Laboratorio Reale

In early December I was in Copenhagen for a friend’s birthday. Just an overnight trip, because in this period of my life I unfortunately only have brief snippets of free time: two dinners, a lunch a quick spin through the furniture shops. I had a tiny suitcase and decided to forego any acquisitions to leave room for a loaf of bread that had particularly impressed me. The bread’s creator is Christian Puglisi (of the restaurants Relæ, Manfreds and Bæst), an excellent bread developed together with Chad Robertson of Tartine, in San Francisco: a dough at once light and creamy, tart, with a pleasantly toasted crispiness to the crust. Puglisi’s isn’t the only bread I’ve fallen in love with (the various others are from

Today we’re closing Reale for the winter break, perhaps the longest since we moved to Casadonna in 2011. We’ll reopen on March 2nd, with dinner service. Those who know me know how hard it is for me to close for so long, but I understand that it’s necessary – and not only for recovering one’s energy and creative ‘juices’. During this break, first I’ll travel and reflect for a while, and then, with my trusty crew, I’ll dive even deeper into the research we’ve been conducting recently. We’ve always done research, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’ve never been so focused and full of enthusiasm and ideas as in the last eight months. This year marks in