Good pizza should take less than two minutes to make. Good olive oil costs at least 15 euros per bottle. Good recipes can sometimes be hundreds of years old.
Those are just a few of the titbits of knowledge that can be gleaned from Italian chefs working in Kyiv. Coming from different parts of Italy and experts in a variety of dishes, they all have one thing in common: for them, cooking is not just work, but a very important part of their culture. The Kyiv Post spoke with four of them.
Fabrizio Righetti, 30. Chef at Mille Miglia in Radisson Blu Kyiv hotel (22 Yaroslaviv Val St.): “Classy food up to Roman standards.”
Mille Miglia prides itself on serving up absolutely authentic Italian cuisine, and its chef, Fabrizio Righetti, doesn’t pander to clients by adjusting Italian recipes for the Ukrainian palate. He serves his dishes according to the standards one would expect in Rome, strictly following the recipe, and upholding the highest standards of good, traditional Italian cuisine.
Righetti came to Kyiv in February 2013. Before coming, he knew almost nothing about Ukraine: “For Italians, Eastern Europe is like a secret place. At school, we only learned about the Soviet Union, and that’s pretty much all we know.”
Righetti tells the story of a client who came to his restaurant and was surprised by the menu, which didn’t strike him as particularly Italian. “What the man didn’t know is that Italy is very vari-colored.,” says Righetti. “The north is famous for using a lot of butter and onions, while in the south, Italians prefer to use garlic and olive oil. Rome, from where I come, is known for its pasta dishes.”
Most of the products he uses in his kitchen are imported — only some of the vegetables are locally produced.
Righetti prefers to eat at home and avoids Italian restaurants. He says he finds them too boring.
Talking about Italian cuisine, Righetti advises Ukrainians to try dishes in which all of the ingredients are familiar. “If you have pasta — you’ll be fine,” he smiles.
From his menu he suggests ordering:
Rigatoni Cacio E Pepe: a typical pasta dish from Rome. Hr 285
Tagliata Di Manzo: simple and classy — grilled beef with rocket lettuce and cherry tomato. Hr 480
Filetti Di Branzino: sea bass fillet with white wine, onions and mashed potatoes. Hr 480
Restaurants he goes to in Kyiv:
Ukrainian cuisine at Spotykach (16 Volodymyrska St.) and Kanapa (19A Andriyvskiy Uzviz), Georgian cuisine in Cha-Cha Bar (11 Volodymyrska St.), Korean food at Arirang (160 Antonovycha St.
Andrea Nori, 46. Chef at Casa Nori (1 Borisohlybska St.): “Serves dishes from old Italian fairytales.”
Andrea Nori, chef and owner at Casa Nori, shows an old book of original Italian recipes on May 30. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Andrea Nori regards Italian cuisine as a treasure, and compares his own work to conducting an orchestra. Some of the dishes he serves are from an old book of Italian recipes that are at least 100 years old.
“Every dish has a history. For example, we serve octopus with champagne. Not everybody knows that this recipe is described in an old fairytale, in which two fishermen cook octopus with wine.”
While Nori works by the motto “Good old traditions can be modified without spoiling the original taste,” he sometimes reverts to cooking dishes the way they made in the past.
He is from Veneto region in northeastern Italy, which includes such cities as Venice, Verona and Padua, and he mostly specializes in that region’s cuisine. He says Italian cuisine has to be made with Italian products grown under the Italian sun, so he uses products ordered from Italy in 90 percent of the dishes he makes. He buys Italian olive oil for the restaurant for 15 euros per bottle.
He has been living in Ukraine for about 10 years, but opened his restaurant only in 2016. Asked what is important for a restaurant to succeed, he says, “everything is important, even the cleaning woman who cleans up in the morning.”
Nori likes Ukrainian cuisine, especially pea soup, but doesn’t visit restaurants very often, preferring simple food cooked at home. In the summer he barbeques food outdoors with his family.
Dishes he recommends from his restaurant:
Oca in Pighata — stewed goose with risotto and green peas. Hr 225
Ravioli Verdi e Ricotta (Nori’s mother’s recipe): spinach extract with ricotta whey cheese, olive oil and grated Grana Padano cheese. Hr 165
Gnocchi al Sugo di Carne e Grana Padano (served only on Fridays): small dumplings with a meat sauce and Grana Padano cheese. Nori says the dish reminds him of the carnivals back home in Verona. Hr 135
Restaurants he visits in Kyiv:
Petrus restaurant, famous for its traditional Ukrainian varenyky (28 Esplanadna St.)
Costantino Passalacqua, 48. Chef at Pantagruel (1 Mykoly Lysenka St.): “A good wine saves the day.”
Costantino Passalacqua was one of the first chefs in Kyiv to teach local cooks what real Italian cuisine should be like.
Passalacqua has lived in Ukraine for 16 years, and has his own style of cooking. He knows a lot about Ukrainian cuisine but knows even more about Italian food and wine. Some of the ingredients Passalacqua uses are from Italy, but the vegetables and meat are mostly Ukrainian-produced.
What differentiates his restaurant Pantagruel from the others is that it has one of the best wine cellars in Ukraine.
The menu in Pantagruel changes every two weeks. Dishes are added, others removed depending on the season. Passalacqua says he finds inspiration everywhere. Sometimes he goes to the market and is suddenly inspired to put a new dish on the menu: “Now it is the season for asparagus, and we’ll make a risotto with it.”
Originally Passalacqua is from Italian region of Liguria — the strip of coast that runs from the southeastern coast of France to the north of the Italian peninsula, centered around the city of Genoa — but when cooking his tastes include all of the regions of Italy.
Passalacqua says Ukrainian cuisine is also diverse: In Odesa, there are many Jewish influences, and in the West — Hungarian.
“I like Ukrainian cuisine. I like working with Ukrainians. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have spent 16 years here.”
Dishes he recommends from his restaurant: Any dish that includes the 10 home-made pastas he makes, such as spinach fettuccine with anchovies, asparagus and tomatoes, for Hr 249, or fettuccine with seafood in a light tomato sauce, for Hr 299.
Restaurants he visits in Kyiv: Passalacqua says he eats everywhere, but prefers Pizzeria Napule (9 Mechnikova St.), Mille Miglia (22 Yaroskavyv Val St.) and Casa Nori (1 Borisohlybska St.)
Giuseppe Irollo, 44. Chef at Pizzeria Napule (9 Mechnikova St.): “Perfect pizza in less than two minutes.”
Pizzeria Napule was born after Sergiy Gusovsky decided to create a proper Italian restaurant in Kyiv. The restaurant was originally designed to a paragon of what a pizzeria should be like: with an oven that heats up to 450 degrees, and an indisputably Italian chef. Giuseppe Irollo became that chef, and he has been proudly in charge of the kitchen for about 10 years.
Irollo orders most of the products — such as flour, salami and olive oil — from Italy, and buys fresh vegetables in Ukraine. It is little surprise that Irollo is so fascinated with pizza given that he is from the Campone region in the south of Italy, centered around the city of Naples, which is famous for pizza.
Apart from pizza, Irollo likes local Ukrainian cuisine, such as Chicken Kyiv, Olivier salad, and Napoleon cake.
Irollo shared a couple of secrets with the Kyiv Post on what perfect pizza is supposed to look like: When a customer takes a slice, it should immediately bend down under the weight of its filling. He also insists that pizza should be eaten immediately after being prepared.
With the right stove and at the right temperature, Italian pizza can be prepared in less than two minutes.
Dishes he recommends from his restaurant:
Marinara — the oldest type of pizza in Italy, with lots of basil, garlic and olive oil. Hr 450
Calzone: folded pizza, in the shape of the Moon, with ricotta, mozzarella and prosciutto. Hr 490
Lava del Vesuvio — a variation of another pizza called Diavolo, with hot pepper, and special cherry tomatoes that grow near the Vesuvius, the famous volcano near Naples. Hr 450
Restaurants he visits in Kyiv:
Brazilian restaurant Grill de Brazil (24 Lesi Ukrainki St.) and Italian restaurant Panna Pasticceria (6/11 Velyka Zhytomyrska St.)
