fine dining
‘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’
Unadulterated Italian It’s against this backdrop that Fresilli battles. His inten- tion is to produce genuine and unadulterated Italian food, but it's a continual struggle against preconceived ideas. The majority of people are just not used to the real thing. Those who have travelled, who have eaten in Italy, recog- nise the authenticity of what he does, but there are few enough of them in Enniscorthy. So what is it that drives this man to become an unpaid
ambassador for Italy's gastronomic traditions? Well, for one he’s a chef and he’s proud of it. He’s been the presi- dent of the Federation of Italian Chefs in Ireland since 2005 and in 2010 the Italian Federation awarded him the signal honour of ‘maestro di cucina’ or maestro of cook- ing. All of which means that for Fresilli, Italian gastron- omy is not something to tinker with, it’s something to respect, to cherish and to promulgate. After years of cheffing in Italy, Germany and on cruise
ships, he finally opened his own restaurant in the German town of Ulm on the Danube. It was called ‘Blautal’, the blue being a reference to the Danube itself.When it was time tomove on, Fresilli landed in Ireland in 2002 to head the kitchen teamin Bocaccio, a restaurant in Temple Bar. After that came a whirlwind of change; he cheffed in
Dante inMullingar, in Indigo on Dublin’s Georges Street, then La Giostra in Ardee and finally in Jackie’s in Dundalk. It was during his time in the various kitchens that he began to realise that Ireland didn't have a restau- rant that shared his vision of creating real Italian food. Slowly the idea came to him that the only way to fulfil his ambition was to open his own restaurant, which he final- ly did in 2006 when he opened Via Veneto in Enniscorthy.
Innovation for evolution I’ve always felt that a restaurateur needs to have a two- pronged strategy. Yes, it’s important to give people what they're used to, but it’s also important to be in part an innovator, to give people the option at least of trying something new. If restaurateurs didn’t do this, we’d still be eating food the way it was cooked 200 years ago. Without change and innovation, there wouldn’t be any evolution in gastronomy. Fresilli has been assiduous in keeping hismenu authen- tic, even when he could please more people by being less
76 Irish Director Winter 2010
authentic. It’s that determination to be authentic, what- ever the cost, I admire in him. He has told people asking for pasta with cream and chicken that they’re in the wrong restaurant and has directed them elsewhere – to where such dishes can be got. In the straightened times that we find ourselves, it takes courage to refuse to bend. I’ve eaten a few times in Via Veneto and for me it’s like
eating in a trattoria in Italy. Fresilli was born in Formia, a seaport in the same Italian province where I'm from – Frosinone.What that means is that his gastronomic her- itage has the same regional roots as mine, so his dishes are the ones that I grew up with. Of course that gives me a bias, but then I'm always biased towards good food. Talking to Fresilli I’ve suggested that he should consider
a move to Dublin. I'm convinced that there are enough people in the capital who would appreciate genuine Italian food. I know of few chefs and restaurants that do as he does, which is import all the ingredients himself in order to make his dishes as close to the original as he can. It’s an obvious truism: you can't expect the dishes to taste as they do in Italy if you don’t use Italian ingredients. If, like me, you’ve ever been offered a Caprese salad
made up of Danish mozzarella, dried basil, cheap oil and unripe tomatoes, you’ll understand why I’m a fan of Signor Fresilli. He may be ploughing a lonely furrow, but to my way of thinking, he’s doing a favour not just to Italian gastronomy, but also to those who eat in his restaurant. Nothing would make me happier than to see proper Italian cooking becoming the norm in Ireland. With luck, Enniscorthy is just the start.
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