The chef in his 2 Michelin star restaurant, Madonnina del Pescatore in Senigallia, studies, researches and transforms the fish of the Adriatic with cutting-edge technologies and techniques. And the result is a journey into wonderland
The Madonna of the fishermen watches over the fate of the sailors. That of the beach of Marzocca, a hamlet a few kilometers from the center of Senigallia, also watched over an atypical navigator. Moreno Cedroni he should have gone to sea after attending the nautical institute, but instead of boarding a merchant ship at the age of 20 he embarked on a self-taught crossing that has now lasted for 36 years. In 1984 he opened the Madonnina del Pescatore, today two Michelin stars and acclaimed restaurant that celebrates Adriatic fish without reservations, without fear of cooking it, without that false respect of those who prefer not to "touch" it much. Here fish is cooked very well, even with the most modern technologies.
36 years of work, the first fish street food, the first Italian sushi
Thirty years of history are long to tell in a few lines, but to understand each other in Marzocca the beach is public, there are no bathing establishments and not even the velvet sand of nearby Senigallia. It's all gravel, we are at the mouth of a river, in a former fishing port and with a refinery on the horizon. It was not paradise, but today it is a holiday resort for the Marches and a place in the Moreno Cedroni restaurant for the rest of the world. In reality the missed sailor didn't want to be a cook either, but the restaurateur, and after making his debut in the dining room, grinding traditional dishes, pizzas and large numbers, he entered the kitchen. In 1991 he arrives Mariella Organs, then a student and looking for an evening job, now a wife and a maitre d '. Tours to the big restaurants begin, including Ferran Adrià's El Bulli: love at first sight. In 1995 the first Michelin star arrives.
Now that haute cuisine has become popular heritage and that chefs are raging on television, those years seem very far away, but they are those of the molecular cuisine revolution and of the idea that raw materials could be transformed and reinvented, to become, as in fact it was for Cedroni, sea salami, shrimp hot dogs, preserves and matured fish. In the early years of the New Millennium, the Madonnina del Pescatore was a restaurant of the Buon Ricordo dishes, with the recipe for hake with potatoes and lentils. Today Cedroni was responsible for the invention of susci Italian and seafood sandwiches: very popular, but never seen before the opening of places like Il Clandestino in Portonovo and Anikò in the center of Senigallia. A gourmet kiosk on the beach in 2000 and a local dedicated to street food in 2003 were pure avant-garde. In 2006 the second Michelin star arrives.
Madonnina del Pescatore: the culture of fish
The Madonnina del Pescatore is a place where you can't touch the fish "as little as possible in order not to ruin it", but you have studied it so much that you know how to caress it, touch it, jerk and upset to bring out an experience that goes beyond the perfect simplicity of a raw or a cooking mentioned. Technology, the obsessive control of procedures, the meticulous observation of its nature and its possible forms, makes it possible to go further, arriving at new and very pleasant tastes and textures. The raw, interpreted without drowning it in seasonings, the bones as well as the offal, the turbot made in a rib, codifying a cut of fish never invented before. 'Give a man a fish and you will feed it one day. Teach them to fish and you will do it for a lifetime. " The proverb is Chinese and although Cedroni is in love with Japanese cuisine and respect for raw materials, it suits him perfectly: fish does not just want to serve it on the table, it wants to make it an object of reflection, culture and knowledge.
Penne rigate, freeze-dried curls
The pens in the restaurant had not been seen for a lifetime, much less striped. Here instead come those of the Pastificio Gentile, served with sea urchin butter, dried scallops, wild herbs and cuttlefish with coals; with a star of freeze-dried sea urchins, with which to measure the strength of the dish, to be eaten with tongs and pot-lick. Octopus is steamed before grilled, served with avocado and cauliflower marinated in miso, with a consistency and flavor that are a masterpiece. The dessert honey ice cream is whipped in ultrasound in the nearby laboratory, The Tunnel, where with machinery loaned by the pharmaceutical or cosmetics industries, results otherwise unattainable with pans and strainers are achieved. But be careful, not for an astonishment as an end in itself, to decorate or, even worse, to bewilder the guest, but to make them try an increasingly interesting, amplified and complex experience. Innovation and creativity always go to the service of taste, and technology remains an instrument. Research is carried out in the Tunnel, just as much as at the Officina they are canned and preserved for years – another at least pioneering project – fish-based recipes and fish meats are produced, focusing on large numbers and products that can travel through time and in space.
I tasting 2020: memories and wonders
The 2020 "Childhood Memories" menu traces historic dishes in a new guise. The scallop is cooked in tempura as I challenge to find, with cuttlefish ink, clams and courgettes and daikon sauce, the Psychedelic Spaghetto is dated 1998 or the turbot with salt, where the turbot is no longer fresh, but has left to hang a dozen of days. The tasting also included a new vision of liquid Parmesan Tortellini, raw meat beaten with a knife, tomato sauce, Spanish memory balsamic jam. "Moreno and Luca" the most creative tasting menu, signed by four hands with Luca Abbadir, the chef's alter ego. The razor clams now rare in the sea are served reconstructed with a Margarita to drink, the oyster is a spicy reminder of a trip to Vietnam, the pigeon as required by the current trend is served "natural" that is from head to paw. Dessert, an incredible texture for the very light 15 grams per cube: white chocolate ice cream, passion fruit sauce, grilled thyme and pomelo. At the end of each journey, the small patisserie is replaced by a journey through five sweet hearts in Alice in Wonderland. To be sipped, because to quote Lewis Carroll, it is "enough to open your eyes to return to the faded reality without fantasy of adults". The fish as it appears to you after the pilgrimage to the Madonnina del Pescatore is no longer what it once was.
