QUALITALY_134

May/June 2023 VII MAGAZINE if linked to gastronomy. And ‘Sui generis’ is Alfio Nicolosi , executive chef of the restaurant of the same name (Sui generis, to be precise), recently opened in Saronno (Va) and named after the ancient Latin locution. An apt name, since the chef’s uniqueness finds expression in the cuisine that comes out of his kitchen, so unique and exclusive that - perhaps thanks to the Latin god Mercury - the possibility of being among the next candidates for the Michelin Star is in the air. Alfio Nicolosi, thanks also to his appearnace combined with words, reveals an intense but whispered emotion... a detail that he brings out in the kitchen in which the ingredients know how to interact with taste, substance and aesthetics, all with an elegance that only the professionalism of a chef like Nicolosi brings out. “Sui generis is a dream that is realised day by day and takes shape with commitment, dedication, study, care and passion,” says the chef. “We have a lot of work to do and our goal is to bring out the best part of the cuisine, the place, our philosophy and, of course, ourselves. WHEN AND WHERE DID YOU START? DID YOUR DESIRE TO COOK COME FROM FAMILY OR FROM OTHER STIMULI? I was born into a large family in which grandmothers taught me to appreciate and seek out incisive flavours. However, the desire to cook was born from an important encounter that marked the turning point. So, during university, between one exam and another I spent my free afternoons in the kitchen searching for particular ingredients and discovering international recipes. AS IS OFTEN THE CASE, PASSION LED TO PROFESSION... It’s true! After graduating in Organisational Sciences, I enrolled in the Haute Cuisine School Food Genius Academy. I saw at first hand the skills of great masters working in some of the most important restaurants in Milan such as Giovanni Traversone at Trattoria del Nuovo Macello, Andrea Provenzani at Il Liberty, Andrea Berton (Ristorante Berton), or Giuseppe Iannotti and Tadashi Takayama at Krésios (Telese BN) , Ángel León at Aponiente (Spain). CAN YOU TELL US SOME OF YOUR MOST INFLUENTIAL EXPERIENCES? Among the many trips I made, I got to know the cuisine of South America and lived an important period in the Ivory Coast. From these experiences, I approached street food, a genre that we want to bring back to ‘Sui generis’ cuisine through ‘Tocchi in Condivisione’ ( Shared touches ), ad hoc menus that we propose in our tasting tours. In the end, the decision to open the restaurant in Saronno came from a meeting I had with an important executive chef. SHARED TOUCHES? Yes, the restaurant offers three charters (menus), each divided into Acts and Shared Touches. The Acts is an idea that brings us back to the theatre, which in turn inspired the design of the restaurant; the Touches, on the other hand, sound like an evocative culinary term but with a profound meaning: the diner is asked to eat with his hands and proceeds with other dishes without distinguishing between first and second course. It often happens to us, especially with those who choose to try the ‘Sui generis’ course, that at the end of Act I people are amazed and amused because they discover an Act II. Perhaps because they classify the last course of the previous Act as a second course... but we really like to go beyond definitions. LET’S EXPLAIN THESE MENUS IN MORE DETAIL... Basically, the idea is to make the diner play by proposing three options or menus. The Janus menu: an entry-level course, a mix of past and future in which the purity of the ingredients and the technique to enhance them predominate. The Neptune menu: a tasting route at the mercy of what the sea and our trusted fisherman have to offer us. And the ‘Sui generis’ carte, which encapsulates our philosophy, i.e. a space-time journey: in space through the ingredients that nature and the seasons offer us, and in time, through techniques and methods of the past, brought up to date through the use of technology with a direct look to the future. WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS ON WHICH YOU BASE YOUR WORK? One is always inclined to say the ingredients, the desire to create... In reality, what must always be present is human capital, especially in a project such as ‘Sui generis’. All the guys who have decided to embrace the philosophy of the restaurant