Casadonna Reale by Niko Romito - An intellectual journey and a minimalist masterpiece

Casadonna Reale is Niko Romito's minimalist hideout amongst the hills of Abbruzzo. It is well hidden and distanced from all major cities, roads and airports so it really is a destination worth looking up and worth driving at least two hours for (once you landed). 

Niko and team prides themselves for simple ingredients and a vegetable focused menu, but look underneath and you will find layers and layers of taste, deconstruction, transformation. Years and years of learning and creation and creativity have gone into every single dish.

Think broccoli leaf brushed with an almost miso like rich broccoli paste or a fermented cauliflower glazed with its own juices and pureed underneath to achieve a cauliflower bonbon almost. It says a lot about Reale that our company thought that we had more intellectual discussions about the food here than any other two or three star establishment. Niko Romito is a wizard. 

Or take my other favourite- a salad leaf infused with gin with some sour cream  foam underneath. Bombing flavours. Potato came in the form of an emulsion, cream, rosti, and a potato skin broth while green lentils with garlic oil were sitting on top of a very rich hazelnut cream. Less successful was the radicchio with a peanut butter sauce and peanut “water” but I thought the tagliatelle made only with a parmigiano “water” and lemon zest was mindbogglingly tasty even though there is no butter or fat or oil in chef Niko’s inventions. Think maximum flavour with no fat involved. How crazy is that?

Roasted endive came with a potato starch thin skin and the bitter taste was offset with a rich bayleaf sauce- that was genious. Stay tuned for dinner where the proteins were on display, but this vegetarian tasting menu was world class.

Then came the the part when proteins were served up at dinner. Once again ingredients devoid of any fat or butter - their texture made firm by experimentation, brining, and other methods but then the flavour packed on with highly concentrated pastes, sauces and broths. 

Smoky and peppery brined eel with roasted garlic. Aubergine steak with tomato and peach paste. Pigeon with a super rich pistachio paste. Beautiful pockets of tortellini with sheep ricotta filling just bursting with flavour. And then the compressed trout with almond and bayleaf sauce. 

Niko takes away but then adds back with a punch. Beautiful red prawn fettuccelle with pink pepper sauce- the flesh of the prawns as firm as they had just popped out of their shells. A highly deceptive onion broth made from onion juice reduction with some aged parmigiano mini tortellini inside and saffron fronds. Everything served around room temperature to bring out the flavours. 

Casadonna Reale is a masterpiece in saucing, texture and overall taste. You can spend hours just talking about each course and the layers of taste and construction and deconstruction that goes into them. Adding to the whole experience the place is absolutely lovely - if you can stay for lunch, dinner and breakfast like we did! 

The breakfast deserves a completely own post, but I will put some pics in just as a teaser.