Tireless experimenter, meticulous perfectionist in constant search of simplicity, albeit combined with a rigorous mix of aromas and flavours, Claudio Pasquarelli has set his life around two irrepressible and irrepressible passions: the one for the sea with its infinite gastronomic facets, and the one for a quality catering that is not just an exercise in skill in the kitchen but something much more articulated and complex, which finds its reason in a continuous enrichment of emotions that arise from the satisfaction of knowing how to create engaging atmospheres in one's workplace.
Two passions cultivated from an early age that his parents indulged with many sacrifices when they sent him to the hotel management school in Genoa. But he was no less: to support himself, he worked in the evenings in a Genoese hotel in exchange for room and board and in the summers, after school, he was thus able to begin his first seasons in the hotels of the Riviera. At 15 he decides to go to London to practice, promising his parents that he would come home. And in fact, when he thinks he has strengthened enough, he returns and opens his first restaurant with his parents in Vado Ligure, the town where he was born in 1950.
Satisfaction is great but young Claudio's ambition is quite another, he dreams of elegantly set tables, waiters in white gloves, chefs with toques and immaculate white aprons as he has seen in the luxury restaurants of the Riviera which was all the rage over the years 70s or London.
Business with the restaurant is going well, young Claudio is appreciated, his traditional Ligurian cuisine attracts customers from far away, it's time to think bigger,
On the hill of Bergeggi, the historic fishing village of the western Ligurian Riviera, with a breathtaking view of the gulf, from which some suggestive lanes allow you to descend towards the promenade, identifies land in a strategic position, with a breathtaking view of the sea, is the right place to build a hotel restaurant, a synthesis of his philosophy that combines cuisine and hospitality in an almost familiar relationship with his customers. He leveled, excavated, created a series of terraces set in the fortress, and in 1982 created a small hotel with 20 rooms and above all his restaurant which features refined furnishings and antique furniture.
Now he can think big Study a reinterpretation of traditional Ligurian cuisine according to a lighter vision that enhances, without distorting them, the precious flavors of the raw material, experiments with quick cooking, gives space to extra virgin olive oil and Ligurian aromatic herbs ... a local cuisine with the best raw materials. He perfected the recipes that would later become a cornerstone of his catering: the famous bouquet of shellfish with Mediterranean citrus fruits, the chef's signature dish, raw fish tartare, sea bass raviolini, borage tagliolini with Oneglia prawns. It also revisits the classic fish soup with the best of the day's fish filleted and boned, cooked and served in special soapstone pots.
The rule that guides his culinary philosophy is "accept what the sea gives you.. be ready to change the menu daily" and this gives his preparations the requisites of renewal, freshness and inventiveness.
Good blood doesn't lie. Just as Claudio dreamed of his life next to the stove when he was young, her daughter Laura follows her from an early age, admires her father's excellent cuisine and without hesitation follows in her footsteps, becomes her shadow. And she inherits its passion, secrets and innovative capacity.
Bring new ideas, new proposals for customers, visit the great restaurants, get to know the most famous chefs, taste the dishes that have made history in Italy and France.
It starts from the pastry shop, but in a few years it "expands" to all the nerve centers of the kitchen. Always interpreting his father's conception of a refined cuisine open to the new in a modern way, Bergeggi gives life to the "Incontri d'Autore" menus prepared jointly with great chefs, meetings of different schools of thought in search of new gastronomic expressions, landed on the internet, the television channels dedicated to the kitchen and all the sector magazines and today together with his brother Christian in Sala, they carry on the great family passion. It is the new kitchen that comes forward with great certainty.
The recipe proposed by Chef Claudio Pasquarelli for the readers of Mondo Food is the synthesis of the conception of his cuisine, freshness, delicate flavours, nuances perceptible on the palate without misunderstandings, the sea is the protagonist with all its charm.
The recipe for baby squid stuffed with crustaceans and crunchy trumpet courgettes
Ingredients for people 4
48 Pin squid
12 Clams
2 Trombetta courgettes
3 Concassé Tomatoes
Basil to taste
Brodo di pesce
Cuttlefish ink bread in Croutons (2 per plate)
Extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper to taste
For the stuffing:
500 g Shrimp pulp from Sanremo
Soaked breadcrumbs to taste
Garlic Parsley,
Marjoram
1 whole egg
1 egg white
Salt, pepper to taste
Procedure for the filling
Sauté the chopped garlic, parsley and marjoram in a pan with extra virgin olive oil. Add the shellfish pulp, when cooked, blend the filling by adding breadcrumbs, eggs, salt and pepper. Clean the squid well and with the help of a pastry bag fill them with the filling.
Brown the julienne trombetta courgettes so that they are very crunchy. Put the squid stuffed with tomato concasse, fish stock, basil, clams in a pan and cook over low heat. Then add the trombetta courgettes, salt and pepper, adding a drizzle of raw extra virgin olive oil. Serve with cuttlefish ink croutons
