With Cima alla Genovese you feel at home (if you are a Ligurian) or you wonder how good a chef must be to get a Michelin star, serving traditional dishes that have been eaten a thousand or more times, at home, in deli, in trattorias.
Ivan Maniago adds little to this. He prefers facts to words, from the open kitchen, Impronta d’Acqua observes and satisfies the customers. Starting with Diversamente Cima. “Chief, let’s eat what best describes it,” we ask. And the service begins. Impeccable, with attention to detail, accompanied by advice from a sommelier in the dining room and in the wine Madeleine Sophiededicated to the search for artisanal and local realities.
“Diversamente Cima” embodies the philosophy of Maniago.: combines tradition, territory and novelty in a dish. The taste and history of this ancient dish is unchanged, the shape is different, but it is the history of the garden, the fifth quarter and sustainability. “Inside,” says the chef, “there are seasonal vegetables, sweetbread, veal flesh, eggs, and Parmigiano Reggiano Vacche Rosse, all accompanied by fresh vegetables from the garden.”
Yep, garden., more than just a passion, much more than a habit for a (star) chef who, like many colleagues, has this imprint in his DNA. Touch the products with your hands, experience them and imagine them coming to life in your own compositions. Which cannot but respect the change of seasons, as in the days of grandparents. Everything comes back sooner or later. This is the moment then. Thus, at the table (elegant, made of solid wood, in a place born in 2017, with the intention not to distract the client from his goal: to eat), dishes appear one after another that oscillate between past and present, in oscillate between the sea, the garden and mountain. With a strong focus on the world of fermented products and delicious oil that is hard to resist, goat’s milk risotto, tonic water and chamomile, an alternation of fatty and sweet notes that find balance with the tonic water used in cooking. important for its amarotic part.
The history of this dish Maniago explains, “it is connected with the territory, with its study, with the desire to intensify the work of the farmer, who from dawn to dusk is engaged in grazing his goats.” The use of chamomile, one of the goat diet ingredients, is not accidental. So it’s easy to find Ivan Maniago, who grew up in Friuli and went through the kitchens Walter Marchesi, Massimo Bottura, Maximilian Alaimo AND Philip Levey, walking through the forests that frame this corner of Liguria, climbing up to meet producers and breeders directly, discovering the corners and flavors that then become ingredients. Like pink onion Pignone, grilled and lacquered with anise and rosemary; or grilled raw meat, with a very pleasant smoky note; notes and perfumes in immortelle, pine and licorice to drink, and then again to watch the sea from above, with mountain meatballs in white, finished with sarasse. Finish off with pineapple and coconut ravioli with their own demi-glace.
Last note: Impronta d’Acqua offers four tasting routes, one of which is completely vegetarian.