Expo Milano visitors experience top chefs at Beard American
July 03, 2015 |12:15 AM
Food trucks may be the latest trend in the United States, but you couldn’t expect the James Beard Foundation and the International Culinary Center to manage the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano without a first-class restaurant.
And so, in downtown Milan atop the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, home to Prada and every other top brand, the James Beard American Restaurant provides a venue for great chefs from the United States to show their skills and for Italian chefs to try cooking American food.
The Beard restaurant is open every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night and for brunch on Sundays. The special five-course, regional, prix-fixe menus aren’t cheap, ranging from 75 to 120 euros ($83 to $133), but they feature the finest cuisine from the United States and include Prosecco white sparkling wine to start and a fine wine with every course.
Sundays feature brunch throughout the day. And Thursdays alternate between Thanksgiving and famous guest Italian chefs interpreting American cuisine.
The first course by Chef Victor Albisu at the James Beard American Restaurant in Milan. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
Victor Albisu
The night I was there, the chef was Victor Albisu of the Del Campo restaurant in Washington and the takeout taqueria Taco Bamba, which has locations in Washington and Falls Church, Va.
Of Peruvian and Cuban heritage, Albisu warned the diners that he likes “burnt food.”
“There’s a difference between burned and burnt,” he said, and indeed there was.
With the tuna anticucho came burnt lemon. It was followed by a burnt tomato and smoked burrata. With the lamb chorizo came burnt broccoli. With the rolled waygu skirt steak, chorizo fresco, smoked hollandaise and chimichurri del campo, there were burnt market vegetables.
Finally for dessert, along with peaches, apricots, mascarpone and formaggio primasole, there were burnt figs.
A burnt fig dessert. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
All were delicious though I think most Americans would call the same effect “charred.”
Washingtonians can, of course, eat Chef Victor’s cooking at his restaurants in the nation’s capital. But there is a whole list of chefs who have already scheduled their services in Milan for those who might want to arrange a trip to the expo to sample the food of a renowned chef from another city whose cooking they have always wanted to try.
For the schedule of chefs and reservations, see the James Beard American Restaurant website.
Jerry Hagstrom, left, poses at the James Beard American Restaurant with, from left, Simone Crolla, managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy; Chef Victor Albisu, and USA Pavilion CEO Charlie Faas.
And so, in downtown Milan atop the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, home to Prada and every other top brand, the James Beard American Restaurant provides a venue for great chefs from the United States to show their skills and for Italian chefs to try cooking American food.
The Beard restaurant is open every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night and for brunch on Sundays. The special five-course, regional, prix-fixe menus aren’t cheap, ranging from 75 to 120 euros ($83 to $133), but they feature the finest cuisine from the United States and include Prosecco white sparkling wine to start and a fine wine with every course.
Sundays feature brunch throughout the day. And Thursdays alternate between Thanksgiving and famous guest Italian chefs interpreting American cuisine.
The first course by Chef Victor Albisu at the James Beard American Restaurant in Milan. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)
The night I was there, the chef was Victor Albisu of the Del Campo restaurant in Washington and the takeout taqueria Taco Bamba, which has locations in Washington and Falls Church, Va.
Of Peruvian and Cuban heritage, Albisu warned the diners that he likes “burnt food.”
“There’s a difference between burned and burnt,” he said, and indeed there was.
With the tuna anticucho came burnt lemon. It was followed by a burnt tomato and smoked burrata. With the lamb chorizo came burnt broccoli. With the rolled waygu skirt steak, chorizo fresco, smoked hollandaise and chimichurri del campo, there were burnt market vegetables.
Finally for dessert, along with peaches, apricots, mascarpone and formaggio primasole, there were burnt figs.
A burnt fig dessert. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)All were delicious though I think most Americans would call the same effect “charred.”
Washingtonians can, of course, eat Chef Victor’s cooking at his restaurants in the nation’s capital. But there is a whole list of chefs who have already scheduled their services in Milan for those who might want to arrange a trip to the expo to sample the food of a renowned chef from another city whose cooking they have always wanted to try.
For the schedule of chefs and reservations, see the James Beard American Restaurant website.
Jerry Hagstrom, left, poses at the James Beard American Restaurant with, from left, Simone Crolla, managing director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Italy; Chef Victor Albisu, and USA Pavilion CEO Charlie Faas.
