It was only a few months into my tenure as the Free Press restaurant critic when I realized that — wait — maybe my job was actually, improbably, somehow even better than I imagined.
I was sitting in a conference room with two of my editors who wanted to check in to see how I was settling in. During our wide-ranging conversation, I casually mentioned that two of metro Detroit’s most celebrated chefs were traveling to Italy to cook a pop-up dinner.
“We have to find a way to send you with them,” I remember one of my editors saying, though I’m not sure I heard her right, because how could this gig possibly get any better?
Little did I know, that crazy idea would result in me producing a documentary that would eventually send me to some of the world’s most beautiful locales, including Traverse City; California’s Napa Valley; Sedona, Arizona, and the wellspring of it all, the Italian region of Abruzzo.
It was the spring of 2016 and I’d just learned that veteran chef Luciano Del Signore of Bacco Ristorante had plans to take chef James Rigato, who’d just opened his Hazel Park hit restaurant Mabel Gray, to the Del Signore family village of Fonte D’Amore, located in one of Italy’s most underappreciated regions.
By this point, I’d had a few conversations with Rigato, whose buzzy new spot made my inaugural Best New Restaurants list, but I’d never met Del Signore, known by a crew of younger chefs in the area as “The Godfather,” both for his mentorship as well as his physical likeness to a young Al Pacino.
As it were, moments after the first time I shook the Godfather’s hand, I was asking permission to tag along on his intimate family trip with his protégé, who’d never been to Italy despite his own Italian heritage. Oh, and could I film it all for what I thought would be a 10-minute web video and feature story for the Free Press?
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That September, while my wife was six months pregnant with our first child, I boarded a plane for Rome and then caught a two-hour shuttle through the tumbling misty mountains of central Italy, passing by the mysterious ancient towns tucked into its valleys.
With little more than a couple of cameras and two wireless microphones as gear, I’d spend the next eight days trailing the two chefs around what I'd come to refer to as “the real Italy."
To this day, Abruzzo remains mostly free from swarms of tourists and is still bound to the old rhythms of Italian life, which seem to revolve almost entirely around meals. Days start with cappuccino and a pastry in the morning, followed a few hours later by lunch — or pranzo, invariably the largest meal of the day — then a long stroll through the Medieval town squares, perhaps an aperitivo or two at an outdoor cafe in the shadow of an ancient church, then a leisurely late dinner paired with Abruzzese wine (Trebbiano, Pecorino or Montepulciano) at a local osteria, followed by a nightcap of amaro before passing out around midnight.
In Sulmona, a city of about 20,000 known as the birthplace of the poet Ovid, we ate the famous skewered lamb dish arrosticini and I filmed the chefs as they procured vegetables and lamb for their pop-up dinner from the local grocer.
Just outside the city, we visited Del Signore’s parents’ childhood homes and saw the 100-year-old wine barrel built into the cellar wall that his father, John, would have to clean out as a kid.
When the chefs needed truffles for dinner, Del Signore’s uncle Tony took his truffle-hunting dogs out to the fields and dug up a couple pounds. Del Signore's Aunt Lecia offered fresh hazelnuts and 30-year-old aged balsamic from their extensive family cellar.
In the coastal town of Pescara we sampled grilled Adriatic turbot fileted tableside before heading back inland to the bucolic hilltop vineyards of Marramiero winery, where the chefs cooked a multi-course dinner for 30 friends and family.
All the details of that trip are too much to recite here, and instead of a 10-minute web video, "Dinner in Abruzzo: A Journey Home with My Culinary Godfather," grew to become a 34-minute documentary that screened to sold-out crowds at film festivals around the country.
Four years later, we're getting the gang back together and returning to Abruzzo to relive the magic — but this time you're invited.
The Free Press has partnered with the chefs and Sky Vacations to offer a first-of-its-kind trip. In September 2020, Del Signore, Rigato and I will be hosting a culinary and wine-filled tour through Abruzzo that retraces many of our original steps through the region.
We're offering two departure dates, each for 24 lucky guests who will experience an intimate nine-night trip through "the real Italy" with us. We'll be invited into Aunt Lecia and Uncle Tony's home for a special feast, tour Marramiero winery and one of Italy's best breweries, eat like Italians, and see the beautiful sights along the way.
Registration opens at noon Nov. 8, but tickets are extremely limited and expected to sell out. More info, including pricing and full itinerary can be found at skyvacations.net/dinnerinabruzzo.
We hope you'll join us.
Send your dining tips to Free Press Restaurant Critic Mark Kurlyandchik at 313-222-5026 or mkurlyandc@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @MKurlyandchik and Instagram @curlyhandshake. Read more restaurant news and reviews and sign up for our Food and Dining newsletter.
https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/dining/mark-kurlyandchik/2019/11/03/join-2-top-chefs-and-our-restaurant-critic-trip-italy/4124843002/ 2019-11-03 11:01:00Z
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