A CHEF A WINE

Marcello Trentini e Berlucchi ’61 Nature 2011

December 20, 2018

The chefs.
Contemporary or traditional, but always perfectionists.
Champions of culinary “Made in Italy”, stubbornly enamored of their profession.

We asked chefs to tell us about how they cook.
Eye-witness accounts of their own recipes and a flute of Berlucchi’s latest arrival, its ’61 Nature Rosé 2011
The narrative was the inspiration for A CHEF, A WINE, a portrait-on-the-move of two fascinating personalities.

Come along with us and let’s discover them together!

Our journey through VIP cookery leads us this time to meet Marcello Trentini, Jeunes Restaurateur and Michelin-starred Chef of Magorabin.

Marcello Trentini, a dyed-in-the-wool Milanese, is the most unconventional chef on the Italian gastronomy stage, a cook who has built his professional identity as a self-proclaimed “anarchic pirate” around constant metamorphosis. No mere cook, but a far-sighted entrepreneur as well, since he has risked everything on the most daunting challenge of all: returning to his native Turin with the itch to surprise the world with his Magorabin.

Trentini is an artist through and through, of cooking, of course, but his talents don’t stop there. Let’s look at his degree in fine arts, his university cinema studies, his passion for music, then let’s add a plentiful pinch of love for fine wine and food, and vigorously blend in his 11 years of traveling from one international kitchen to another. And, voilà, the recipe for the original launch of Magorabin, whose main ingredient over the years has been contamination: the skilful mixing of raw ingredients, cultures, geographies, and styles. In his words, “Cooking is art. My dishes showcase the rigour of composing a symphony and the imagination of jazz improvisation.”

His dishes are the medium he has chosen to express his art, to achieve his goal of enabling the unique conviviality created by gathering around the table, with one of his creations at each setting, paired with a glass of wine sapiently selected by his companion Simona, unquestioned monarch of the front of the house.

To embody the deep bond of friendship with the Ziliani family, he re-visited lobster Catalan style, whose acidity is the result of two contributions by Berlucchi 61 Nature 2011, used first in the prawn sauce, which is produced through a simple cold extraction, and then in the aspic bedding the poached lobster. The sensory verticality, a sine qua non for the perfect partnering with the complexity of Nature 2011, the fruit of six years’ maturation sur lie, is created by a creative multi-layering of aromatic herbs, lime zest, Sicilian extravirgin olive oil, and Kerala green pepper.

And ecco a sublime encounter of flavours and philosophies, where the painstaking care exercised by Marcello in the selection of each individual ingredient and preparation of the whole melds seamlessly into the magisterial artistry that coaxes each cluster of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the vine and into the flute. “The excitement of savouring, in the wine-glass, the entire history of a family.”