Winners of the 2020 Gambero Rosso Top Italian Restaurants awards were announced at an October 29 lunch in Rome. Two of the winning chefs prepared the afternoon’s first-class feast. I attended the event, the only U.S. media representative, as a guest of Gambero Rosso.

Gambero Rosso

Established more than 30 years ago, Gambero Rosso is dedicated to chronicling and promoting Italian food, wine, and travel. The company provides information and reviews through its print publications, the web, and its own television channel. The Gambero Rosso offices in Rome include extensive teaching kitchens with a robust lineup of cooking classes for consumers and professionals. Classes are available in five other Italian cities too. Gambero Rosso also holds a great number of events around the world, including seminars, dinners, and tastings. 

The Gambero Rosso Top Italian Restaurants

Gambero Rosso sees Italian restaurants outside Italy as ambassadors for the country, its culture, cuisine, and products. Each year, Gambero Rosso rates hundreds of international restaurants falling into four different categories: fine dining, bistro and trattoria, pizzeria, and wine bars/wine lists. The ratings are on a three point scale, with three (forks, shrimps, pizzas, wine bottles) being the highest. Detailed listings are maintained at GamberoRosso.it.

Chef Emanuele Pollin, editor Lorenzo Ruggeri, and chef Valerio Serino discuss the menu and pairings

For 2020, there are 75 restaurants with three-point ratings: 25 are fine-dining, 15 trattorias, 15 pizzerias, and 20 are singled out for superior wine programs. Tokyo, Paris, and Copenhagen are the cities with the most 3-point establishments. 

The ceremony this past Saturday was for winners of the special awards, the best in various categories. During the ceremony, we enjoyed a fabulous, multi-course lunch. Each course was paired with wines selected by Lorenzo Ruggeri, who has been a Gambero Rosso food and wine editor for ten years.

Gambero Rosso Top Italian Restaurants Special Award Winners

Chef of the Year — Emanuele Pollini (Moscow)

Originally from Cesena in Emilia-Romagna, a region home to some of Italy’s most-prized food products, Pollini now lives in Moscow where he’s chef at OVO by Carlo Cracco. Pollini’s food, some of which I experienced (see below), is based on the classics, but excels in execution and intensity. It is further elevated through meaningful innovation and improvisation.

Restaurant of the Year — Il Ristorante Luca Fantin (Tokyo)

Chef Luca Fantin, originally from Treviso (near Venice), landed in Tokyo in 2009 to open Il Ristorante in the luxurious Bulgari Tower (Ginza District). Fantin uses the best, locally-grown ingredients in his beautiful riffs on Italian cuisine. The restaurant’s signature dish is spaghetti with sea urchin .

Pizzeria of the Year — Futura (Berlin)

Neapolitan-native Alessandro Leonardi opened Futura in February of this year with a musician friend, Alex Uhlmann. Leonardi offers truly authentic takes on his home city’s best-known dish. He’s certified by The True Neapolitan Pizza Association (AVPN) and imports his ingredients from Italy. The name, Futura, is the title of a song about Berlin by Italian singer Lucio Dalla.

Guardian of Tradition — Mancini (Stockholm)

Established in 1978, this family-owned restaurant has provided continuity and faithful interpretations of Italian cuisine while food fads have swirled around it. Their excellent house-made pastas and sausage are combined with ingredients imported from Italy and complemented by a 2,000 bottle selection of Italian wines.

Up-and-Coming Restaurant of the Year — Terra (Copenhagen)

Chef Valerio Serino embraces a modern, innovative approach that takes classic dishes in delectably surprising directions, using both traditional and new ingredients. And, of course, the pasta is made in-house. See below for Serino’s plates at the awards lunch.

Best New Opening — Feroce (New York City)

A massive project, Feroce joins the new trend of single-address, multi-venue establishments. It includes a pizzeria, a café, and a restaurant, all under one roof within Chelsea’s Moxy hotel.

Wine List of the Year — Giando (Hong Kong)

Giando is owned by Gianni Caprioli, who also has a Hong Kong trattoria and several shops offering items imported from Italy. The restaurant’s impressive wine collection includes both cutting-edge wines and classics dating all the way back to the 1950s.

The Gambero Rosso Top Italian Restaurants Awards Lunch

The lunch took place on a sunny afternoon at Rome’s Chorus Café, an upscale spot just a few blocks down Via della Conciliazione from Vatican City.

The menu included passed hors d’oeuvres and six seated courses. There were six wines too, all Tre Bicchieri winners. The hors d’oeuvres, three of which are pictured below, were prepared by chefs from Chorus Café and Gambero Rosso.

The hors d’oeuvres included sun-dried tomato and caper macarons (upper left), fried bombs with red shrimp and caviar (upper right), and small cannoli with strong cheese foam and black pepper (bottom). Not picture are carbonara beignet and smoked cheese topped with razor clams, red turnip tops, and lingonberries.

2018 Villa Sandi Cartizze Vigna La Rivetta Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG accompanied the hors d’oeuvres. It’s a brut Prosecco from about 60 miles northwest of Venice. Cartizze is clean and fresh on the palate with fine mousse. The nose offers ripe green apple and lemon-lime. The palate adds a trace of honeysuckle. It’s quite good (90 points or so), on the serious side for Prosecco, and sells for about $40.

For the first seated course, Chef Emanuele Pollini offered seared calamari with wilted greens, candied lemon, and a black sauce of squid ink and bay laurel. The presentation seemed to be inspired by abstract expressionism’s action-painting. The dish was tasty, with the tender squid nicely caramelized and the sauce providing gently savory complexity.

The wine paired was Ballabio Farfalla Zero Dosage, a 100% Pinot Nero Metodo Classico from Oltrepo Pavese in Lombardy. As you’d expect with no dosage, the wine is lean, disciplined, and electric. The fruit—underripe pear and nectarine—is secondary to saline minerality. Dried white flowers provide a pretty accent. Very good and definitely a wine for food, it’s regrettably unavailable in the U.S. right now.

Next up was a dish from chef Valerio Serino. Small mackerel filets got a light, underside coating of charred buckwheat with coffee-ground texture. They were topped with pine nuts and dots of caper salsa. A sauce of parsley oil and sambuco was added table-side.

La Colombera Timorasso Derthona 2016 Colli Tortonesi DOC accompanied the mackeral. Colli Tortonesi is a small DOC (618 planted acres) in Piemonte that allows for red and white wines from about 30 different varieties, one of which is Timorasso. A white variety, autochthonous to the area, it makes age-worthy wines with good presence. When bottled as a varietal wine, it must be at least 95% Timorasso and has to age at least 10 months before release.

Grown in Piemonte since at least the Middle Ages, Timorasso was once the area’s dominant white grape. It nearly disappeared after WWII though, as growers turned to less finicky and more productive varieties. It’s undergone a small revival, beginning in the 1990s, but there are still just five producers giving it focus.

This La Colombera Timorasso comes from the Derthona vineyard, planted at 950 feet on pale clay soil. The wine smells of poached yellow apple, baking spice, and delicate white flowers. Flavors match the nose, but add substantial minerality, toasty lees, and underripe stone fruit. Body is on the generous side of medium. There’s plenty of appetizing acidity, but the wine will drink very well without food too. Lorenzo Ruggeri says it should age well for 15 years.

This was my first experience with Timorasso. I tried another the next day at the Tre Bicchieri tasting and liked it as well. I definitely recommend seeking some out. The La Colombera Derthone is available in the U.S. for about $25.

Serrino prepared the next dish too. He filled cappelletti (small, ring-shaped raviolo) with pumpkin and gave them a parmigiano dusting. Table side, he poured warm broth over the pasta, then a server added an atomizer spritz of Angostura bitters.

The wine pairing was magical. The Primosic Ribolla Gialla di Oslavia Riserva 2013 Collio DOC Friuli Venezia Giulia is one of the best orange wines I’ve ever had. The nose is a delicate study in exotic spices. In the mouth, body is a viscous medium with very fine texture, and gentle acidity. The flavors of dried apricot, baking spice, sandalwood and mineral are extremely long. I’d happily kill a bottle of this by itself, but it really was perfect with this dish. The fruit, spice, and body harmonized with the pumpkin and echoed the Angostura.

The amber-orange hued wine is made from very ripe grapes that ferment with native yeasts in normal and 3x-size oak barrels. Skin contact totals 26 days. The wine ages sur lie for 24 months, is bottled without filtration or sulfur, and then ages at least 12 months more in bottle prior to release.

Also unique was the Medici Ermete Lambrusco Metodo Ancestrale Phermento 2018, which Lorenzo Ruggeri designated as a palate cleanser. Coral red and foggy, it’s a dry, light-bodied wine overflowing with vivid acidity. The aromas and flavors are of underripe strawberry and raspberry with a subtle accent of funkiness. I enjoyed the wine and found it well-suited to its task. It can also work with light-bodied, mild foods, but the delicacy of its structure and flavors won’t stand up to anything hearty.

The next course demonstrated Emanuele Pollini’s ability to turn classics on their head without losing their essence nor the gustatory satisfaction they provide. The photo below shows lasagna.

The deconstructed presentation begins with a small pool of béchamel sauce upon which the other components are scattered. There was tender, meaty ragu, lightly fried basil leaves, and two-color pasta envelopes filled with ricotta. Thin crisps of parmigiano added texture. The result was excellent and less filling than traditional lasagna. It was ideal for a multi-course meal and satisfied a room full of judgmental, Italian diners.

To go with the lasagna, we had a gorgeous red wine. The Dirupi Olé 2018 Rosso di Valtellina DOC hails from Lombardy, not far from Switzerland. Made entirely from Nebbiolo, the cool climate wine initially reminded me of a light Chinon, with medium body, brisk acidity, fine tannins, and aromas of red currant, sour cherry and mulberry leaf. As the wine interacted with air, the body filled out and softened and the fruit gained richness. Were I to taste it under review conditions, I’m sure it would merit 93+ points.

The final savory course, also from Pollini, was a bone-in lamb chop. The tender, juicy meat was cooked to a perfect medium-rare and lightly seared for added flavor. It sat on thin schmears of condensed tomato paste that was richly flavorful and added a tangy counterpoint to the savory meat, while doubling down on umami. An oversized quenelle of very creamy goat cheese provided tangy sweetness. The final touch were capers and an unctuous pan sauce which the chef spooned onto each plate at the table. It was a tremendous dish.

To go with the lamb, Ruggeri selected Pietradolce Contrada Santa Spirito 2016 Etna Rosso DOC. The wine is from 90-year old Nerello Mascalese vines growing high on the volcanic slopes of Mt. Etna. I visited Pietradolce in 2015 and was impressed by their detail-oriented, quality focus and their dedication to the region’s heritage grapes.

This particular wine is more Burgundian (read lean and Pinot-like) than many Etna Rosso. I enjoyed that quite a bit, though it will certainly benefit from the slight rounding that a few years of bottle age will give it. Tangy, red fruit is accented by mountain scrub and medicinal herb on the nose and palate. It’s a medium-bodied wine and quite juicy in the mouth with very fine, grippy and chalky tannins, and an extremely long finish. This red, too, rates around 93 points. Only 5,000 bottles were made. But, if you can find it, it’s very well-priced at $35.

The final course was dessert, which Pollini prepared with timely assistance from the Chorus Café and Gambero Rosso chefs (see video). It was a take on sgroppino limone, which is an Italian cocktail made with vodka, Prosecco, and lemon sorbet. With the vodka, it’s a perfect fit for an Italian restaurant in Moscow. The sgroppino was tart, light and refreshing with an airiness that resulted from some serious whisking by the chef.

Watch this video to see “Chef of the Year” Emanuele Pollini whip up dessert with a liquid nitrogen assist.

The Gambero Rosso Top Italian Restaurants Awards lunch was just one of several superb events I attended in Rome. Stay tuned for more from my week in Italy with Gambero Rosso.

Copyright Fred Swan 2019. All rights reserved.

About the author: Fred Swan is an Oakland-based wine writer, educator, and event sommelier. He’s written for GuildSomm.com, Daily.SevenFifty.com, The Tasting Panel, SOMM Journal, PlanetGrape.com, and more. Fred teaches a wide range of classes at the San Francisco Wine School. He’s founder/producer of Wine Writers’ Educational Tours, an annual, educational conference for professional wine writers. He also leads seminars, private wine tours, and conducts tastings, dinners, and events for wineries, companies, and private parties. Fred’s certifications include WSET Diploma, Certified Sommelier, California Wine Appellation Specialist, Certified Specialist of Wine, French Wine Scholar, Italian Wine Professional, Napa Valley Wine Educator, Northwest Wine Appellation Specialist, and Level 3 WSET Educator. He’s twice been awarded a fellowship by the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers.