He arrived very young at the mythicat Locanda dell'Angelo in Ameglia, the reign of one of the great and historic masters of signature Italian cuisine, thatAngelo Paracucchi among the first Italian chefs to win the Michelin star in the late seventies, first Italian to have the audacity to land in the Paris of Haute Cuisine and to open a restaurant in the historic Royal Monceau hotel in the Ville Lumiere awarded a Michelin star in 1990. That experience represented for a very young Luca Landi, who came out of the "Minuto" hotel school in Marina di Massa with a great desire for innovation in his blood, an authoritative springboard that opened the doors of the largest and most celebrated international restaurants for him. An almost frenetic journey that took him around the world with the typical stubbornness of the Tuscans, he originally from the Garfagnana, with the desire to quickly burn all the possible stages to establish himself as a great professional in the kitchen. And he succeeded. Today Luca Landi, heads the kitchens of the prestigious Lunasia restaurant – which in Etruscan means peace and serenity – in the historic Hotel Plaza e de Russie in Viareggio, a refined 5-star hotel, affiliated with Relais & Chateaux, for over a century Versilian refuge of cultural and beau monde personalities, from poet Rilke to Toscanini to Giacomo Puccini who weaved against the background of the Plaza a love story, famous in the gossip chronicles of the time, with the baroness Josephine von Stengel, until it became the location of the Viareggio Prize, one of the most prestigious literary events in Italy.
Crowned with a Michelin star already in 2011 when he was 35 years old, star always renewed until today, Luca Landi built his professional growth with determination which took him to the sanctuaries of international haute cuisine, passing through the lLegendary Louis XV in Monte Carlo reign of Alain Ducasse, for the big one Joan Roca, acclaimed twice, with his Celler, as the best restaurant in the world by The World's 50 Best, then again in Spain, for the Comerç 24, a restaurant managed by the chef de cuisine of the Bulli with the advice of Ferran Adria, for the Mirazur of Menton of Mauro Colagreco the Argentine chef elected in 2019 at the top of the 50 best restaurants in the world.
Always animated by the irrepressible desire to discover new horizons, Luca Landi, now an established chef, nonetheless takes advantage of a renovation of the Hotel in 2017 to travel the world in search of new flavours, new techniques. So he leaves for the USA where he confronts David Kinch, three Michelin stars with his restaurant Manresa in Los Gatos, named one of the world's 50 best restaurants inin Restaurant magazine and still spends an experience out of the ordinary first with the imaginative Grant Achaz at Alinea, the best restaurant in the world for the 100 finedininglovers list, then at The Smyth restaurant with one of the most appreciated chefs in the USA, John Shields, both in Chicago. Obviously he could not but feel attracted by the Japanese gastronomic chimeras where he spends a period and closely studies the art of Seiji Yamamoto, the greatest exponent of kaiseki cuisine in his celebrated restaurant Nihontyori Ryugin in Tokyo.
Luca Landi is today a chef who does of innovation and technique its distinctive feature. His cuisine can be defined as a mirror of his fundamental experiences around the world, a cuisine full of contaminations, ideas and suggestions from East and West but which always brings the territory to the fore, interpreted with great creativity and respect.
But the passion of chef Landi's heart is vegetable matter which always has a place of honor in its menu. "The vegetable, compared to protein, it gives a more accurate reading of the place, explains Landi, often considered a poor ingredient, in my dishes it has a dignity all of its own. A choice that I embraced many years ago and that tells of a well-planned journey.” Another main topic of his cuisine and from unsuspected times when there was still no discussion of safeguarding nature's resources is the sustainability combined with the concept of no waste, perbecause in his gastronomic philosophy the raw material is precious in its entirety. And Landi dissects it, combines it in an unusual way, transforms it into original solutions.
A philosophy that we find fully implemented in the recipe "Barbarossa barbarossa barbarossa almonds and cuttlefish", where the iteration of the name has a semantic value in the sense that it intends to draw attention to the poverty of the beet which can take on different facets not only gastronomic but also from an organoleptic and nutritional point of view. The recipe proposed to Mondo Food readers for this week of August fully reflects the principle of circular cuisine, whereby only local ingredients come from producers or farmers who work with a sustainable economy. “Our ingredients – says Landi – are precious because they are limited and not expensive and we have the burden of exploiting them to the fullest of their peculiarities, in doing so we use all of the purchased ingredients, giving each individual ingredient dignity and personality. The attention has always been dedicated to the protein but to be an expression of our territory we cook and re-elaborate with equal attention to the whole vegetable world”. Finally, the "gambling" of ice cream and cuttlefish complete his way of understanding a cuisine that knows how to seek the most intimate meaning of the subject matter in innovation and new solutions.
The Barbarossa recipe barbarossa barbarossa almonds and cuttlefish
Cuttlefish tartar
About half a medium sized cuttlefish each. Clean the body and reserve the head and innards for other recipes. Overlap the well-cleaned bodies and make a roll with the help of the film. To freeze. Free the roll from the film, cut the frozen into a slicer very finely. Season at the moment with oil and paprika kimchi.
Barbarossa ice cream
250 g barbarossa cooked in cooking oil with coriander, star anise, basil, mint at 90°C for 3 hours
50 g cooked barbarossa S/V
58 g powdered milk
30 g maltodextrins
80 g dextrose
8 g neutral cream
140 g 35% cream
10 gr salt
15 g whey protein 80%
50 g beard reduction and umeboshi acidulate to taste
35 g raspberry vinegar
20 g shiro dashi
85 g barbarosse cooking oil
Barbarossa cips
650 g raw barbarossa
basil
2 spring onions
100 g Colonnata lard
Stew with a little oil, wetting with broth until cooked. Blend and make it a smooth cream.
Add 10% by weight of 80% milk protein. Spread on the root-shaped silpat and bake 11 min at 110°C with 10% humidity. Reserve in a dry place
Crispy beards
For the raw: slice both the barbarossa and the Chioggia and make them crunchy in iced water.
For the crushes: cut into cubes and immerse them in a boiling solution of vinegar (1lt) and sugar (200gr), and leave to cool
Barbarossa reduction and powder
Centrifuging barbarosse. The juice will be reduced to a third and the centrifuge waste dried well and then pulverized with a high-speed blender
Almonds cream
300 g white almonds
500 g carbonated mineral water
100 g carbonated mineral water
Soak the almonds for one day in 500 g of water. After 24 hours drain the unabsorbed water,
add the 100 g of new water and freeze again. With the use of the Pacojet, pacot several times until the
cream is not very smooth and homogeneous.
Finishing and presentation
On the bottom of the plate lay the almond cream lightly seasoned and salted, then the pickled barbarosse and then arrange the cuttlefish salad on top. Then finish a scoop of ice cream, lightly seasoned raw barbarosse cips, a few drops of barbarosse reduction and a sprinkling of its powder
