It wasn't just a big restaurant, it was a big school and a large laboratory of the new Italian cuisine. The adjective is not excessive when it comes to “Trigabolo”, the legendary restaurant in Argenta, active between the 80s and 90s, which was a melting pot of culinary experiments by chefs like Igles Corelli, Bruno Barbieri, Mauro Gualandi, Pierluigi Di Diego, Marcello Leoni and many others. A restaurant that became an international point of reference deserving two Michelin stars (the last one awarded ad honorem after closure, a unique case of its kind) and making Argenta known all over the world.
Based on this once-in-a-lifetime experience, he set off “Saperi e Sapori”, a gastronomic event that took place in Argenta from 1990 to 1994 and which has seen the most prestigious chefs in the world take turns in its kitchen, leaving an indelible mark on the history of Italian cuisine, progressively transforming it from an exclusively artisanal know-how into a refined and conceptual art form.
To commemorate this important event, the Municipality of Argenta in collaboration with the chef Igles Corelli, has decided to organize a commemorative meeting for Saturday 18 March at 17.00 in the same cloister of the Cappuccini Cultural Center where the exhibition was held.
From Igles Corelli to Marcattilli, from Pierangelini and Vissani remember Trigabolo the restaurant that was confirmed three Michelin stars even after closing
The protagonists of that period will participate such as Igles Corelli, Valentino Marcattilii, Fulvio Pierangelini, Giacinto Rossetti, Gianfranco Vissani and many other chefs, gastronomes and journalists. During the event, the book "We went to dinner at «Saperi e Sapori» in the Po Delta, Cooks and recipes that changed Italian cuisine" by Salvatore Marchese will be presented, in which numerous anecdotes and stories of that period are reported, with the addition, in the final part, of numerous recipes and a commemorative plaque created by the ceramist Riccardo Biavati in his "Bottega delle Stelle" will be inaugurated.
It can be said that the Trigabolo, brought the world, represented by chefs and gastronauts, to Argenta which has been a place of culinary avant-garde. Thanks to Trigabolo, and to the association that was born there, of brigades, experiences and events, the name of Argenta has traveled the world; .
“Over the years so many stars of the kitchen have passed through here - says Andrea Baldini, mayor of Argenta - that today it would be difficult to put them together in one go. But we tried: from the Oro d'Argenta stage, a few years ago, chef Igles Corelli launched us an invitation that we wanted to accept, and today, March 18, we pay homage together and honor Knowledge and Flavors, a very important piece of Argentine history . I thank chef Corelli who not only launched the challenge, but who played an active and driving role in bringing such important and beautiful guests and stories back to Argenta".
Histrionic, unpredictable, provocative, innovative, restless, rebellious, destabilizing, irreverent: Igles Corelli has been defined in ten thousand ways in all these years and in any case they are always reductive adjectives of his multifaceted personality, always hovering between a tradition that he intends to maintain alive and current in his kitchen and a future that constantly reinvents itself day by day, without ever passing through a present which for him, in the kitchen, is just a philosophical concept, the antechamber of something to come.
And it is certain that we are dealing with one of the great protagonists of the history of Italian cuisine, one who has traced history, together with his great friend, first master then competitor Gualtiero Marchesi. Someone who sinks his cultural origins in two sacred monsters of catering, Nino Bergese, nicknamed "the cook of kings, the king of cooks" for having lent his work to the high Italian aristocracy, and the great international industrialists, who brought the «San Domenico» of Imola, to become a monument of Italian catering in those years, and Valentino Mercattilli trained at the school of the great Troisgros, Roger Vergé, father of nouvelle cuisine and Mado Point, and who at the "San Domenico" in New York became ambassador of Italian cuisine to the greats of the world, heads of state, politicians, industrialists, actors, singers.
A revolutionary cuisine promoted by a group of young talents between 22 and 17 years old
At the beginning of the 80s, when a large part of our northern cuisine was anchored to the glories of tradition (the southern one would explode later) and the great Ferran Adrià began to take his first steps in the then unknown restaurant "El Bulli" in Roses on the Costa Brava, ours was already an uncontrolled explosion at the stoves of Trigabolo di Argenta. Corelli is the head of a fierce kitchen brigade, a real laboratory of culinary inventions that pulls dishes that have remained in the memory of many out of the hat. He is only 22 years old, he surrounds himself with a group of young people full of ideas, eager to make it big who respond to the name of Bruno Barbieri, Italo Bassi, Pierluigi Di Diego, Mauro Gualandi, Marcello and Luca Leoni, just to name a few, who form with he is a real cenacle, a magic circle that lives only with a view to giving a new face and new flavors to the kitchen. An astral phenomenon that perhaps will never repeat itself again. If he's 22, the others are all sixteen or seventeen. When the owner of the restaurant Giacinto Rossetti wanted to take them around to study the kitchens of the great restaurants it was a problem for transport, Corelli was the only one who had a licence.
Corelli the great chef first friend then competitor conquering second place behind Gualtiero Marchesi
“Our day was entirely focused on food, we only thought about how to cook, it was a cheerful game that occupied all our thoughts, even if we went to a tennis match or to the disco or with the girl we were always focused on food for do something new. And I must say that from a pizzeria, because when we arrived, it was a pizzeria in 13 years we managed to bring the Trigabolo to be judged the second Italian restaurant behind Marchesi even if at first for a "chapeau" we had received we tasted the thrill of getting on the podium… They recognized us as the most creative restaurant ever”. And it is no coincidence that 21 starred chefs have come out of that experience, which lasted fourteen years. Federico Umberto d' Amato, creator of the Espresso Guide described Trigabolo in 1982 as follows: "... one arrives in an improbable, lunar square, as if it sprang from the metaphysical fantasy of a naive De Chirico... at the door one of the partners acting as host, big and thick like a character from Pulci or Rabelais… his whimsical gastrosophies that the young chef Igles Corelli manages to transform into delicious uses are the exact opposite of the salama da sugo, the pumpkin cappellacci and the cappelletti in broth…” and that is “… vegetable terrine in tomato sauce and Champagne vinegar… hot prawn, mushroom and chervil puff pastry… sole zabaglione with green pepper… “. It is a laboratory that revolutionizes and surprises, collects numerous awards, and soon captures two stars from the Michelin Guide. For 14 years Corelli churned out inventions from Trigabolo: it was he and the very talented young Vissani who breathed a breath of fresh air into Italian cuisine. These were years in which Carlo Petrini spread the gospel of the dish which, in order to be good, as well as being cooked well, must also be clean and fair, and Luigi Veronelli traveled far and wide to promote the diffusion of the Italian food and wine heritage. Corelli is in the midst of this new philosophy of eating.
