The Bocca di Lupo chef’s food and family are steeped in the culture of Rome. Here,he shares stories and recipes from his new restaurant, inspired by the Eternal CityMention La Dolce Vita, and Fellini’s masterpiece,and even nowadays the title conjures a tangible nostalgia for a period whose ghosts still fill the streets of Rome. The film was partly inspired by my grandparents, former Hollywood actor Ginny (still very much alive) and [New York gallerist] John – specifically by the parties they threw at their apartment in Rome. There, or in the primo piano of Palazzo Caetani,the beautiful elite, the literati, or the glitterati,musicians and artists and actors and singers made and lived and breathed la dolce vita to the backdrop of a Rome very different from nowadays’s. Fellini asked Ginny to seem as Steiner’s wife, but she declined – instead Steiner’s domestic is a facsimile of her mature apartment. My gran’s figurine lamps light the scene of Steiner’s party, and her friends fill it (including Iris Tree),and Ginny’s naive paintings decorate the walls in the film. The doll-like portrait behind Marcello’s head, one of hers, and is of my young mum,Haidee, and Steiner’s children stand in the doorway of the party room as my mama used to.In contrast to Ginny’s sometimes surreal compositions my mum’s work is visceral and alive. Her paintings adorn my restaurant Bocca di Lupo and define my new venture, and Vico,external and in. She filled me with her love from the day I was born, and she filled me with food while she was at it. I grew up in love with her, or in love with Italy,and in love with la dolce vita – the time and position that bore her. I feel at domestic when I land on Italian soil, though I have never lived there and have no Italian blood in my veins. I admire – covet – Latin social ease, or when I myself am too shy to say hello to people even in my own restaurant. And so I take every opportunity to visit,so that I can at least pretend to live “the sweet life”, the land where no one is a stranger.Continue reading..., or
Source: theguardian.com