Home Cooking, Gucci Style

By now, fans of both fashion and foodstuffs will be familiar with the Gucci Osteria, the restaurant created in 2018 by Italian luxury house Gucci in collaboration with mega-chef Massimo Bottura.

The one-Michelin-starred restaurant is located Florence’s historic Palazzo della Mercanzia and is now headed by Chef Karime Lopez, whose distinguished resume includes stints spent working at Chef Virgilio Martinez’s Central restaurant in Peru, Enrique Olvera’s Pujol in Mexico City, and René Redzepi’s Noma in Copenhagen, among others.

Meanwhile, the Gucci Osteria extended its reach to other cities. It hosted a popup in Singapore last year, and launched a new permanent outpost in Los Angeles earlier this year — although its debut was unfortunately scuppered by the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

In these home-bound times, there are no patrons at any of the Gucci Osterias — but it does not mean that there is nobody enjoying their menu.

To help uplift the spirits of those of us denied fine dining, Gucci and Chef Karime Lopez have taken a cue from other celebrity chefs, and shared two of the recipes from the Gucci Osteria menu — Lucky Fennel and Pollock.

To get the recipes and have a little fine-dining experience in the comfort of your own home, read on.

LUCKY FENNEL

I thought of this recipe that uses fennel as a basic ingredient because it is a seasonal vegetable and because of all the stories and curiosities surrounding this vegetable. In Greek and Roman history, in fact, fennel was considered symbol of strength and vigour and they believe it brought luck.

Some treatises on Ancient Rome reported how Roman gladiators added fennel to their dishes to be successful in the arena and, when they won the fights, they were crowned with a garland of fennel.

This is also the reason why — for the Gucci Osteria menu — we called this dish “Lucky Fennel”.

Chef Karime Lopez

LUCKY FENNEL | LINGUINE WITH FENNEL CREAM (Serves 2)

Fennel Cream

• 4 Fennel Bulbs for the cream
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt

Wash and cut the fennel coarsely, steam them at 90 ºC° for 2 hours. Drain the fennel once cooked and whisk them with extra virgin olive oil and salt until creamy. Pass the cream in the chinois strainer with fine mesh.

Wild Fennel Oil

• 400g Seed Oil
• 200g Wild Fennel

Whisk 400 g of seed oil with 200 g of wild fennel. Then heat the oil in a saucepan and bring it to a temperature of 80 ºC. Filter the oil in a sac à poche and then filter it with the chinois strainer with fine mesh.

Pistachios

• 20 Pistachios

Toast the pistachios in the oven at 190 ºC for 4 minutes. Grate them with a microplane.

Main Dish

• 2 Sliced Fennel Bulbs
• 2 Red Prawns
• 1 Lemon
• Lemon Oil
• 100g Linguine Pasta

Cook the linguine pasta in abundant salted water for about 5 minutes. Drain the linguine and finish cooking in the pan for 3 minutes, adding the fennel cream and the lemon oil to make them creamy. Season the raw and finely sliced ​​fennel with the wild fennel oil. Season the prawns with extra virgin olive oil and the lemon peel and cut them into 6 pieces each.

Note: As an alternative for Fennel bulb, you can substitute per pound needed:

• 1 lb of celery (more aromatic, cooks faster) + 1 tsp fennel seed
• 1 lb of bok choy stems + 1 tsp fennel seed

PLATING

Spread the grated pistachios on the base of the plate, and lay a nest of linguine on top, developing it in height. Add 6 pieces of prawn, other pistachio powder and finely sliced ​​fennel. Garnish the dish with wild fennel leaves.

POLLOCK

I chose this recipe, because it’s easy to make and it needs ingredients that we all have at home. Usually we prepare this dish without gluten, but all-purpose “00” flour can also be used.

It is a fun recipe because you can vary the filling each time you make it using ingredients that you have in the fridge, such as vegetables or meat, and the color of each sauce can be changed according to the vegetables or herbs used. Even more colors can be added!

When we created this dish, it looked like an artwork by Jackson Pollock, so we decided to call it exactly that.

Enjoy the recipe!!!

Chef Karime Lopez

POLLOCK (Serves 2)

Datterino Tomato Sauce

• 100g Yellow Datterino tomato — can be replaced with local cherry tomatoes
• 2 Spoons Extra Vigin Olive Oil
• 5g Finely-Diced Garlic
• 2 Basil Leaves
• Fine salt

In a saucepan, fry oil, garlic and basil, add the tomatoes and cook for 20 minutes, whisk and sift, salt lightly.

Red Pepper Sauce

• 100g Red Bell Pepper
• 2 Spoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 5g Finely diced garlic
• 1 Bay leaf
• Fine salt

Bake the seedless pepper for 40 minutes in the oven at 180 degrees, peel it and roast it in a pan with oil, garlic and bay leaf. Remove the bay leaf and whisk the pepper until it becomes a homogeneous sauce, salt lightly.

Chard sauce

• 100g Chard — can be replaced with Mature spinach/Mustard greens/Cavalo Nero(Black Tuscan) kale or Large Bak Coy
• Cooking water
• Fine salt

Blanch the chard for 2 minutes in salted water and cool in water and ice. One half must be cut with a knife for the filling and the other half must be blended with its cooking water until it becomes a homogeneous sauce.

Bechamel sauce

• 250g Milk
• 15g Corn flour
• 25g Butter
• 2g Macis (Nutmeg)

Flavor the milk with the macis (nutmeg) and simmer it.

Separately prepare the base of butter and cornflour, then pour the milk while turning with a whisk until it becomes a homogeneous sauce, salt lightly.

Discs of pasta

• 100g Gluten-Free Flour (or 00 flour)
• 1 Whole egg

Mix the flour with the egg and leave to rest in cling film for 30 minutes. Spread to 1 millimeter thick and cut the dough to the desired size, cook the discs in salted water for 2 minutes.

Filling

• 50g Ricotta cheese
• 50g Cut chard
• 10g Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Fine salt

Stir in a bowl and serve warm.

PLATING

Put a disc of pasta on a preferably deep plate, add the filling and cover with a second disk of pasta. Finally, cover the pasta disc with all the lukewarm sauces in an artistic way, Jackson Pollock style.