The New Cucina Italiana: What to Eat, What to Cook, and Who to Know in Italian Cuisine Today

Description

Everybody loves Italian food. It is among the most talked about, written about, and globally popular. But as travellers have sought out culinary experiences in off-the-beaten- path destinations elsewhere in the world, in Italy even consummate foodies eat the same postcard versions of traditional dishes, occasionally making forays into a handful of fine-dining favourites. Yet by far the country's most interesting cuisine is to be found outside of well-trodden establishments, and it's as varied and full of personality as it is delicious. This generation of chefs has come a long way from their nonna's kitchen: they approach tradition with a respectful yet emancipated perspective; they rethink the formats of the Italian restaurant; they are rediscovering foraging and farming; they introduce serious cocktail programs. This book covers thirty-two chefs and restaurateurs who are reinterpreting the "greatest hits" of Italian dining: from trattorias to fine dining, from aperitivo to pizzerias. Laura Lazzaroni takes her readers on a visual north-to-south tour of this new cucina italiana, stopping at restaurants, inns, farms, and pop-ups all across the country, showing in stories and recipes the multitude of approaches, influences, and ingredients that compose this movement, which is paving the way for the country's gastronomic rebirth.

Award-winning journalist and author Laura Lazzaroni is the editor in chief of Food & Wine Italia. Previously the features editor of L'Uomo Vogue, Lazzaroni is also the author of Altri Grani Altri Pani, and coauthor with three-Michelin-starred chef Niko Romito of 10 Lezioni di Cucina.

"Now Lazzaroni has written her third book, The New Cucina Italiana, a journey for the senses through the kitchens, restaurants, and farms of chefs across Italy who are reshaping the Italian culinary landscape as we have known it. Their approach to the nonna tradition is respectful, but they are breathing new life into it by applying new cooking techniques, focusing on more sustainable approaches, and expanding the range of restaurant formats, rethinking the trattoria, introducing mixology programs - and more." -FORBES.COM Full disclosure: Milano native Laura Lazzaroni was once the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine's Italian language edition; is the biggest bread nerd you might ever meet (with a book and a tattoo to prove it), and an all-round bad-ass. One of her second book's central theses is that the chefs leading the charge to develop a new Italian cuisine have realized they must let go of what their nonne's taught them...Through 24 evocative profiles, Lazzaroni outlines the passions and ideologies that drive Italy's new guard while also taking the reader on a culinary journey that highlights the importance of regional ingredients and biodiversity. That journey extends from the green hills of Piedmont in the north where chef-farmer Juri Chiotto makes the creamiest gelato she's ever eaten (infused with hand-cut hay!), to the ancient city of Caiazzo-between the mountains and the sea-in the south, where one of Italy's best pizzaioli, Franco Pepe, creates pizza that's both custardy and crunchy." -FOOD AND WINE