Name Omen, the Romans said, meaning the concept of the auspicious value attributed to the name. Over time, the expression has come to define people whose fate seems to conform to the meaning of their name. In an even more extended sense, this expression is used for an equation in which a name is linked to a well-known and ascertained fact.
In Formia, saying Chinappi has been equivalent, for almost seventy years, to saying authentic, historical, guaranteed fish cuisine. A restaurant of excellence that for decades has been a staple for gourmets passionate about seafood. And not by chance. In fact, Formia hosts a fish market that expands the borders of trade to Italy, Europe and North Africa.
In the characteristic Fish Auction, the catch is treated every day with the methods handed down over the years: The auctioneer estimates the value of the freshly caught fish, sets the starting price and then, following the various offers, establishes the price and therefore the buyer.
A catch secured by about 20 large boats which, between trawl and gillnet. they go into the gulf where the depths ensure abundant quantities and quality of the raw material,
The management is exclusive to the Purificato company founded in the 900s and which has now become one of the most important Italian companies for the capture and marketing of fish products, wholesale and retail, for the processing and storage of fresh and frozen products, and as a shellfish shipping center but which is also a tasting point for ready-made products.
Related to the Purificatos, the Chinappis therefore have a privileged way to obtain supplies of a raw material of the highest quality on which they then exercise their consolidated culinary art.
Symbol of Italy that does not give up, fortunately in the good company of many daring chefs, especially young people, scattered throughout the national territory, who prefer positivity and commitment to lament by throwing themselves into new restaurant projects, Michele Chinappi, supported by a enthusiastic family of the new adventure, he settled in the premises of a former disco with an articulated format that the location allows him, that of an innovative catch.
Chef Marco Bisleti was called to take care of the kitchen. portion of territory.
If Bisleti is dedicated to the refined restaurant for a demanding public with Michele's wife, Angela who oversees the dining room, the rest of the Chinappi family is engaged in the bistot pizzeria, which occupies another wing of the restaurant, and which offers traditional pizzas from classic and innovative taste inspired by the sea, where Michele takes care of the dough personally, following the teachings received from his father. Giuseppe, an appreciated baker and pizza chef already in the Fifties.
This is the kingdom of the children Christian and Noemi who, together with the pizzas, have studied a leaner and more affordable formula designed for a young clientele in combination with the aperitif, with fish-based aperitifs, but also poor dishes and platters of cold cuts and meats of exclusively local origin.
Finally, the dehors was conceived as a meeting place for lean consumption from canapés to gourmet padded items with selected flours, to fish-based street food fries.
In short, the proposal on which Michele Chinappi is aiming is a location where the catch is considered in all its possible variations in an innovative way throughout the day, a dynamic, but also ethical and sustainable place able to shape itself according to the requests of a diversified public without however ever letting go of the idea of a cuisine which, if on the one hand wants to be reassuring, on the other experiments combinations of flavors that do not betray the quality and excellence that have consolidated the name of Chinappi among fish lovers in the Lazio coast.
