Giorgio Barchiesi

You self define yourself as an inn keeper who cooks and serve food to your “hosts or table companions” with hospitality always in mind

I’m an inn keeper, I respect the technique of today chef , but it is far from my idea of cooking .I welcome my customers and lead them along a simple path, made by local products, taste and transformation with the respect of ancient tradition.

In your Alla Via di Mezzo restaurant , one eats what the territory offers , one can not choose.It’s always you the one who offers, explains and serve different dishes like a composer in a symphony

Staying at the table is a pleasure and conviviality, it means staying together . Sometimes we say “have we ever eaten together? ”just to say if we were together with a person. At the table you have to find what we have cooked together ,sometimes all together , and that is the party, the perfect happy end of a ritual ceremony we should always keep alive .In my house , today like yesterday , we have eaten and we eat what we can found and we don’t choose this or that randomly

Travelling around Italy , you always are looking for good ingredient and food excellence , so you have re -discovered “good Italian food”. What does travelling means for you?

Cooking must be a travel occasion. You travel for pleasure of discovering different products and recipes from yours. These could be and mixed at home , trying to make them exactly as you have tasted them or changing them “as I like “.Tv series on Gambero rosso channel is based on thousand of products I’ve discovered , on thousand of people I’ve known, on thousand of recipes I’ve done .

As you wrote in one of your books “Kitchen garden and kitchen n°3 ”, in your stop in Acqualagna, you describe your version of “Tartufara”, (it means the carbonara pasta with truffle),the inevitable potatoes and eggs with truffle , and you tell us nearly all what one must know about the precious tuber.
You’ve even changed your mind about T&C truffled based products, because you have been pleasantly surprised about their goodness in kitchen and their being affordable.
That’s very important for an inn keeper like you, so bound to freshness and genuinity of products but also affordable.
Can you tell us why you were a bit distrustful about truffled based products and why, after tasting them, you have changed your mind about it?

According to me, cooking means freedom , I don’t follow diktat or impositions. That’s the reason why I don’t cook sweet (with little exception) because if you make just a little changement making the recipe , you risk to compromise the final result. I love truffle in its all different interpretations and in every season of the year.
When I tasted your truffle , as being Giorgione, I’ve tried new ways of cooking it , to go out of normal and classic ways of using it .As I’ve been Roman for 7 generations , I could not have done something but Carbonara pasta (typical roman dish)with truffle , and I called it Tartufara (a mix between carbonara and truffle).
That is a simple way to make truffle affordable for everybody. Let’s talk about my former diffident attitude, you know , I ‘m living in this time , I love truffle in itself , not only its perfume .When I’ve seen your company seriousness, and when I’ve realized by myself your good way of working , I definetly convinced myself that your products had to be good .

Your slang is particularly colouful, original :saying “how it comes to you”, or “just nothing” “messed up” “grounded” are nearly onomatopoeic expressions that sound like actions, noises without need of other explanation .how it comes the Giorgione’s vocabulary?

Today everybody talks like a chef with doses, grams and decigrams, and who wants to cook at home moves away. According to me we had to get people closer, and today, something beautiful is happening, sometimes I’m embarrassed. I created a lexicon ….Now I hear people repeat “just nothing” or “It rains dog and cats”, or “a generous dose”and I’m happy about that .I made it happen , people uses the doses as they like , according to their personal taste , from the point of view of who is cooking and who is eating .Do you like salty recipes? Add more salt , don’t you like salty? Put less salt …..It’s up to you the decision!

Being host in your restaurant it is a sensorial , tasty , visual and olfactory beautiful
experience .Last but not least , it is also an hearing experience , when you talk about your way of cooking leading us making a journey through flavors and aromas of your recipes , sometimes “nasty and corrupt”(as the title of one of Giorgione books)

My family and me we try to do everything to make people feel good .Feeling good means , a confortable ambience , out in the open, with traditional food and a gastronomic popular culture that belongs to us.Nasty and corrupt recipes?…..sometimes we do, indeed nearly always we do it .I must say that looking at some children so happy in front of tripe alla romana asking for an encore it is unbelievable .Then their mum says to me “Giorgio, does my son eat tripe???? And answer :Did you ever cook tripe for him?Of course not at all……”

Which is the product you were the most curious about during your tasting in T&C truffle ?Ready sauces, fine creams, truffled salt, truffle slices in oil or truffle honey?

First of all I was surprised about the care you put in your work, the cleaning of the rooms, the conservation technique and , last but not least, your will to make available truffle e truffle based product to everybody ,throughout the year .At the table, even if I lost of pounds, I’m always Big Giorgio and truffle is always good ……You have created a range of products suitable to any table and this fact contributes to make people easily approaching to an affordable truffle. What is this story about truffle honey?

We thank you very much indeed for your contribute and for letting us in your beautiful kitchen world. Always generous, made by authentic substance and values today in danger of extinction.