Chef vows to regain Michelin star

(ANSA) - Milan, February 21 - Italian chef Carlo Cracco will be opening a 'temple of taste' in Milan's Galleria Vittorio and aims to regain a Michelin star that he lost in November. The restaurant will replace one on Via Victor Hugo and have five floors on different themes: from the wine cellars to the hall for events on the top floor. In between there will be a café-bistrot along the walkway of the Galleria, a restaurant overlooking the cupola and an entire floor serving as a laboratory for the kitchens. The cafe is the simplest and most informal: breakfasts, quick meals, simple dishes and pastries.
    The restaurant, instead, will be "a continuation" of the one on Via Victor Hugo, with such classics as caramelized Russian salad, saffron risotto and marinated egg yolk. In the scenic wine cellars of spruce, there are over 2,000 labels and 10,000 bottles, with a significant selection of Italian and French wines. With 50 tables on the ground floor and 50 on the first floor, for a total of 100 seats and capacity for 150 people standing at the counters, the Vicenza-born chef said that "my first real restaurant has been a birth of multiple twins. It is like a dish in that it tells about itself through ingredients, sensations and smells. It is a tale of both cuisine, scents and what happened here". The works took three years and the finished product is meant as homage to both cuisine and the architecture of the Galleria.
    "There is a sort of dialogue between the interiors and the exterior, as is the case with Cracco's cuisine," said the architects of Studio Peregalli, who led the works. "He wasn't afraid that the decorations might distract from his dishes. " Stucco, frescoes, mosaics, flowery wallpaper, soft lights and velvet welcome diners. "We liked this challenge," the chef said. "Today restaurants are Nordic and minimalist. There was no need for another one of them and I wanted to have my own restaurant, made with the ways that are the result of passion as well as commitment." Looking out a window, Cracco mentions another legendary Italian chef, Gualtiero Marchesi, whose pastry shop is "across the road".
    "This was Marchesi's dream, too. I wish he were here, but he decided to leave us before. I think he would have been proud of what we did. When I spoke to him about it months ago, he said he was crazy about the idea," Cracco said.