Grocers with kitchen use: Timpani & Tempura in Naples
Grocers with kitchen use: Timpani & Tempura in Naples

Video: Grocers with kitchen use: Timpani & Tempura in Naples

Video: Grocers with kitchen use: Timpani & Tempura in Naples
Video: Antonio Tubelli, monzù della cucina napoletana 2024, March
Anonim
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Getting to know Antonio Tubelli is an engaging experience for those who love good food. I don't know how many know it outside the Campania borders but to dig into the Neapolitan gastronomic roots it is a real point of reference. "An old sixty-eight", as he defines himself with a contagious smile, he worked as an electronic programmer first and a trade unionist later, discovering his passion for food only later on. He frequented Tommaso Di Benedetto's "Taverna degli Amici" from which he received a book as a gift, "Il cuoco gallante", written in 1773 by Vincenzo Corrado.

It was the turning point.

He began to be passionate about the history of Neapolitan gastronomy not only linked to city traditions, he is keen to specify, but to the whole Kingdom of the two Sicilies. Territory contaminated by other gastronomic cultures due to the continuous domination, from the French to the Spanish one.

"Reading old books by great storytellers, even before becoming gastronomes, like Vincenzo Corrado, like Antonio Latini with" Lo scalco alla Moderna "(1692) or Ippolito Cavalcanti with the" Technical Practical Treatise "of 1837, opened me a world. I discovered a rich, complex cuisine, a precursor of culinary trends that would appear only a few centuries later. Nouvelle cuisine already existed in 1600, when game was combined with seafood on the rich tables of the Neapolitan courts ".

All these acquaintances soon found their home in 1988 when Antonio, with his brother Lucio, opened the arcigola circle "Il Pozzo", in the center of Naples, the first real gastronomic laboratory in the city, far from the obsessively flattening "spaghetti with clams" present on the tables of city restaurants.

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If the encounter with the sacred texts had opened up a purely theoretical world to him, the encounter with Angelo Paracucchi, one of the greatest masters of Italian cuisine, profoundly helped Antonio to discover his skills as a "cook".

At the "Locanda dell’angelo" in Sarzana (La Spezia), Antonio learned all the secrets of cooking, commuting between Liguria and Campania for five years, and from 1995 to 1997 on a permanent basis as an executive chef.

As often happens, the experience acquired meant that, on his return to Naples, he closed the restaurant "Il Pozzo" to open in October 1998 "Timpani e tempura", a small shop with eight seats in the historic center, a few steps from Piazza del Gesù.

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Here, again with his brother Lucio, he dedicated himself to the rediscovery of forgotten products, such as brindle tomato or yellow carolina, provolone, pecorino and black pig from Caserta. Entering his small shop is like diving into the history of our gastronomy. Gattò, rice sartù, aubergines, scammaro ai friarielli are just some of the proposals of the small "shop", which also works as a take-away kitchen.

“With great pleasure I am holding training courses for inmates in the Lauro prison, in the province of Avellino, it is something that is enriching me a lot on a human level. My dream is to be able to see some of these guys become great chefs."

In two hours he told me about his life. Listening to him, I regretted not having the camera with me. Antonio Tubelli is really very engaging. We take our leave. "Next time don't come" already eaten ", I would like you to taste the pigeon with seafood sauce!". See you soon Antonio!

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