Monaco: the precious Italy of Antonio Salvatore | Gilles Pudlowski’s blog
He is 36 years old, looking like a hardworking young man, always dissatisfied, constantly wanting to go higher. He sets up restaurants in New York, but remains faithful and present in Monaco in his now starred table in the basement of Rampoldi. Why not say? We want a setting other than this greedy Nautilus with a giant screen where tourist images of Italy and elsewhere scroll by to highlight the real talent of Antonio Salvatore.
This native of Guardia Perticara, who grew up in Basilicata in the province of Matera, took classes at the hotel school in Potenza, apprenticed with large brigades, worked in Spain, Madrid and the Canary Islands, but also in England in Leicester, in Bassano-del-Grappa in Veneto, then in Moscow at the Italian Embassy and on a large boat moored in a Moscow canal, finally with Nino Graziano, who cut two stars at the Mulinazzo in Palermo , a luxury exile in Russia in his restaurant “Semifreddo”. He thus shows that he is obstinate and knows how to travel, to rub shoulders with all styles.
If he has a chic brasserie in the classic Italian and Mediterranean style on the ground floor of Rampoldi as well as on the terrace, a stone’s throw from the Monte-Carlo Casino, Antonio gives free rein to his creative vein in his basement fitted out like a submarine where you are immersed, in the evening only. There, parade the amuse-bouche scholars: barbajuan with zucchini cream, cannoli stuffed with eggplant and parmesan caviar, waffle with foie gras, goat cheese, tomato and black olive jam, tartlet with cream of potatoes and chanterelle mushrooms, parmesan biscuit and anchovy butter.
We whistle again the cappuccino of porcini mushroom soup with coffee, with its potato foam and white truffle, then we discover its version of vitello tonnato in “button”, with roast veal, tuna sauce, caper powder and smoked pepper. Then place the “Rosso di San Remo”: the divine red prawn soup with Sicilian pistachios and fresh tagliolini – one of his best verses! Before the “Girotondo (in other words: the “round dance”) di Raviolo: “fresh pasta stuffed with beef cheek, parmesan cream, meat juice, seasonal mushrooms and white truffle.
We do not omit, in passing, the seductive risotto with vegetables seasoned with vermouth which gives them a just bitterness. Then a piece of king, simple and refined: the white truffle tagliolini. There is still the Mediterranean sole with red wine, fennel and white truffle sauce, then the variation on Bresse poultry, crème caramel sauce, wheat risotto, lime and ginger caviar and white truffle.
We end in freshness on the orange jelly so fresh and very digestible, finally the quenelle of chestnuts and white chocolate, with homemade yogurt and panna cotta with honey. The plates are crisp and neat, clean and unfussy. The service led by Dario Caltè distinguished and precise, without being obsequious. On a preliminary yield to the pleasures of the classic Negroni, before the pinots noirs of Alto Adige, the fine and light 2020 from Franz Haas, the more robust Barthenau Vigna Sant’Urbano 2016 from J. Hofstätter.
This is an idea of a lively and light Italy that takes on a precise and precious dimension, refined but authentic and, without a doubt, rooted. We imagine this fine talent flourishing in a more open place, without a giant screen where the images that dissipate the attention of the dinner run. We can thus dream of the brilliant future of Antonio Salvatore…
Antonio Salvatore’s Table at the Rampoldi
3 avenue des Spelugues
98000 Monte Carlo
Such. +377 93 30 70 65
Meals: 145, 185 €
Menu: €110-150
Hours: 7:30 p.m. – 11 p.m.
Weekly closing: Sunday and Monday
To place : www.rampoldi.mc