Chef Ivan Fargnoli's Australian Moor recipe: between fine dining and history in the Aromi del Molino Stucky

East and West with their respective traditions find a meeting point in the recipe of the Australian Moor, fennel, peas and shellfish reduction by Ivan Fargnoli executive chef of the refined restaurant Aromi of the Hilton Molino Stucky on the Giudecca

There is a modern gastronomic silk road that connects Venice to the Far East, a refined route that blends and mingles with the products of the Veneto region with the fascinating oriental flavors in an alchemy of flavors that takes the form of a historic and architecture, that Mulino Stucky that an entrepreneur and financier of a noble Swiss family Giovanni Stucky, built on the Giudecca between 1884 and 1895 to exploit the Venetian canal as a transport route for grain arriving on ships from Eastern Europe. That mill which at the end of the 800th century thanks to modern cutting-edge technologies ensured a strong contribution to the city's economy, with 1500 workers who produced 50 tons of flour a day working continuously 24 hours a day, today after an impressive and painstaking restoration which has exalted the neo-Gothic architecture of the imposing building houses an exclusive hotel of the Hilton chain frequented by an international clientele who prefer the muffled atmosphere and luxury services of the Hilton to the tourist pulse of the city on the other side of the canal, enjoying a beautiful view of San Marco and breathing in the magical atmosphere of the artisan art shops that swarm in the small streets of the island, keeping alive an ancient and historical tradition that is a little bohemian, a little alternative and so vital.

We were talking about the silk road, well this has its point of arrival in the kitchens of the Aromi restaurant, a very Italian name which, if you think about it, nevertheless recalls oriental similarities, a yachting club-style setting for a fine dining cuisine entrusted to Ivan Fargnoli, originally from Milan , who divides his heart as a chef between the Mediterranean culture that formed him and the oriental one, above all Chinese, which he discovered for work and which he loved so much that he married a daughter of the rising sun. A long but progressive path for him. From childhood in which he was passionate about the flavors of cooking in a family where everyone loved to cook. The big leap comes with a call to the Shanghai Hilton: Fargnoli starts out with curiosity but then stays there for 10 years next to Chef Emmanuel Souliere, trained at the prestigious Le Laurent in Paris, "Chef of the year 2009" for City Weekend magazine, winner of the “Best Use of Foie Gras Award” for the French Cuisine Chef Star Awards 2008 Shanghai, Gold Medal Food Asia 2002 of Singapore, “Chef of the Month” of Asian Cuisine 2003 and “Executive Chef of the Year” for the Cuisine and Wine magazine.

From him – says Ivan Fargnoli – I learned a lot, he is one of the chefs who inspired me, who grew up professionally and personally”. But the experience in Shanghai becomes fundamental for his training for his professional training above all because it allows him to discover a complex and refined world such as that of the ancient Chinese gastronomic tradition, with its rituals, its obsessive attention to material exaltation, to the fideistic respect for nature in all its expressions.

And in this convict and precious was the contribution of his wife married in China who, he says, "helped me to understand those fundamental nuances that can escape a person who comes from a different culture". A culture which, however, fully coexists in him with his personal history and the traditions of his youth as a Milanese educated in the art of Mediterranean and sunny cuisine by a grandmother from Caserta. And everything is remixed and renewed in a continuous philosophy of contamination that springs from the stages and experiences of his life as a chef which he explains as follows: “ I like playing with products and with classic Italian flavors, respecting them but revisiting them with products and from Asia, the Middle East and India. It is exactly what I would like my guests to remember after being in my kitchen.

There is a lot of research and experimentation to achieve a specific flavour. I consider mine a traditional philosophy that winks at innovative ingredients and techniques with respect to Mediterranean cuisine, exported from the Orient and conceptualized in my gastronomic idea”.

This is how the Goat with herb panura, castraure apple chutney and Sichuan pepper was born, his celebrated Mushroom Soup for which he had to carry out analyzes and in-depth studies on various types of mushrooms to get to the taste he had in mind or the Soup d'Anatra, the true manifesto of his cuisine for which he has experimented with many typically Asian flavors which he has combined to create a dish with a unique taste. And then there's the Australian Moor, fennel, peas and shellfish reduction, one of the dishes he worked the hardest on and of which he says: “I've been carrying it around for many years. The research work was very intense, because it is a little-known and very expensive fish".

If the exclusive Aromi Restaurant can be considered the privileged place for refined cuisine with signature dishes, made from original recipes in which creativity is expressed in the flavours, aromas and aesthetics of the composition, with its desire to surprise the patrons, the second soul of the chef, the one with his feet in the Venetian land where he landed after so much traveling around the world manifests itself in the kitchens of Bacaromi, the other restaurant of Molino Stucky, with a unique view of the Giudecca, smarter, compared to Aromi which takes its inspiration from the bacari, the typical popular Venetian taverns, where you can find wines by the glass (ómbre or bianchéti) and the typical snacks (cichéti), or foods in small portions. A name that some take from Bacchus, god of wine. More realistically, another theory would see it derived from "far bàcara", a Venetian expression for "to celebrate". What is certain is that "Bacari" was the name once attributed to the winemakers and vintners who came to Venice with a barrel of wine to sell in Piazza San Marco together with small snacks. The glass of wine that was drunk was called "ómbra", because the sellers of the shops at the base of the bell tower of San Marco followed its shadow to protect the wine from the sun. Bacaromi takes its cue from this tradition as an exaltation of the territory in all its extraordinary land and sea potential. “I'm starting now – says Fargnoli – to get to know its products, scents and flavours. I began to understand it, going around and frequenting the places of classic and popular Venice, which inspire me and draw many ideas for revisiting my culinary baggage".

The principle is to give each restaurant its own identity, thus diversifying the hotel's food offer, to satisfy the tastes of a diversified clientele, from the most exclusive to the most youthful, who demand high quality but also different sensations. "The common thread remains my conception of taste, made up of memories of childhood flavors and the discovery of new ingredients, developed with my brigade, whose contribution is an essential element to offer our customers a unique culinary experience" .

The recipe of the Australian Moor, fennel, peas and shellfish reduction

Ingredients

200 Gr of Australian Moor Cod

50 g Fennel

QB Peas

Black olive powder

Method

Drain the black olives, put them in a baking tray and bake them at 80 degrees for one night or until they are dry, then blend them until they are reduced to powder

Cut the cod in half and marinate it with salt. Put it in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Then proceed by cutting the fennel as thinly as possible and placing them in ice water.

Clean and shell the peas, boil them in salted water

In a hot pot, put a little extra virgin olive oil and cook the cod without skin until golden brown