck, Marcello Mastroianni have passed through or had a villa here. , Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Jaqueline Kennedy, Susanna Agnelli and more recently Gucci, Carlo Verdone, Gigi D'Alessio, the princes Beatrice Borromeo and Pierre Casiraghi and Massimiliano Allegri with his new love Ambra Angiolini. In short, a nice parterre for royals and VIPs. And it takes courage to think of opening a restaurant in a place for refined palates…
Ivan settled there in 2014 by taking over a small place overlooking the port, he will call it Alicina as an act of love for his daughter Alice, born two years earlier.
His was a great career path, he begins to attend hotel management school, but does not complete it. She wants to compete immediately on the field. At the age of 18, she was the first to enter the kitchen of the Villa Crespi restaurant in Cannavacciuolo. A friend then suggests that he go to Porto Ercole – the call of the sea is always strong… – to the La Pinta restaurant. “As a kitchen commis – he recalls – one fine day in August the chef argues with the owners and leaves, I found myself and another commis managing the kitchen for a few evenings. I'm not telling you what a disaster, but in reality it is the experiences that strengthen you and make you grow".
Two years later he went to Egypt, grew in rank, became commis de match, in an Italian restaurant. Meanwhile he does internships at Cerea, at Cracco when he can, he goes to the restaurants of the great chefs to study them closely.
Once the Egyptian parenthesis is over, we find him in Sardinia – always by the sea – at the Marina Rei Beach Resort. It's the real turning point in his life. The restaurant is led by Chef Pastore, an old school man with a French setting. “From him – Silvestri acknowledges him – I learned cooking classifies the great dishes of Italian cuisine, chef Pastore is the one who taught me the basics”.
And so he can get to the highest professional step: Chef. In this capacity he was called to Porto Santo Stefano to the restaurant of the 4-star Baia d'Argento hotel, where he remained for three years. Pastore's teachings have had their effect and Ivan is now able to produce an original cuisine designed and elaborated by him
Ivan has made a name for himself as a chef who knows how to treat fish with a happy hand, with imagination and delicacy at the same time, with love and respect for everything that comes from the sea.
His qualities as a Chef go from mouth to mouth, even reaching the ear of the US Ambassador who has a yacht moored in the port where he hosts illustrious characters from the smart set and calls him full-time to yachting.
“The challenges are different – says Ivan – compared to a normal restaurant but much more demanding in some respects. You must have a strong sensitivity for the nationality of the guests and a propensity for innovation. And so I set out to learn as many dishes as possible from all the cuisines of the world. This fascinated me and, among other things, forced me to enrich my cultural background. But above all, working in yachting, I was lucky enough to cook for very important personalities and you realize that quality, simplicity and heart are the foundations of a cuisine that knows how to surprise precisely because it is extraneous to any form of homologation".
Thus comes the great leap of a restaurant of his own. One thing is clear right from the start: the Alicina Hosteria will know no compromises, it will offer itself as a restaurant where you can eat raw materials of the highest quality with respectful cooking and small touches to enhance the flavour.
Ivan bonded with a relationship of esteem but also affection to Marco, a historic fisherman from Porto Ercole, owner of the Ledo fishing boat: “Marco used to get me the best catch of the Argentario, the most beautiful and delicious shellfish and unique fish. Unfortunately he passed away prematurely but our collaboration continues with the family and Lello has taken up the baton by continuing to assure me of a fish that is a champion of freshness, quality and authenticity. Because at Alicina we work only local fish at zero sea mile, a local fishery made of trawls and trammel nets”.
The greatest satisfaction for Ivan is seeing illustrious colleagues arrive in his restaurant who gratify him with their appreciation, such as Maurizio di Caino with his wife Valeria Piccini, two Michelin stars "a unique and sincere person" or the two-starred Antonio Guida of the Seta restaurant, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Milan that passed in 2004 for the Pellicano of Porto Ercole, or Gianni Alocci, the former FBmanager of the Pellicano who takes a liking to him and dispenses advice: "he gave me ideas but he also bullied me like a father, but I must admit who made us take a leap forward, was a unique and special person”.
By now the Alicina has established itself as one of the three high quality restaurants on the promontory. To help him there is Alessandro Fois, a sous chef to whom he is linked by a strong friendship, a "pillar" as Ivan defines him, another self-taught who trained in the field driven by a strong irrepressible passion for seafood that follows him from time immemorial.
You don't need many words to define Alicina's cuisine: it's a straightforward cuisine without frills, an immediate cuisine that reaches the palate immediately, a cuisine with great respect for the product made of short and emotional cooking. Made above all "with lots of love" as he is keen to specify because for him "the sea - as Carl Gustav Jung said - is like music: it contains and arouses all the dreams of the soul" and he takes that music into the kitchen when you proposes a roll of cuttlefish with baby spinach and foam of its water, a spaghetti with clams and sea urchins or a fusillone with cacio pepe e bottarga.
"Three dishes that reflect me - he says - arrive immediately, you feel the respect for the products and a good soul".
A disarming simplicity but behind it there is an ancient culture. With its own secret: a seasonality that does not give in to compromises, a menu that changes constantly, which reflects the daily life of the sea, a creativity that never forces one's hand".
It is no wonder that Silvestri has received a plethora of awards this year: his restaurant is present with flattering votes in all three of the most important guides for a Chef: Michelin, Espresso and Gambero Rosso.
But there is one last thing to say. At the Festa a Vico, the most important event of great Italian cuisine that Gennarino Esposito organizes every year in Vice Equense with the greatest starred chefs in Italy, the patron usually organizes an exclusive lunch in his restaurant La Torre del Saracino which he invites to participate ten young chefs who in his opinion are the great Italian promises.
Last year Ivan Silvestri was among them together with Aldo Ritrovato of It Restaurant in Milan, Pietro Penna of Casamatta in Manduria and Giuseppe Costantino of Terrazza Costantino in Sclafani Bagni (PA). The first two were awarded a Michelin star in November and the third was included in the Bib Gourmand Michelin 2019 list. As if to say that a road to Silvestri could soon be traced.
