If the name of Niko Romito means nothing to you, above all, never tell Italian. Over there, on the other side of the Alps, the chef is seen as a leader, because he is not only considered one of the most talented cooks of his generation, but also because he officiates at the head of a table that everyone is snapping up, three-starred by the way, Reale in Castel di Sangro, in Abruzzo.
But, for the past few months, the genius of Niko Romito has been within reach of all Parisians. Hidden in the Bulgari hotel, a few steps from the Champs-Élysées, the chef has installed his new table, Il Ristorante, inside which he strives to offer what he does best: sublimate dishes simple, typical of Italian gastronomy, with a rigor and mastery beyond comprehension.
As soon as the restaurant opened, the newspaper reviews all went in the same direction, praising the excellence of the place and the extraordinary dishes – and more specifically a divine recipe for spaghetti with tomato. So, after a very quick hesitation, we finally decided to go and taste this dish that everyone was saying so well.
And I ate there what was probably the best pasta of my life.
© Bulgari Hôtel / Niko Romito
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To arrive at this recipe, it took dozens of hours of research, hundreds of attempts and years of perfecting Niko Romito and his teams. “I started working on this dish already at Reale, since 2012. But the recipe is constantly evolving… I will never stop reworking it, to make it ever more tasty, pure and elegant”nous confie Niko Romito.
The power of simplicity
How to explain that a dish as simple as spaghetti with tomato can reach such a level of excellence and cause such enthusiasm? “There is a lot of work behind this sauce. I have developed techniques for cooking vegetables that not only keep the flavors but also intensify them. I pay a lot of attention to textures, which have a strong impact on taste.”
By offering this pasta à la carte, Niko Romito was torn. At the same time sure of his recipe, calm about his execution, but also a little bothered by the public’s return to a preparation which may seem very simplistic but which is sold for 30 euros, a price not so anecdotal. “I did not expect such a success, and at the same time, I hoped for it, because tomato spaghetti is the emblem of my idea of contemporary Italian cuisine: concentration of flavors, intensity of tastes, minimalism, purity…”
“The opening in Paris was certainly a major challenge: France is the country that taught the rest of the world about catering, to translate the dogmas of their gastronomic tradition by writing their own manifesto. It’s a great responsibility but also a great emotion to offer here what is my codification of contemporary Italian cuisine.”
© Bulgari Hôtel / Niko Romito
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As the interview progressed, what I had been refusing to do since the start of the call finally happened without my being able to restrain myself: ask him the secrets of his precious recipe, which he agreed to do, without revealing all of its know-how. “The recipe we are offering today is a tomato concentrate obtained by letting the tomatoes dry in the oven, in order to eliminate the water without boiling. This technique makes it possible to concentrate the taste and keep the organoleptic properties of the tomato: the sauce clings better to spaghetti and is very long in the mouth.”
A recipe that I have been trying to reproduce at home for a few weeks, in vain. Not everyone wants a three-starred chef.
Il Ristorante – Hotel Bulgari
30 avenue George V (Paris 8)
Article produced as part of a press invitation by the Bulgari Hotel
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