Comfort food: dishes that pamper and are good for the soul. Dishes that have the power to make us feel protected, but also food that gives enjoyment. Lasagne, tortellini, meatballs, chocolate cake... Everyone has their own comfort food, but when you think about it, the first dish that comes to mind, comfort food speaking, is what grandma or mum used to cook for us. Because nothing comforts body and soul more than the warmth and scent of family.
They know it well Giacomo and Veronica Ramacciwho have built on family flavours the new concept of their restaurant.
We are in Umbria, in the historic centre of Gubbio, where theWorkshop of Flavours opens its doors to a Fine Dining that the creative interpretation of Giacomo's hand marries the Umbrian gastronomic tradition, the one to which the two brothers are so attached that they decided to turn it into the beating heart of innovative proposals that then surprise diners with their ability to bring back memories of the tables of yesteryear.
And for those who are not Umbrians, to discover the true flavours of this land through dishes that are as ingenious as they are true.
Giacomo and Veronica are children of art, having grown up breathing in the passion and craft of their father Claudio, chef of the Taverna del Lupo, for over fifty years a point of reference for the excellence of Umbrian and Gubbio cuisine. And if Giacomo inherited that passion while still in diapers and nothing could deter him from his desire to be a chef, Veronica had decided to take a different path. But the love that unites two siblings is an eternal stronghold, a drive so powerful that in 2015 she decided without hesitation to join Giacomo in the plan to open a restaurant of their own.
A project that initially focused on the alternative and innovative tale of meat: a new format with the first visible maturers and fine cuts of meat from all over the world. But Giacomo's already strong desire to give expression to his own idea of cuisine has led him to flank this proposal with gourmet interpretations of the territorial tradition.
The Officina dei Sapori thus began to make headlines, while the young Ramacci continued to study and experiment; up to the present day, a turning point that holds firm to the concreteness of the gastronomic proposals but gives voice to the desire to be innovators and forerunners: dishes that amuse and intrigue, revealing a soul that lives on the energy that only tradition can give.
"In time - says Veronica - we have gained more awareness. Giacomo has this great passion for meat, but over the years he has developed new techniques and discovered and rediscovered local products. He has expanded the range of dishes, which little by little have almost surpassed the demand for meat. And we realised that the ambience of the Officina, which was then set up as a chic osteria, and the cuisine no longer matched".
To improve you have to change, someone said; but in this case change also means giving voice to instinct and the desire to express your personality. Not only that; Giacomo and Veronica have really shown that if you want something you have to fight for it, without fear.
Thus, in February 2022 the Taste Workshop has honoured its name more than ever, becoming the voice of reinterpretation of ancient flavours, love for its roots and territorial solidarity.
Redesigned furnishings with the exclusive involvement of local suppliers and producers provide an elegant backdrop to a gastronomic proposal that uses predominantly Umbrian raw materials.
Plays of curves and shapes, soft lighting, contrasts of gold, blue and white drawn against the background of the polished stones of an ancient palace in the heart of Gubbio. Pure elegance and warmth. But you have to sit down at the table to really understand where the marriage of gourmet and tradition, of ancient and modern, plays out.
At first glance, the menu appears to be that of a local trattoria: roast chicken, meat in sauce with polenta, tongue, pizzaiola... then the dishes arrive and show something quite different, both in terms of appearance and technique, but when tasted, they engage the senses again, taking them back to the proposals of home kitchens, of family tables.
The how is quickly said. "When we rewrote the menu - explain Giacomo and Veronica - We thought it all up by recalling the dishes our grandmother used to cook, and what our parents used to bring to the table. These are the dishes that all Umbrian families ate and eat during the week: cuttlefish with peas, chicken, meat with sauce, gnocchi... But we have distorted them by dressing them up, transforming a first course into a second course, changing the textures, or playing at hiding and then revealing.
Home cooking, anchored in Umbrian tradition, dressed in modern clothes with the smile of Gubbio memories sewn on. A fun and creative version of eating the gastronomic memory of a place. You order roast chicken and a tortello arrives. You are enveloped by an overwhelming aroma of chicken and potatoes, almost as if you were in a rotisserie, and you don't understand where the aroma comes from. Then you bite into the tortello and the chicken peeps out, wrapped in a mousse of potatoes.
Or cuttlefish and peas, which become a risotto fusillo, covered with a veil recreated with cuttlefish. And again, polenta with stewed meat, transformed so much that it takes on the appearance of Gruyère, but of polenta, with bon bons of trimmings and sausage. Dishes with names that have been known for centuries that arrive in the form of other guises, but which then really do take you back to domestic and ancient scents and flavours... and that's when it all comes back. Here is the Fine Dining whether you are Umbrian or not.
A kitchen of memory that conveys the warmth of the family, but which, like the environment that welcomes you, is the modern rhythm of an ancient song. A bit like the metrical structures of the Italian poetic tradition that remain a fixed presence and an essential and necessary basis for odes, lyrics and finally free songs.
That of theWorkshop of Flavours is the free lyricism of Giacomo, with his kitchen of ideas, and Veronica, who also plays with seasonal pairings of wine glasses chosen from the open cellar shelves in the dining room.
And who knows how many rhymes of new writing still await Giacomo and Veronica, because, I forgot, they are only twenty-nine and thirty-five years old.
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