To get to theEmbankment at Vencò you pass through the wonderful places and landscapes of the Collio. Woods and streams; vineyards that chase each other one after the other and that greenness that slowly takes you to a dimension of peace, a little bit out of the world, out of the daily routine, with the desire to breathe in the scent of nature and to steal a little bit of its generating force.
Green then dominates absolute more than ever at theEmbankmentthat same greenery and those same scents of herbs and flowers that Antonia Klugmann makes you find yourself in the dishes. She is simply marvellous behind the glass of the open kitchen; a small but gigantic woman, with that smile she gives to herself and her culinary works.
Because his gaze is there, fixed on his work, but then you find his smile in the risotto he serves you and it magically passes from his lips to yours. Minimal furnishings and an intense, warm scent of wood; large windows overlooking the lawn and hills. Green once again. And a little further on, the vegetable garden, Antonia's, full of those flavours with which the menu is embellished.
Sitting at a small table under a leafy tree, right next to the vegetable garden, Antonia KlugmannWhen the lunch service is over, he reveals to me the world behind his smile.
Clean face, jeans and trainers under a chef's jacket. She sits down and crosses her legs, brings her gaze closer to mine, listens to me and then begins her story. A few minutes, or rather seconds, and I am literally swept up into her world: she so spontaneously serene and me already wanting to look a little like her, sincerely admiring.
Antonia, how do you achieve the serenity that you have in your eyes and in your smile, and that you convey with your dishes?
I am happy that there is this feeling of serenity. I don't know, I'm kind of always looking for happiness, and also looking for balance. I think my work helps me; you know, always having a clear goal. I see that the most agitated people are the ones looking for direction. I, on the other hand, have direction right now. Believe me, I have set myself a whole series of crazy goals for my 40th birthday, which I will celebrate in September. They are secrets, but they are there...having goals helps.
But was it because of cooking or because of cooking that you became the person you are now?
I am grateful to the kitchen. The kitchen never lies. You know when you think 'this person is in tune with me'? Well, I have always thought that about some colleagues whom I admired for what they had achieved, for their style of cooking, their relationship with ingredients, with the land. Cooking was always the means by which I got to know them, and I always found a consistency: someone fascinates me because of what he conveys with his dishes, and in the end what he communicates is exactly the person he is. I hope that this also applies to me, that there is a consistency of message and life that comes through in my dishes. But you know, it's not trivial, it's absolutely not.
At a certain point in your life, after an accident, you had to step away from the cooker and dedicate yourself to the vegetable garden. And today your dishes speak of this: of the garden, of nature, of the land...
Yes, I hope so. The main part of my inspiration is beauty. And beauty can be anywhere. I look for it in my surroundings. I think it is really important that each of us live where we want to, where we feel like living, if possible. I remember meeting chefs who would tell me 'when I retire I would like to live there', or 'I will go there in thirty years'. And inside I would say 'but sorry, do I have to wait that long? Do I have to go through all this effort to finally be able to stay where I like? It's not possible!". In that sense I thought selfishly about myself, because I really believe that you have to live where you want to,
do what one wants, obviously being responsible for oneself and without burdening others, including financially. It's not that I'm a Snow White. Getting this far has been very difficult. And anyway I live as if the journey is still to come: I think about all the things I haven't done yet and never about what I have done. That's my characteristic, I always feel somewhat dissatisfied and ask myself 'do I deserve this'?
Are you a perfectionist?
Yes, in work I am. In everything else I am quite sloppy. But I have now made my work my life, so I think about work almost all the time and my personal improvement is also work improvement. Everything has somehow become part of work. What do I know, you go to see a film and you do it because you relax and so the next day you have your mind free to think about new dishes.
What does the Embankment say about you?
I was enchanted by this place. When I arrived here, it was half destroyed, but I saw this unspoilt landscape. At night it is even more extraordinary: you can only hear the birds and there are very few lights. L'Argine tells a coherence, because we are on a border (Italy-Slovenia) and I, as a Triestine, feel good on the border. Then I chose to live in the country for a lot of reasons concerning the ingredients, but also because of the kind of life you can have: isolating yourself and then connecting with the world when you want; being able to get to the airport in a quarter of an hour and go anywhere; always being connected in your head, being up-to-date, studying constantly, but at the same time being able to be outside when you want, when you need. That for me is the Embankment, and the name is no accident.
Is being a woman in the culinary world more difficult?
I think it is like that for every profession. And I think it's just a matter of time. Think about women lawyers: until 20 years ago it was unthinkable that there were the same number of men and women enrolled in university. The expectations placed on women's lives are certainly still very different from those placed on men's lives. The fact that a woman devotes 14 hours a day to her profession, whatever it is, is still something complex, difficult to balance in her private life: husband, children... But it is true for all professions.
Tell me about your typical day.
Three mornings a week I go running, then I go shopping and go into the restaurant around 10.30-11.00 and I don't get off again until 1.00am. The rest of the week I wake up, come in around 8.30 and then finish around 4.30, go home, stay there for an hour, come back and then I don't go out again until one o'clock. It's a big sacrifice, but you told me that you've made your job your life... In this job nobody can assure you, as in sport, that all the effort you put in will come back to you. You give it your all and you have to make the most of the talent, the gift you have. The hours you put in are crucial. Some of my colleagues work even harder than I do, I am a fan of my colleagues, I love cooks, I love my job, I love people who succeed through hard work and talent.
What are Antonia's greatest strengths and weaknesses?
I am definitely self-centred, in the sense that I believe that all the strengths I somehow lose in the course of the day are strengths that I do not then use in the kitchen. I have learnt to think a lot about myself as a workforce. I realised that we cooks must have a healthy life. Because your career has to last 40 years and you have to be mentally and physically healthy. It is not a triviality and I had to learn to think a lot about myself.
After the TV experience of Masterchef you have recovered more this thinking about yourself.
Yes, my point of view has changed. Television is a violence that you suffer if you have not thought of yourself in an aesthetic way but always and only in a working way. Seeing yourself in an image is a challenging thing and I turned this experience into an opportunity to improve myself. I looked at myself from the outside, thought about how I looked, went on a diet, started running. I really changed my lifestyle, not because someone asked me to, but because I am more aware of myself and my age.
What colour are you?
Green, definitely. In fact, Vencò is green. Weed green, like the pea and weed risotto you now have on the menu....
I believe that cooks have to work a lot with herbs, which are very common but are perceived as being out of context and are therefore conceived of as weeds. There is a beautiful book, 'The Praise of Weeds', which tells how the history of man and the history of weeds are always connected. It is a cultural issue: a weed is considered out of place for a long time, then culturally it is accepted: it is decided not only that it is edible but also that it is interesting and cultivation begins. The way we struggle with weeds has changed agricultural history and I believe it will change it again. How we deal with the spontaneous will ensure that somehow a balance is found again'.
I look at her 'weeds', that green, which has now entered my soul. I would still ask Antonia Klugmann a thousand questions, you would spend hours with her, but her break will soon give way to the dinner line. At least half an hour to herself. She gets up and walks away, with a smile always on her face, and in her heart.
Cover photo: Mattia Mionetto
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