New season at La Pista del Lingotto, the most spectacular restaurant in Turin – and one of the most spectacular in Italy – on the legendary test track of Matté Trucco in the former Fiat factory at Lingotto, which has become the largest rooftop garden in Europe, featuring 40,000 plants.
Chef Alessandro Scardina and the new menus
Replacing Fabrizio Tesse at the end of his contract in late December is Alessandro Scardina, who comes from Villa La Bollina in Serravalle (AL). A young Turin-born chef with Sicilian origins, born in 1991, Scardina has over 15 years of international professional experience, working as a chef de partie at the Four Seasons in London, Lum Dining in Sydney, and various locations in Greece and Spain, including a prestigious internship at Noma in Copenhagen.
As a result, his cuisine is daring, surprising, and experimental. Blending fusion and exotic influences, Japanese and Peruvian inspirations, classicism, seasonality, and contemporaneity – "I cook my memories, my travels" is Scardina's mantra. He offers three menus: Trust, the boldest, most creative, contemporary, and personal menu, featuring dishes like crab and horseradish, beef and sea urchin, cod and corn, bananas and bacon... Botanic World, a five-course all-vegetarian menu with unique pairings, such as kale and unripe mango, potato and coconut. The third menu is Radici-Gli Essenziali, celebrating tradition and Piedmontese cuisine with dishes like vitello tonnato (but made with grilled underblade instead of eye of round, more intense and flavorful), and agnolotti del plin with three roasts: rabbit, beef, and pork.
Working alongside Scardina is Daniele Lo Grasso, his longtime sous chef, with whom he has worked and traveled, Davide Sterrantino, maître and sommelier, Mattia Dagnelli, deputy maître, and Evi Polliotto, a well-known pastry chef in the Turin pastry scene. Scardina declares himself "super anxious and super happy... We have had great experiences, we are challenging ourselves, but we are sure of what we do because we have been cooking and eating for a lifetime."
As a statement from a chef, it's a promising start.
La Pista - Via Nizza 262, Torino - Tel. 011.19173073 www.ristorantelapista.com
Wine promotion, vineyard uprooting, and support for dealcoholised wines: the European Commission's historic compromise on viticulture
A small Sicilian farmer with 40 cows wins silver at the World Cheese Awards
Women are the best sommeliers. Here are the scientific studies
Where to eat at a farm stay in Sicily: the best addresses in the Provinces of Trapani, Palermo, and Agrigento
Wine in cans, bottle-fermented, and alcohol free: the unstoppable change in Gen Z’s tastes
