Artichoke heart and Reggiano salad on beef carpaccio.
Chef Davide Lagomarsino has cooked for former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as movie stars like Nicole Kidman, Robert DeNiro, and Russell Crowe. A few weeks ago, Daisy and I cooked for him.
Or rather, he taught us how to cook for him.
Lagomarsino is Italian but worked for many years in Australia, where he ran his own critically acclaimed restaurant, Zeffirelli. In 2008, he moved to Prague, where he was chef at La Bottega di Aromi before opening up his own restaurant in the most unlikeliest of places: in the wilds of Prague 6, on Horoměřická, near the village of Nebušice.
For those of us who live nearby, La Gastronomia Ligure is a godsend, a place where we can get a good cup of coffee, Italian meats and cheeses, pasta, and Italian specialty items, as well as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Davide says he's expanding this summer to include a wood-fired oven out back with outdoor seating.
I gave Daisy a gift certificate for a cooking class at La Gastronomia for Christmas. It took us a few months to finally cash it in. We chose a menu that included grilled marinated vegetables, artichoke heart and Reggiano salad on beef carpaccio, beef filet tagliata grilled with rucola and Parmesan, and aubergine with chocolate and amaretti.
All in all, the four-hour class was great fun. What's not to like? We started with glasses of prosecco, and after each course was prepared, in La Gastronomia's gorgeous new kitchen, we retired to the dining room to eat our creations and drink some fantastic wine that had been specially paired to complement our dishes.
Davide is a great teacher, if a little hard to keep up with sometimes. He's a passionate guy, and he speaks pretty fast!
Our fellow classmates were also very cool. We'd never done anything like that before, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I hope Davide continues to do them. He's got a few more listed on his website: a beef and fish dinner on May 20 and a veal and pasta menu on June 1.
Beef filet tagliata grilled with rucola and Parmesan and marinated vegetables.
Enjoying the spoils of our labors.
Aubergine with chocolate.
Superb post about Cooking Classes With Chef Davide Lagomarsino. He is quite famous and people love learning cooking from him. Well, I have learnt cooking through self learning and practice. Nom Food Community was very useful when I was trying hard to cook.
ReplyDelete