“Everyone brings cooking to TV, we have done exactly the opposite”. Word of Filippo Sinisgalli, chef of Il Palato Italiano, made in Italy gourmet and gastronomic culture club based in Bolzano and with an eye projected onto the world: starting from Cisco's Telepresence technology, Il Palato Italiano studied (in partnership with IBM) and then patented a formula for applying teleconferencing live at the culinary meetings. Is called Tele-Cooking and it's much more than a virtual cooking class.
Indeed there is very little virtual: the Teacher Room, where Sinisgalli teaches, and that of the students (or rather of the guests), are connected by radio microphones and see each other through a giant screen that re-proposes the natural dimensions and three other 47” monitors strategically positioned to allow viewing of the details, during the explanation of this or that recipe, but also of this or that product to tell. All orchestrated by careful direction, supervised by television professionals, complete with ambient microphones to reproduce all the sound effects of work in the kitchen.
“It's more than live TV – explains the trained chef at the school of Gualtiero Marchesi – because there is constant interaction. It is an exciting experience both for our customers and for us: everything is designed to give the perception of a lesson one-to-one, and students also wear a chef jacket and touchprovided by us".
An experience to do alone or in a group: the hall of the Bolzano headquarters used as a Student Room (which would more properly be a guest rooms) can accommodate up to 8 people, which become 4 in the case of kitchen professionals . For now, everything is resolved in the Bolzano office, where customers could also attend live lessons, but sometimes this formula "helps, for example, more shy or inexperienced people", reveals Sinisgalli.
It's also a way to get together, and it's not always technically about lessons but about insights and promotions of dishes and products. “They aren't exactly lessons – confirms the chef – but professional and educational experiences that we offer to the curious, enthusiasts, operators in the sector but also companies that have nothing to do with food. They contact us from the company Human Resources departments and they send groups here to do the so-called team building. This has also happened with important and international companies”. The cost for a full day in the Bolzano headquarters, "with the staff at your complete disposal and the possibility of using all the facilities", as well as tasting the delicacies cooked by the club's experts, is 400 euros per person, customizable depending on the situations.
“The idea – says Sinisgalli – came from Luciano Bertani (road haulage entrepreneur who has diversified his investments in the hospitality field and is co-founder, with his wife Nadia, of Palato Italiano, ed.), returning from a business trip abroad: telepresence is already commonly used to avoid too many transfers for managers, but applying it to the kitchen could seem crazy to some”.
Instead, for a year and a half, thanks to Palato Italiano and in a world preview, it has become a reality, with hundreds of customers arriving every week from Italy and from all over the world and the plan to go abroad, to spread the meetings with the team of professionals led by Sinisgalli thousands of kilometers away: "We already have a warehouse in Miami, we will soon also open a room used for Tele-cooking, and then we will aim for the United Arab Emirates, to Japan and the United Kingdom".
High customer target, as high as the quality of the product and the technology offered to enjoy the experience to the fullest. "Actually, I don't believe in haute cuisine, but in good cuisine", explains Filippo Sinisgalli, Lucan origins imprinted in the blood and also brought to the kitchen. The dish with which he identifies most is in fact thecrunchy egg: “A simple dish, yet complex at the same time. I am proud to have brought to the fore a common ingredient like the egg, which represents my land and my family's history”.
Raised by his grandmother with beaten egg in Marsala wine, the chef of the Bolzano club has codified the "millimetric" cooking of the following delicacy: "Technically it is halfway between a hard-boiled egg and a soft-boiled: only the white part, the egg white, must be cooked, while the yolk must remain liquid. Grasping the right cooking point is a matter of fractions of a second”. Then the egg is breaded and fried, and according to the recipe proposed by Sinisgalli accompanied by spressa fondue (DOP cheese from Trentino), slavazzuoi (wild mountain spinach) and truffle.
Simplicity and high quality, especially of the ingredients, is proposed again in another Sinisgalli specialty: spaghetti with tomato sauce. The simplest dish of all, apparently: “Precisely because it's so easy, it's almost never done properly. Simplicity is in the ingredients, certainly not in the execution”, explains the chef, specifying that we are talking about the so-called “express cuisine: one that cannot be prepared in advance, because real spaghetti with tomato sauce is made with fresh tomatoes”.
Durum wheat semolina pasta, possibly San Marzano tomatoes, basil and Grana Padano (or Parmigiano Reggiano): very little is needed, but not everyone knows, for example, that nothing is thrown away from the tomato. It is incised, placed in boiling water for a few seconds, then in water and ice, after which it is peeled but the skins are also blended. The basil leaf is obviously added raw at the end, as is the cheese, which with a further trick can be placed on the sides of the plate, thanks to the microplane, a precision grater.
The Italian spirit told in a dish, which also recalls the colors of the flag. The same tricolor flag for which chef Filippo worked for over 10 years before landing on the Italian palate: he a past in the Navy, with whom he traveled all over the world, also for peace missions, already dealing with the kitchen and its logistics ever since: “When you are a cook you see the world in a different way: traveling so much has formed me as a person but it has also inspired many of my dishes”.
But the top remains Italy: “The variety and popular wisdom we have here is unmatched. Do you want to know where I ate the best octopus of my life? In a restaurant on Procida, where an old lady explained to me, in Neapolitan dialect, that octopus should be cooked without absolutely adding water. It should be cooked in her own water, she told me. If you listen to the official doctrine, everyone has their say but something is always added during cooking. Instead, I learned from the lady of Procida and her dish makes money”.
