2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
Gualtiero Marchesi, you know, hasn't touched alcohol for 17 years and thinks that the wine sucks. Arturo Spicocchi, former chef of the Stua de Michil in Corvara in Alta Badia is a teetotaler, wine-free is also the Joia in Milan, the first vegetarian restaurant in Italy with a Michelin star. Starred like the Luksus in New York which has neither wine nor cocktails on the menu.
What happens, the quotations of the pairing wine / starred dishes am I down?
We'll see, but know who should think of it as the octogenarian and still sprightly Marchesi who does not risk gastronomic apartheid: he will be saved by juice pairing.
Juice pairing?
Fruit and vegetable extracts accompany the creations of avant-garde chefs who beat vegetable gardens, fields and mountain forests for their cerebral menus, in the name of greater attention to how we eat, and also to rediscover, it seems, an entire world of flavors.
The groove was traced to the No but nearly a decade ago Rene Redzepi, who else else. In his celebrated restaurant in Copenhagen it is possible to sip non-alcoholic blends that are apparently daring but carefully studied (such as the combination of whey and cucumber, the shots composed of apple juice and pine sprouts, or even of sorrel and nasturtium, a plant native to the Peru).
Today in Australia there are many haute cuisine restaurants that following in the footsteps of Momofuku Seiobo, opened in Sydney in 2011, a place in the Momofuku constellation (attributable to David Chang, a Korean-born chef who Time magazine has defined as the most influential in the world), which offer onion extracts paired with steamed grouper.
The fashion of juice-pairing is also very widespread in the United States, just think that even the luxurious Eleven Madison Park in New York, a three-star Michelin restaurant, proposes a pairing path between courses and a new generation of fermented drinks that have the task of amplifying the sensations of a refined meal.
Just like wine would.
Even old Europe, where the unprecedented practice could make the customers of many prestigious restaurants smile, is not immune from juice-pairing.
This time it is London to precede all with the starry Clove Club where you can taste the dishes of the menu in soft pairing with non-alcoholic drinks such as nut milk, infusions, tea, fruit and vegetable extracts.
Customers' favorite pairing: Hebridean lamb cooked with seaweed and mint along with oolong tea from China and Taiwan, known for its antioxidant properties. The tannins of the tea are well balanced with the fattest meats of lamb.
If sommeliers have taught us to consider wine as another element of the dish, as if it were a sauce or another condiment, the concept remains the same whatever the liquid contained in the glass: beer, wine, or indeed, fruit juice.