In a hamlet of just seventy souls, recovered in the late 1990s by Daniel Kihlgrenphilanthropist and visionary entrepreneur, a unique project was born: Sextantio Albergo Diffusowhich has transformed the village into an open-air museum, where every alley, every house, every object tells the story of a farming civilisation that no longer exists. An internationally recognised project, also presented at the Venice Biennale, capable of stopping time without crystallising it, giving the village not only an identity but also a future. From this same vision takes shape today Sextantio Kitchen, the restaurant that completes the albergo diffuso experience by bringing memory to the plate as well. A project that entrusts its voice to Dino Como, from Abruzzo, trained for fifteen years alongside Niko Romitoand today ready to construct a personal language: a cuisine that transforms tales, gestures and ingredients from the past into a gastronomic narrative that is conscious, essential and deeply rooted in place. A cuisine that does not look to nostalgia, but to memory as living matter, capable of speaking to the present.
When you first arrived in Santo Stefano di Sessanio, what made you realise that this place could become the right space for a new idea of cooking?
I first came here four or five years ago, out of curiosity. I was not yet planning to leave the 'Real': I came for dinner, to sleep, to stay a while in the village. I was immediately struck by the project, the fact that everything was authentic, recovered and remained as it was. I thought it would be wonderful to do a cuisine here that was not only traditional, but contemporary, creative, modern, inside an ancient, early 20th century place. The idea remained there, in suspension, until I felt the need to work on something of my own.
After fifteen years at Niko Romito's side, when did you realise it was time to take this step?
I was lucky enough to grow a lot at Reale, to also be part of the creative part of the project, and I will always thank Niko Romito for the space he gave me. At a certain point you feel you need to work on your own project, to express yourself in a completely personal way. When you reach this need, you realise it is time to take an extra step and launch yourself, even with a bit of recklessness.
The project was born from the encounter between your cooking and anthropological research. How did you combine these two visions?
The managing director of the Sextantio group is also an anthropologist and had done a great job of interviewing local elders, collecting stories about how they used to cook. They were not recipes, but memories. She wanted to materialise this research in a restaurant. I had the need to express myself with a contemporary cuisine. To do only anthropological cooking would have been a limitation for me. So we combined the two, the two minds. Hence the 'Roots' and 'Evolution' menus.
What do they represent?
Radici is the materialisation of research: stories, gestures, ideas of a cuisine of the past reinterpreted today. Evolution, on the other hand, is my free-hand menu, the one that represents me most today. I like the idea that, entering here, you can find both proposals, or even mix them.
In 'Roots' you start with memories, not recipes. How do you turn a story into a dish?
For me it is almost easier to start from scratch. I am used to working without a recipe, starting from an idea. Those people would tell you 'that's how I did it', and that's when you start doing trials, lots of trials. Most of them don't work, but that's normal. In the end you turn a poor cuisine into a conscious, essential, modern cuisine, because today we have more knowledge of cooking and raw materials.
Between the two paths, 'Roots' and 'Evolution', in which one do you feel more exposed as a chef and more free to tell your story?
Certainly 'Evolution' is the course I feel most exposed to, because it pushes me to go further and continuously question myself. It is the menu where my personal vision and my way of understanding cooking today emerge the most. Technique is very present, but it must never become the absolute protagonist. For me, it is essential to find a balance between transformation and respect for the raw material: the aim is to enhance the ingredient, not overpower it. In this sense, knowing the raw material thoroughly is part of the technique itself. The more you know about an ingredient, the more you can play with it, interpret it and take it where you want, always with awareness. I also try to create dishes that are never monotonous, but that change as you eat them, that have different nuances and a certain depth. To work like this you need to know exactly what you are doing, to have sensitivity, knowledge and attention. With time, then, the dishes also evolve with you: you change, you mature, and inevitably the way you look at them also changes. It is nice to question the work done, to improve even dishes that are apparently already defined. The idea is to continue to pursue a cuisine that responds to my needs today, which is increasingly contemporary, without ever becoming a simple repetition of the past.
Yours is a mountain cuisine, made up of legumes, wild herbs, forgotten fruits. What is the ingredient that best describes this territory and why?
Lentils, certainly. An ingredient that was traditionally always eaten overcooked, often treated in a technically disrespectful way. I asked myself why turn such a good product into something that ends up not enhancing it. This gave rise to my goal of creating a 'perfect' lentil, crispy and tasty, retaining some of the territory's identifying elements, such as the bay leaf, reinterpreting it through a work of extraction, to preserve its soul and project it into a new form.
The vegetable garden and self-production are central to the project. Where do you stand?
Sextantio has its own vegetable garden near Pescara: here, at an altitude of 1,300 metres, to think of growing one would be utopian (laughs). However, we work with an agronomist who has recovered ancient seeds and varieties and, thanks to this research work, today we manage to cover about 50% of our needs. The goal is to reach 100%, but in the meantime we collaborate with small local producers, building a network consistent with our idea of cuisine and territory.
Your cuisine is strongly linked to self-production and seasonality. How difficult is it to educate the guest in this approach?
It really depends a lot on the type of guest. There are people who arrive already aware, they know where they are coming from, they have read, they have informed themselves and are happy to find a cuisine linked to seasonality and the work behind it. Others, on the other hand, stay in hotels and are looking for something simpler and more immediate. That is why we have structured the menu with two menus, Radici and Evoluzione, which can also be mixed freely. It is not about imposing a message, but about accompanying the guest and making him feel at ease.
How important is it for you to continuously update and question yourself in your daily work?
For me it is fundamental. I am never completely satisfied with what I do, because I always feel the need to do better. I think this is one of the most important aspects of our profession: if we stop updating and questioning ourselves, we risk becoming machines, capable only of repeating the same thing over and over again. Today cooking, for me, is much more than a technical exercise, it is a means of expression. Through dishes I try to make people understand who I am, what kind of sensitivity I have and what philosophy guides my work. It is a story that stems from what I create together with the kitchen brigade and the guys in the dining room, because everything that revolves around the restaurant is part of the same message. In this sense, each dish becomes the result of a shared journey, but also a tool to communicate a way of thinking about and experiencing cooking.
Your passion for cooking started very early on. How much did your origins and family environment count in this path?
They counted a lot. I was born and raised in a family hotel in the province of Chieti. From a very young age I experienced that world naturally. No one ever pushed me, already at the age of twelve I was working at the bar and in the lounge out of passion. With time I realised that cooking was what really fascinated me, especially the transformation of food through techniques and cooking. From there came hotel management school, summer internships and my first experiences in starred restaurants, until I made the conscious decision to embark on a high-level cooking career.
Looking to the future, what is the real goal of this project?
My goal is to do what I like, without compromise, to build a healthy working environment where people feel good. For me this is already a great success. If awards come, they will of course be welcome (laughs), but they are not the end of the project: they will rather be the result of work carried out with consistency, passion and serenity.
English 
Italian