Eat Parmesan Love

When you’re born into an Italian family, it seems almost cliché to be taught by your mother and grandmother how to cook but good thing the world can count on this one clichéd reality.

Also, a city without a good Italian kitchen might as well be taken off the world’s map.

Chef Giovanni Romagnoli is all smiles as he prepares a few surprises for Aperitivo diners

We’re glad to have lured Giovanni Romagnoli to Cairo to take over as Executive Chef at Aperitivo. An Italian born in Naples who has picked up a good thing or two from the matriarchs of the family and a few night courses he took in pizza making, he’s set to lead Aperitivo forward with several new menus and happenings in the restaurant.

Night time was all Romagnoli once had to learn the art of pizza making, during the day, Romagnoli was a computer programmer who simply “had a passion for cooking” present from an early age.

So important is pizza to the Italians, and so much an art and precise science, degrees requiring an almost scholarly study approach to the matter is necessary to receive an official stamped certificate to allow you to set up shop as a pizza maker. Romagnoli traveled all over Italy for months, visiting with different chefs to discover and sample the varieties of pizza possible to make.

Romangnoli, nicknamed Nanni by friends from a young age, quit his job and moved to Hurghada eleven years ago, setting up his restaurant “Da Nanni …non solo Pizza” (In the house of Nanni, not only pizza).

At Aperitivo, he’ll be focusing on Italy’s richer dishes which he’s now introducing to patrons. Truffle oil and porcini mushrooms, lobster and caviar but also more modest ingredients so typically southern will star in some of his dishes so as to introduce the immense variety found in Italian cuisine to Aperitivo regulars.

A caprese dello cheve with tomato confit, mussels with white wine and generous garnishes of black pepper, a pasta typical of southern pasta from the Amalfi coast with pecorino cheese, and a sea bass with cherry tomatoes in a white wine and olive oil are dishes he’s cooked up when he first took over the Aperitivo kitchen.

The epicurean surprises will be constant as he works on developing Aperitivo’s new menu which will be unveiled later on in the year.