An Evening in Abruzzo

Ventricina Vastese & Scamorza Affumicata Bruschetta

with Majella Black Truffle Honey, Aprutino Pescarese DOP Olive Oil & Pickled Calabrese Peppers

We begin at the coast and in the hills simultaneously. Ventricina Vastese is Abruzzo's most celebrated salumi — a coarsely ground, fennel-seed-laced pork product from the Vasto area of Chieti province, slow-cured and hand-packed into natural casings with sweet and hot peppers. It carries an aggressive, aromatic perfume that demands nothing less than a full table of friends. Alongside it, slices of Scamorza Affumicata, the signature smoked stretched-curd cheese of Teramo province, are laid over thick slabs of toasted country bread made from ancient Senatore Cappelli wheat — a heritage grain revived by Abruzzo's slow food movement — and drizzled with raw-pressed Aprutino Pescarese DOP olive oil from the Vestina hills above Pescara.

The truffle honey — gathered by small foragers operating within the Majella massif, where black truffles grow beneath the roots of downy oak and beech — ties the course together with a mineral sweetness that mirrors the char of the bread and the smoke of the cheese. Tiny pickled Calabrese peppers from the family garden of Masseria La Palombara add an acidic brightness that cleanses the fat of the cured meats and readies the palate for what follows.

Spaghetti alla Chitarra al Ragù d'Agnello

with Zafferano di Navelli DOP, Aged Pecorino di Farindola, and Wild Mountain Herbs

If there is a single dish that defines the Abruzzo table above all others, it is spaghetti alla chitarra — thick, square-cut egg pasta rolled across a wooden frame strung with steel guitar strings, which gives the noodle its signature toothsome texture and ridged surface. The pasta is made by hand using only stone-ground semolina from Mulino Marino Abruzzo and eggs from the free-range hens of Agriturismo Il Rifugio in the mountains above L'Aquila. No shortcuts are permitted at this table.

The ragù is built slowly — braised lamb shoulder from the pastures of the Majella National Park, where sheep graze year-round on wild thyme, mountain mint, and juniper, giving the meat a herbal complexity that no feedlot animal can replicate. The braising liquid includes Montepulciano d'Abruzzo wine, peperoncino from Guardiagrele, and a final, transformative finish of Zafferano di L'Aquila DOP — the saffron cultivated since the 14th century on the Navelli plateau at 1,000 meters elevation. Only 20 grams of this saffron are produced per hectare per year; each thread is pulled by hand before sunrise in October. Its flavor is earthy, honeyed, and impossibly complex. The pasta is finished tableside with freshly grated Pecorino di Farindola, aged 180 days in the cellars near Gran Sasso, and a scattering of wild oregano foraged from the Sirente-Velino reserve.

Arrosticini di Pecora alla Griglia

with Roasted Farro di Montagna, Bitter Greens & Peperone Verde di Altino Conserva

Arrosticini are Abruzzo's most beloved street food and pastoral ritual — small cubes of castrated sheep meat threaded tightly onto flat wooden skewers no wider than a pencil, grilled over dedicated narrow charcoal braziers called furnacelle, and eaten standing, in company, at speed. There is an unspoken competitive pride in Abruzzo's shepherding communities over whose arrosticini are tighter, more uniform, and better seasoned. Chef Robert sources his mutton exclusively from the family herd of Azienda Agropastorale De Luca in the Majella foothills outside Caramanico Terme — an operation that has practiced traditional transhumance for four consecutive generations.

Tonight, the arrosticini are elevated but not overthought. They arrive on a wooden board beside a warm grain salad of farro — the ancient emmer wheat that has grown in the Apennine foothills since Etruscan times, sourced from Podere San Faustino near Castel del Monte — roasted with rosemary, lemon zest, and toasted pine nuts. Bitter greens, including wild cicoria and puntarelle sourced from the winter markets of the Mercato Coperto di Pescara, are dressed with the finest Aprutino Pescarese DOP oil and a wisp of anchovy from the Adriatic. A conserva of Peperone Verde di Altino — the sweet heritage pepper grown exclusively in the tiny Chieti-province village of Altino, now protected under Presidio Slow Food — brings the plate a gentle sweetness, acidity, and vivid color that honors Abruzzo's pepper-growing legacy.

La Tavolozza dei Formaggi d'Abruzzo

Pecorino di Farindola DOP · Caciofiore della Sibilla · Canestrato di Castel del Monte · Mild Ricotta di Pecora

No Abruzzo meal is complete without a dedicated cheese course, and the region's pastoral heritage has yielded an extraordinary range of aged, soft, and semi-aged sheep's milk cheeses that rival — and in some cases surpass — the more famous fromages of neighboring regions. Chef Robert curates four distinct expressions of Abruzzo's cheese-making art, each sourced directly from artisan producers working within the Gran Sasso and Majella highland zones.

Pecorino di Farindola DOP is perhaps Italy's most singular cheese — a semi-hard sheep's milk wheel produced only in eleven comuni of the Gran Sasso foothills, distinguished by the use of pork-stomach rennet (rather than the more common calf rennet), which imparts a warm, almost buttery quality beneath the sharp tang. It is rubbed during aging with olive oil and peperoncino. Caciofiore della Sibilla, a raw-milk soft cheese coagulated with wild artichoke flower juice in a tradition dating to ancient Rome, arrives soft and yielding with grassy, slightly bitter notes. Canestrato di Castel del Monte, pressed into reed baskets at altitude and aged for a minimum of 60 days, shows a beautiful basket-weave rind and an interior that crumbles into salty, mineral shards. Finally, a bowl of fresh Ricotta di Pecora, creamy and warm, is drizzled with black truffle honey to close the savory arc with gentle sweetness.

The board arrives with accompaniments of honeycomb from the wildflower apiaries of Apicoltura Cennamo near Preturo, house-made mostarda di fichi (fig mustard fruit), and thin crackers made with black sesame and rosemary from the Chef's own recipe.

Parrozzo Abruzzese Rivisitato

with Saffron Crema Pasticcera, Amarena Cherry Conserva & Anise-Scented Sponge

Parrozzo is Abruzzo's most iconic dolce — a dome-shaped cake of almond meal and semolina, its golden interior draped in a thick shell of dark chocolate, said to resemble the rough-hewn cornbread loaves of the region's contadino tradition. The pastry's name is a dialect corruption of pane rozzo (rough bread), and it was famously immortalized in verse by Gabriele D'Annunzio, Abruzzo's great literary son, who received one as a gift from Pescara confectioner Luigi D'Amico in 1920 and immediately composed a sonnet in its honor. Tonight, Chef Robert presents a refined interpretation: a parrozzo-style almond and semolina sponge, lightened with whipped egg whites and perfumed with a thread of Zafferano di Navelli, served alongside a warm crema pasticcera infused with the same precious saffron.

A spoonful of Amarena cherry conserva — made from wild morello cherries gathered from the orchards of the Sangro River valley and slow-cooked with a touch of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo — provides tart contrast to the richness of the crema. The chocolate shell, poured tableside from a small ceramic jug, is made with single-origin 72% dark chocolate blended with a reduction of Ratafià di Montepulciano, Abruzzo's traditional cherry liqueur, produced by Distilleria Grifone in Tocco da Casauria. A final flourish of anise-scented confetti sugar — in the Sulmona tradition — dusted over the plate closes the evening with a nod to the town of Ovid, where sugar-work has been an art form since the 15th century.