`Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a 'Pillar of My Cuisine' - Olive Oil Times
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enEnglishfrFrançaiselελληνικάdeDeutscheitItalianozh-CN中文ptPortuguêsesEspañoltrTürkçehrHrvatskija日本語hiहिंदी

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a 'Pillar of My Cuisine'

By Luciana Squadrilli
Aug. 24, 2015 13:33 UTC

Extra vir­gin olive oil is a sta­ple in recipes of the tra­di­tional cen­tral and south­ern Italy cui­sine, and it is ever more val­ued by chefs all over the coun­try. But even then, it is not so com­mon to meet a chef as pas­sion­ate and com­pe­tent about this ingre­di­ent as Matia Barciulli, the exec­u­tive chef of the Antinori’ fam­i­ly’s restau­rants in Tuscany, includ­ing the Michelin-starred Osteria di Passignano.

Set in an his­tor­i­cal build­ing, which is part of the Abbey of Passignano, an ancient monastery dat­ing back to 395 and still inhab­ited by monks, the Osteria is a charm­ing restau­rant sur­rounded by the vine­yards belong­ing to the Italian wine dynasty.

Matia Barciulli

Being born and raised in Tuscany — a region syn­ony­mous with excel­lent olive oils — helped for sure, but Matia devoted extra­or­di­nary effort, time and pas­sion in research­ing the sub­ject.

As he recalls, he was still a stu­dent at the hos­pi­tal­ity train­ing insti­tute in Florence when one of his class­mate’s father asked him to help with orga­niz­ing food and oil pair­ings. Matia was young but already expe­ri­enced hav­ing worked in pizze­rias and restau­rants dur­ing school hol­i­days, and the man was really happy with his con­tri­bu­tion.

That man was Marco Mugelli, one of the world’s great­est and beloved olive oil experts. ​“He then became my teacher on extra vir­gin, and I started to cher­ish this prod­uct as one of the most pre­cious for my cook­ing,” Matia says. ​“For me it is not only a sea­son­ing but a proper ingre­di­ent and a pil­lar of my cui­sine.”
See Also:In Memory of Marco Mugelli
​“Every year, I choose at least 7 dif­fer­ent ​“shades” to be used in dif­fer­ent recipes, from Tuscany to Sicily. I do not believe in ​‘zero-mile’ food when it comes to qual­ity prod­ucts.”

Depending on the sea­son, on the Osteria’s menu one can find dishes such as the ​“Pappa al pomodoro” ravi­oli, stuffed with the typ­i­cal mix­ture of dry bread and ripe toma­toes and served with basil pesto, Grana cheese shav­ings and a gen­er­ous driz­zle of the fan­tas­tic, flower-scented Olivastra Seggianese sin­gle vari­ety made by Frantoio Franci; the Monkfish and baby octo­pus, fake rock of bread with herb bou­quet and olive oil with the intense Apulian Don Gioacchino Sabino Leone made with Coratina olives.

And there is the lovely extra vir­gin ice cream, which he serves in dif­fer­ent dessert recipes choos­ing the appro­pri­ate extra vir­gin accord­ing to the over­all result. For exam­ple, he uses the gen­tle pit­ted Casaliva sin­gle vari­ety made by Comincioli for his refined ​“fiord’o­lio” ice-cream served with hazel­nut bis­cuit and vanilla-scented apri­cots.

Barciulli arrived at the Osteria di Passignano in 2001, fol­low­ing his meet­ing with Marcello Crini who had recently launched the restau­rant with Allegra Antinori. When, after a few months, chef Marco Stabile — now run­ning his own restau­rant Ora d’Aria in Florence — left the helm of the Osteria he took over the kitchen, begin­ning to travel around and explore places and fla­vors to cre­ate his own style. In 2007, the Michelin star rewarded his efforts.

2013 was another fun­da­men­tal year in Barciulli’s life and career. Antinori win­ery launched its new and impres­sive wine cel­lar in San Casciano Val di Pesa, in the very heart of the renowned Chianti Classico area: a stun­ning con­tem­po­rary and sus­tain­able archi­tec­tural project, it is barely vis­i­ble from a dis­tance and has been designed to min­i­mize the impact on the envi­ron­ment and for max­i­mum energy effi­ciency.

The cel­lar also hosts the Rinuccio 1180 restau­rant, which serves a sim­pler yet tasty Tuscan cui­sine. Barciulli cur­rently is the exec­u­tive chef of all the Antinori’s hos­pi­tal­ity and food prop­er­ties, lead­ing the kitchens of the dif­fer­ent restau­rants.

Sadly in 2013 both Marco Mugelli and Massimo Pasquini, another key ambas­sador for Tuscan extra vir­gin olive oil, passed away. In their mem­ory Matia Barciulli, together with other friends who share with him the pas­sion for extra vir­gin and the bond with the two men, founded Il Magnifico International Competition, whose award cer­e­mony in 2015 was held in the Antinori win­ery.

It was on that occa­sion that we tasted Matia’s extra vir­gin ice-cream, which he espe­cially pre­pared for the cer­e­mony using the win­ning olive oil.

The extra vir­gin ice-cream recipe is quite easy, but it is imper­a­tive, as in any food you really care about, to use a great extra vir­gin olive oil:

- low fat yogurt 260 grams
 — extra vir­gin olive oil 100 grams
 — sugar syrup (32° Baumè) 115 grams

Mix all the ingre­di­ents with a hand blender and process with an ice-cream maker. Keep frozen until serv­ing.

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