fine dining


‘He has told people


asking for pasta with cream and chicken that they’re in the wrong restaurant and has directed them elsewhere’


Paolo Fresilli is the chef/proprietor of Via Veneto, an Italian restaurant in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. He is one of a select band, he’s an Italian chef who learned his trade before coming to Ireland. You may find this sur- prising, but that isn’t the norm here. In fact, I can only think of three chefs who fit that description. Call me a chauvinist, but I’m convinced that the best Italian food can only be had where there's a chef who knows his trade from its home roots. You could argue, and many have, that anyone can


learn to cook Italian food, and that’s probably correct. But what is unarguable is that it’s only those who really care about the tradition of Italian cooking that have the


passion to do it right, to use the correct ingredients – in short, to become proselytes for that tradition. There’s a catering business truth, and it's this: the


easiest way to make money is to give people what they want. But this is where the problems arise. What if what the people want is wrong? After decades of being served Italian food that’s in no way representative of real Italian cooking, people have come to expect certain things – cream in their carbonara, pineapple on pizzas, pasta with chicken and a host of other bastardisations of genuine Italian cuisine. If that’s what’s been handed out as ‘Italian’ for decades, you can’t blame people for thinking that what they got was genuine.


Winter 2010 Irish Director 75


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