He works from 12 to 14 hours a day but never loses his smile. He tells his story nonchalantly, even if that of Isis is not just any story. She starts when her sister decides to open a restaurant and she, with her scientific diploma and her studies in engineering seems destined to be completely different, tries to help her. It looks like a gig and instead it's love. In quick succession Iside De Cesare he enrolls in a cooking school, starts working for various top-level restaurants, meets chef Romano Gordini and bursts with love again. They get married and open a restaurant at the top of a hill near Viterbo, in Lazio, at the crossroads with Tuscany and Umbria. Is called La Parolina: the name did not choose them, is that of the pre-existing room.
"We kept it because it tells of a whispered kitchen", explains Iside De Cesare, "in a delicate balance between tradition and innovation, without frills, clean, tasty". At the raw material level, there is an interregional fusion of products "and above all the search for a collaborative relationship with local producers". The house of Isis is adjacent to the restaurant and the kitchen is shared, from the same stove the dishes for the lucky patrons and those for the family are born. "When Azzurra and Giacomo, my children, want a snack, they write me the command" Isis jokes, "and since we opened La Letterina (the B&B), the number on the bedroom door has been attached: I can never tell them that this house is not a hotel … ". To listen to it we laugh at taste and we have the exact idea of the situation, of that warmth, of that familiarity, of that irony that is sometimes hidden in high-level kitchens. Here is everything. And the Michelin star, confirmed for 10 years, says a lot.
Irreducible, cheerful, delicate, born in 1973: Iside De Cesare is one of those brave people who knew how to change their destiny with Swiss timing. After leaving the faculty of engineering, he became a chef in record time, earned a Michelin star in 2009 and joined the Jeunes Restaurateurs in 2010. His cuisine is territorial with flair, family with elegance. It stands out for its excellent and unusual balance of flavors: an example of this is the recipe it has prepared for us, where the bitter taste of hazelnuts marries meat with meat in a surprising encounter.
Iside de Cesare is the patron, along with her husband Romano Gordini, de La Parolina di Trevinano (Viterbo). A pleasant hilly area, where Lazio tradition meets and blends with those of Tuscany and Umbria. In addition to the starred restaurant, the two spouses run the La Parolina per Te banqueting service (for receptions and events) and the delicious bed and breakfast La Letterina.
by Cristiana Cassé, photo by Michele Tabozzi
on Sale & Pepe in May 2019
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