Contraste

I’d grown bored of the long, reserve 4-days of your life, look-at-me, look-at-me tasting menus that tire and repeat. This, though, reinstalled my love for the long-list and reminded me how exciting and revolutionary restaurants can be. When the chef and their team are pushing, driving, kicking down doors; researching, reimagining, rewarding the diner with something they’ve never seen, felt or tasted before. A Venetian sarde in saor and a Piedmontese beef tartare. Then, an amberjack fish mosaic arrives, a colourful rubik of small-cubed amberjack alongside cubes of grapefruit, orange, black squid, foie gras and macadamia nut. Then, thinly-sliced langoustine like ribbons is covered in a resplendent, bright orange chorizo sauce which I imagine poured over nachos and pizza and pasta and popcorn, cascading down my chin. Finally, a tart-like potato slice is topped with a piquant chorizo-octopus gel and its delicious suckers.Then, a flurry of dishes: caramelised onion and goats cheese is sealed within a blown sugar casing – a staple from Matias’ Pont de Ferr days – then a tiny carbonara within a bite-size pasta ball and beef sashimi with umeboshi (salted) plum.I sigh a defeatist sigh as desserts begin to emerge. Still, each is suitably sized and flows nicely on from the savoury courses: a porcini ice cream and cioccolato face, moulded to replicate the restaurant’s iconic sculpture “The Secret” by the Milanese artist Matteo Pugliese that greets guests upon entering. Then, a fig leaf ice cream with basil oil which is quickly surpassed by a wonderfully artistic “Campari Sicily” shaped in the style of a Cola bottle but with the refreshing booze-laden hit of bittersweet orange.