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PROTAGONIST / CUISINE DECONSTRUCTED

or once, we begin at the end; that is, from dessert.
And more, from what remains of a meal. The plate,
white and round, is empty, but it emits an intoxicating
fragrance, a nostalgic breath of goodness and child-
Fhood. Where is it coming from? It is not the first
time that cuisine has been embroidered onto absence, em-
ulating the silent compositions of John Cage: 4’33’’ pass-
ing by without a sound. But in this case it is a game; and
the children are the first to understand that the plate
must be turned upside down to reveal the gold leaf
through which the spoon must be plunged into va-
nilla custard flavoured with incense. It is called Faith
and it is a manifesto of a dish, very rare and from
one of the most skilful chefs in Italy: it means go-
ing beyond the senses on the trail of the sens-
es, on a quest to discover something that infus-
es peace. The charger plate, or rather the sub-
text of exuberant and joyful compositions, ap-
parently simple and universal, which together
with spirituality conceal a technical quotient
that is among the most prodigious in world
cuisine. Massimiliano Alajmo has long been
an enfant prodigé, and is all the more youth-
ful with his three stars. But now he resembles
a puer senex, able to reconcile the game with
depth, and spontaneity with culture, all with
wonderful grace, which Von Kleist calls the
crossing point of infinite knowledge and the
naivety of childhood. In just 25 years, with his
brother Raffaele, he has developed a cuisine
like no other. A triumph of Italianism in In.gre-
dients (the title of his masterpiece, which alludes
to everything etymologically related) and on the
canvas of his recipes, where he investigates Medi-
terranean taste with striking depth, exploiting “par-
amolecular” techniques of his own devising, which
soar effortlessly towards fantastic outcomes.
The appeal is immediate, thanks to comforting recog-
nisability and to performances whose playfulness borders
on regression, to be touched, bitten and sucked; all the rest
a staircase that you can go up and down at will. Even the saf-
fron risotto, the subject of a twenty-year metempsychosis, con-
ceals its layer of faith, anagogical so to speak. “Because symbolo-
gy has always been part of food, even if we have forgotten this late-
ly,” comments Alajmo. “The metamorphosis that rice undergoes as it
cooks, absorbing three times its own weight in liquid, is fascinating. And

The saffron risotto with beetroot sorbet and eel gremolada “carries with it the weight of the
earth, because this is a dish that thrusts upwards from below, on the ascending
line of the smoke,” explains Alajmo. A little like the meanings of the Scriptures, on the path

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