From Wolfgang Goethe to Thomas Mann, from Hermann Hesse to Michael Ende, the repertoire of German intellectual musical artistic personalities who over the centuries have descended down the boot struck by a stroke of lightning for the Bel Paese is infinite. And this passion has also affected great Chefs. Starting with the most famous of all, that Heinz Beck landed in Rome in 1994 at the Hilton's "La Pergola" restaurant, today Waldorf Astoria Resort "Cavalieri" where he put down solid roots, winning three stars and five Michelin forks, qualifying in 2004 as the best restaurant of the year for the BMW Guide, securing 4 hats in the L'Espresso guide, 95/100 in that of Gambero Rosso, three stars from Veronelli. Not to mention Christopher Bob the great German chef of the spectacular Antico Monastero di Santa Rosa restaurant, perched like a bastion between sky and sea on the Amalfi coast, so in love with these parts that he married a girl from Vico Equense who even gave him Sorrentine accents in her Teutonic speech- Italian.
And love at first sight decided 25 years ago the fate of Oliver Glowig originally from the Lander of Saxony-Anhalt who, driven by curiosity and passion for Italian flavors, left Dusseldorf as a young man to go and learn how to cook in the kitchen of Jean Michel Feret at the Munich Watercolor. It is certainly not normal for a German to go to a Frenchman to learn about the colors and flavors of Italian gastronomy up close. But anyhow, the impact is so emotional, that from that moment on, the Teutonic Glowig thinks only of moving to Italy to deepen his knowledge of Mediterranean products and flavours. And where he can land any German he wants go to the heart of Mediterranean cuisine if not in Capri, one of the most popular destinations for young people Grand Tour travellers following the call of the sirens that had already attracted illustrious compatriots such as Alfred Krupp, the heir to the great steel dynasty who had the famous street that still bears his name built on the island at his own expense, or the great photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden, who stayed on the island to be treated for tuberculosis before moving to Taormina o more Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach the theosophical painter and utopian who preached a new philosophy of life here in a cave?
Glowig doesn't know it when he leaves for Capri, but peel off a one-way ticket without return from Germany. Because Italy will become his adopted nation, because among other things in Capri he will also meet Paola, a true Capriese, the woman he will marry and who will then give him two daughters, Gloria and Aurora.
Almost 25 years have passed since then and Glowig not only in all this time has been able to fuel his love for Mediterranean cuisine and its values, but has even become perhaps more Italian than many other chefs who were born and raised on the peninsula, in research obsessive about the origins and in the re-proposition of the flavors of the tradition of our cuisine, a love that has been revived through the important experiences lived with great Chefs. Starting with Gualtiero Marchesi whom Glowig met and joined at the Grand Hotel Quisisana in Capri, where Marchesi had a consultancy, and who he then followed to specialize even more in the secrets of the cooking and preparation techniques of the great master of Italian cuisine, in the Erbusco restaurant.
His is a boundless love for Italy, without hesitation, with a short break that he soon regrets. It happens when she gives in to the flattery of the Monaco watercolor, where she had taken her first steps. They call him back from the Bavarian restaurant after Feret leaves. In the meantime, the starred Mario Gamba has arrived at the helm of the kitchens.
Flattered, perhaps for a sentimental reason, Glowig accepts to return to Germany alongside the Italian-Swiss Gamba as responsible Chef and in less than a year the restaurant receives the Michelin star. He forged ahead when he was very young, he was already married. What is he missing? The answer is simple: Capri!
In the two years spent in Munich, the call of the sirens makes itself felt poignantly, his wife Paola is unable to get used to the humid Bavarian atmospheres, she has learned to speak German but she misses the sun and the light of her island, she misses the of the sea that breaks on the cliffs and those of the wild herbs that flood the island in spring and summer. And even in Glowig the genetic-national transmutation makes itself felt overbearingly. As she later stated, “After all, I feel more Italian than German despite having a passport issued in Germany”.
So off you go, get your bags and baggage ready and go back to Italy. The Capri Palace Hotel, a luxury hotel and permanent museum of modern works of art, high up in Anacapri, welcomes him with open arms. And Glowig can indulge himself for nine years in chasing and recreating, experimenting and renewing in his cuisine the essence of Capri flavors, herbs, vegetable gardens, fish from its seas, conquering an increasingly conscious and sophisticated culinary mastery that will allow him to win within a few years earlier 1 and then 2 Michelin stars.
After nine years, and on the strength of these successes, Glowig is tempted by another adventure, to open his own restaurant in Montalcino but the crisis strikes, things don't go as they should and the experience ends soon.
In 2011 the Chef decides to take an important step towards the cursus honorum of his career: Capri has been fundamental to his life, but Rome has a large international audience and so lands at the Grand Hotel Aldrovandi in Villa Borghese. The restaurant bears his name so that you can feel free from any conditioning. About twenty elements work in the kitchen (for an average of thirty customers), almost the entire brigade who has been following him for years is with him, starting with sous chef Domenico Iavarone who has been following him like a shadow for 7 years. His arrival makes noise, his careful research of raw materials with suppliers kept secret until the last minute, his obsessive respect for seasonality, the aura of Capri scents, colors and flavors that he carries with him, his innate creativity and his passion for all that is Italian, research and innovation that never alter the flavours, but enhance their consistency do the rest and success is immediate. Up to conquered just eight months after the opening of the restaurant 2 Michelin stars.
Strengthened by his stars and his consolidated Italian and international success, when Glowig ends his relationship with Aldrovandi, he can allow himself to demonstrate his love for the land by opening his own space in the Central Market of Termini station, an innovative space that sets trends where the traveler (actually the Romans themselves) has a place available to meet quality, with selected niche products. The name of his restaurant already says it all: “The table, the wine and the pantry”, testifying that a great Chef should not only look at the sophisticated and velvety atmospheres of restaurants with white gloves, that above all great cuisine starts from the search for raw materials. And at the Central Market Glowig finds a formidable ally in Salvatore DeGennaro, owner of the Tradition di Vico Equense, which all travelers on the Sorrento coast consider a must for discovering local niches in terms of cured meats, cheeses, pasta and preserves. And so it is that in his “The table, the wine and the pantry”, it becomes possible to taste its iconic Cheese and pepper propellers with sea urchins, affordable without passing out.
The Market is a fun break of course. Convinced Ambassador of Italian gastronomic culture at the same time Oliver Glowig has the opportunity to divide his time between the restaurant “Spring” at the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain, “Inn” in Saas Fee in Switzerland and the “Toca” at the Ritz Carlton in Toronto to whom he advises by exporting and supporting the concept of the Mediterranean diet in the world.
Obviously, the charm of signature cuisine is what his heart beats for. And this is how he welcomes the proposal of the owner Felice Mergè with great enthusiasm of the Poggio Le Volpi winery in Monte Porzio Catone, to create a new restaurant, which was a place where the harmony between the vineyards, heritage of the Mergè family, the cuisine, the design and the style of hospitality made this place unique in the panorama of excellent restaurants in the capital. Through a fusion of natural elements (earth, stone, sand) and unexpected but reinterpreted materials, between architectural spaces and crops, a fascinating story unfolds that fluctuates between earth and vine, between culinary culture and wine and Oliver Glowig with his cuisine gives its imprint to make this journey complete and full of suggestions.
Perched on a hill facing east, about 400 meters above sea level, thus was born Barrique located within the winery Poggio le Volpi. Enter the Barrique it is like entering a time display case, where the material, the stone, the wood of the barrels, with their long history testify to the gastronomic and enological vocation of this area a favorite since Roman times to stock up on wine used to cheer up one's libations. Where there used to be the barrels used for refining the wines, now there is instead a real "hub of taste" with proposals of the highest cuisine.
Outside, a grove – recreated with plants selected from the protected ones of the Castelli Romani Park, from Turkey oak to oak, from fragrant broom to dog rose – welcomes the customer to lead him, as in a sort of "immersive" experience, into the Barrique . Precisely with the aim of letting itself be discovered, the restaurant is placed at a lower level than the rest of the structure of the winery. From the car park you enter the small wood, where the plants, in perfect harmony with the surrounding area, slope down to the edge of the rows, allowing a glimpse of the Poggio le Volpi vineyards, which produce niche wines that have obtained prestigious awards in Italy and abroad, which climb the green hills of the Castelli Romani; followed by a loggia with wisteria as a prelude to entering the room.
Here, among barrels, tables with a refined design and vineyards as a backdrop, everything is carefully designed to accommodate thirty seats. Material, elegant, with furnishings that play on shades of gold and black and with vine leaves used as stencils, Barrique is a refined place that offers an exclusive atmosphere for a gourmet experience, involving all five senses. The real gem of the place, the 'finds' embedded in the earth on the walls and frames: works of art, created with a long process of patina on precious metals, which are perceived as if they were fragments re-emerged from the ground, to underline the symbiotic relationship with the earth itself.
It can be said that Barrique almost represents the closure of the gastronomic circle that constitutes the world of Olivier Growig, in fact, here the raw material is the absolute protagonist and here in the hilly area of the Roman hinterland the relationship between land and sea is completed, between Campania which has marked its Italian formation, Lazio and the products of the whole Italian territory for whom he has real veneration.
His iconic dish, which marries pecorino and sea urchins, is a hymn to the happiness of the palate, linking the Roman tradition of pecorino to the sea urchins that are caught in Capri. An apparent contrast that harmonizes in the union with sea propellers, a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese, French salted butter, chopped dill and pepper. And yet Campania is the protagonist of its cuisine with Raviolo caprese with caciotta cheese, marjoram, fresh cherry tomato sauce, basil and Parmesan. Here everything is hinted at with a light hand, everything is kept in a tension of levity without excesses, in the face of certain flavours, no forcing is needed.
The memory of Campania is still the protagonist in a tasty embrace with the Lazio culinary tradition in his Snails with mint with beans and coffee. In this case we have snails that come from a controlled and experienced breeder in Viterbo cooked in a vegetable broth and fried, then combined with a cream of Controne beans, a very delicate Campanian slow food presidium, which comes from the fields and olive groves that reach up to the slopes of the Alburni massif that overlook the town from which they take their name, obtained after emulsifying sieved beans with extra virgin olive oil. Mint leaves and crumbled bread freselle are then scattered over everything, which bring back the tradition of poor peasant meals, with the pleasant contrast of a coffee cream. If someone thought that snails could be heavy, all they have to do is run to Monte Porzio Catone to change their mind.
Indeed, we are in the presence of one cuisine that takes away and does not add, enhanced and reinterpreted with respect and wisdom and, finally, enriched by a touch of creativity, another completely Italian ingredient, essential when it comes to inventing new and surprising color combinations. And it is incredible that this religious respect for everything that comes from the Italian territory comes from a German Chef who has made a respectful interpreter of it. German? But didn't he himself say that he feels Italian? Perhaps with his cooking he has amply demonstrated it.
