Cured meats, cheeses, desserts, pasta and even wine: the list of quality products is long, the result of Italian gastronomic excellence, which could be tasted in Nice from last June 7th until 11th along the beautiful Promenades Des Anglais, scope of the Salone L''Italie à Table, an appointment under the European program Sistina, now in its 15th edition, in which small artisans have made tourists, passing customers and French catering professionals taste their products. A way to promote across the border niche productions of the highest level that could intercept the demand not only of tourists but above all of those who work with food every day, as chefs, owners of premises, wholesalers. "The idea came about 16 years ago," he explains Michele Palmieri, a young person in charge of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Nice – when they were looking for a way to introduce some typical excellences of Piedmont and Liguria, the two regions closest to France, to the French market. It began with only references from the provinces of Cuneo, Imperia, Veneto and Emilia, to arrive at today where there are over forty exhibitors, they come from all over Italy and most of them have confirmed their participation for years ". A won bet therefore.

Cheeses, honey, oil and biscuits. All the Made in Italy excellences

Walking through the stands is like finding corners of Italy where accents mix with local products. Among the many exhibitors, the company Bonifazi, was one of the first to believe in the project of L''Italie à Table. It produces extra virgin olive oil from the early 1900s in the Umbrian countryside. The olives are the local ones, leccino, moraiolo and frantoio, the production remained artisanal, although over the years the numbers of the bottles produced have grown. Giuseppe Veglio produces his own Tuma d 'Fe on the hills of the high Langa, with milk produced by its 120 sheep that graze freely in the meadows. He has been coming to Nice for years. The cheese is made only from April to November, when the milk is rich in all the aromas and aromas of the field herbs. Once heated to 37 ° the sheep's rennet is added and then the toma remains to rest for two days. It is "caressed" with a pinch of light blue Sicilian salt, left to rest for another week and then it is ready to be tasted. At their first salon they are the owners of the Perfumed Experience Laboratory by Riolo Terme, a shop where ancient grains mix with seeds and spices to create recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation biscuits that smell of lavender, turmeric and hazelnuts, in which every bite is like a return to childhood.

Meeting with French cuisine

These benches at the L’Italie à Table salon are an opportunity to get to know those who really are behind the products they often use, without knowing their history. This is why Sebastien Perinetti, manager of the restaurant "Canon" in the center of Nice every year this fair is not lost for anything in the world. “I have always used many Italian, Ligurian and Piedmontese specialties above all – he tells us when we meet him – starting with oil, cheeses, polenta, which in the restaurant I propose combined with lamb and white beans from Pigna, another Italian specialty , a Slow Food presidium cultivated in the province of Imperia ”. And then the natural wines of Fornovo and the trombetta courgettes, typical Ligurian. In his restaurant the menu changes twice a day, "because – he explains – it depends on what the suppliers bring me: the fisherman, for example, arrives at 13. I know what I can offer my guests at that time". Attention to the highest quality products also for the restaurant L'atelier, by Stephane Chenneveau, who specialized in porridge, which in France they call Socca. He proposes it as a base on which he then serves fish, meat, vegetables and cheeses, and accompanies it with a good glass of wine (he has over 600 references between biodynamic and natural), often Italian. He also does not miss the L’Italie à Table show because, as he tells us, “we French are like you Italians, attentive to detail, always discovering new excellence to offer to our guests. And this is the right place to stay ”.