The FINANCIAL — You can order pizza, pasta and spaghetti in many restaurants across Georgia, but nothing can compare to the satisfaction of indulging in delectable Italian food that has been carefully prepared in true Italian tradition. A one-hundred percent authentic Italian menu has been introduced by Niccolo Rossi, Executive Chef at Filini Restaurant by Radisson Blu Iveria. “Finally we have true Italian food!” is the response from guests that assures Rossi that he has done his job well.
“As I always bring my Italian side everywhere that I go, at Filini Restaurant we will have a new 100% Italian menu. Whenever you step in it will be like taking a journey to Italy. It is not only one dish, or one menu, it is the kind of flavour that you taste here. It took me five months to understand what our Georgian guests like. In restaurants in Italy chefs tend to suggest to customers what they think is best for them. Now it is the same here. Those people who have travelled to various cities and regions of Italy and tried its national food can now get the same dishes here. The chefs are from central and northern Italy. We are making pure, traditional food. We have loyal guests at the hotel who have stated that we finally have an Italian menu. For me that is the best compliment, and it assures us that we have done our work properly. Whatever you find on our menu has come from Italy. It is authentic and we do not compromise on that. The issue is that people cannot always find proper, pure Italian dishes outside of Italy,” Niccolo Rossi, Executive Chef at Radisson Blu Iveria, told The FINANCIAL.
There are over 64 dishes on the menu at Filini Restaurant, including pizza and Italian bread, but Rossi recommends always leaving room for dessert. In his interview with The FINANCIAL, Rossi, two-time award-winning Italian chef with over two decades of experience around the world, shared his insights into working in Georgia and named the main reasons to visit Filini.
Besides the pure Italian menu, Filini offers various events that make the restaurant worth visiting. “We have several outlets and events coming up at the hotel. We have Foreign Chef Night on 21 February at our Asian Fusion Restaurant Umami. A special guest chef will be cooking for everybody then. Every Thursday at Filini we have ‘jazz and dine’ evenings. We have pasta stations with live cooking. We also offer brunches every Sunday. The peculiarity of this event is that we have a kids area with an entertainer; children are allowed to pan pizza themselves. The Sunday brunch Bouffet menu is 90% Italian, as there are some foreign guests that also like to have international dishes” Rossi said.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your culinary training and professional background?
A. I was a trouble-maker for my mom. I was three-four years old but I didn’t like anything cooked by anyone, although my mother was a good cook. My first experience of cooking was unsuccessful. At four I put a cake in the oven and went to play football – it burned!
I have a chef degree. I graduated with the highest grade. At the final stage there were 38 chefs in my class. I was the most successful and came first. As I graduated in first place, my classmates accused me of bribing the jury. The final test involved preparing a full menu for the members of the jury. For the twenty years since, everyone has remembered my dessert. I have a chocolatier’s school diploma. For three years I worked with the best European chocolatier school in Belgium and I have a degree from there. My other diplomas include fusion Italian seafood cuisine, and traditional Tuscan food. I was among the top 25 Ukrainian chefs. My restaurant was named the best Italian in Kiev and also the best dessert of 2012 in Kiev.
Q. Has Georgian food inspired you to create anything new?
A. The most important thing for a chef is to keep moving. After a while, when you are in the same place, with the same products and the same air you get bored and can forget to try something new. I have my background, which was mainly built in Italy. I have lived in Europe and America and wherever I have been I have taken inspiration from there and combined it with something from my Italian side. It was the same when I first came to Georgia. I was closely watching how chefs were cooking. In April we will have a Georgian fusion cuisine event. I propose to make a sweet pkhali mousse. For me, vegetable mousse is something that is easy to make. In France there is a nice cake made of walnuts. You make the mousse, but not too salty, and put a sponge cake over the walnut on the bottom. That way you get a sweet pkhali mousse. It is a combination of different countries and recipes. Wherever you go you learn from others and come up with new ideas of your own but with other input. I came here from Kiev where I had been working for four years.
Q. Can you please tell us a little about your culinary style and what makes your menus and recipes unique?
A. When I do something, I do it because I believe it is good. First of all it has to seem good to me. It should make me happy to do it again. What I always tell chefs is that they should be proud of what they do. When your guests smile and thank you – that is just the best form of appreciation for chefs. You have to be proud of what you do and if you are, then your guests will notice it. There is no secret ingredient. Ingredients are always the same. You just have to use the eyes, nose and brain and create something that will make you 100% satisfied.
Q. What makes Italian food so special?
A. Centuries of wars! And that is no joke. Every 15-20 kilometres the same recipes have different ingredients, different names and flavours. I am from Florence and people from Florence hate the people from Prato, which is nearby. People from Prato hate the people from Empoli. All of Italy’s long history was about constantly fighting with somebody. In these fights you had to always maintain your competitive advantage. We are a strange country. We hate and at the same time love each other. We only all come together as Italians to support our national football team. I am a chef but you can find a lawyer who will say that he is a better chef than me, and we are all like that. So it is really something internal. My mother and my grandmother used to cook different things from the same ingredients. We have the sun, we have the mountains and the sea. So we have fish, meat and every other product that you could want, but as well as this we have a knowledge inside of us which is what makes our food so good.
Q. How would you rate Georgian cuisine?
A. Georgians have amazing tkemali (wild plum) sauce. One of the best things is pkhali, especially spinach with nut. The taste of Georgian cuisine is not so different from Italian, especially Southern Italian dishes. I also love the barbecued chicken with tomato sauce. Georgians have such good food on their own that they do not need to consider others’ food. They are not trying Italian food because it is better, but because it is different. That is the main driver of our Georgian guests.
Q. Please can you tell us how to eat the way Italians do?
A. We always have red and white Italian wine and fresh Italian bread to accompany our food. To learn the customs of eating the way the Italians do – start with an “antipasti” (appetizer), next order a “primo” (first course, usually consisting of pasta, risotto, minestrone or other soup), then pick your main “secondi” (second course, usually a meat or fish dish), have a small bit of “formaggi” (cheese) after your main, then on to “dolci” (sweets/desserts such as cheese, fruit, sweet wine, and coffee/cappuccino). Meanwhile, the order of the food we choose is up to the individual. So, in our menu we have the whole assortment written in horizontal order as we do not see the importance of following such rules.
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