DINA Gussago

Millefeuille
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Milk & Hay
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Petit fours
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A second visit to @dina_ristorante in Gussago almost a year to the day since my first. Chef @albertogipponi is an eccentric character and that shows in his cooking (in a good way). The food certainly splits opinions, Quail in a dessert, mussels in your petit fours etc. Personally I think it's fantastic and a privilege to be cooked for by a chef who wears his heart so openly on his sleeve. He generously presented me
with a dish that was a work in progress, never before served to a paying customer but he honestly wanted my opinion. The dish was a boiled piece of chateaubriand with a frozen béarnaise & aubergine. It was not a completed dish but an idea of a dish. When asked for my thoughts I told him that they really wouldn't help him. I explained to him that the dish, even half completed, had triggered a feeling of nostalgia for me and therefore an emotional response. Food geeks among you will know that this is a rare treat when a dish surpasses being just delicious but also gives you that warm cuddle of triggering a memory that is sacred just to you. This dish, I explained, has given me that feeling. As a cook for 30 years now, I have enjoyed on countless occasions in various kitchens over the years slicing a piece of leftover cold steak or perhaps from a Sunday roast joint and dragging it through some hollandaise left over from breakfast service or maybe a béarnaise from lunch. All stone cold, all delicious. You see that's what we eat in the kitchen. A corner of sourdough with some butter and sea salt, possibly with a scrap of ham pressed on if we are feeling particularly avant garde during a lull in service. And this dish brought memories of that flooding back. So therefore I loved it.....but probably no one else will. Anyway, like I said, that was absolutely no help to him and with the language barrier he probably didn't understand what I was trying to put across.
I think he understood that I liked it. Go eat at Dina! But go with an open mind.
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Michelin Guide - 🍽
OAD -
W50B -
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#achefabroad #itravelforfood #foodie #foodies #foodporn #foodpic #foodpics #finedining #michelindining Less

It has happened to me a few times, to be surprised, pleasantly surprised, especially in restaurants. This is one of those times. The menu has 3 proposals: 4, 6, 8 courses. I had to work afterwards, so I chose the 4 course. The aperitif, consisting of: forest flavors; flavors of the sea; rice charcoal and a carrot in its vinegar; introduces you to the world of DINA. We start with a hot vegetable broth which, as the waiter suggests, serves to open your stomach, mind and heart. The "Raw but cooked Casoncello" wants to make you remember when, as a child, you stole freshly made pasta even before cooking it, from the kitchen of the mother / grandmother, as did the chef Alberto Gipponi. Puffed bread, Grana Padano foam and soaked red onion ice cream is really fantastic, the dish I liked the most. Pasta with garlic, oil, chilli, crunchy bread, frozen oyster and fennel, very good. Pork rib, lime sour cream, celery, marinated cabbage, mint and mustard also very good. Raw but cooked tart, good. I seemed to understand that the chef, like me, prefers contrasts; both in temperature, in textures, and in flavors and his menu is full of them. In conclusion, I really enjoyed lunch at Dina's, I found everything perfect: the place; the furniture; art, starting with the wonderful: "until then if not before" by Jonathan Monk who welcomes you at the entrance; impeccable service to a very high standard; but above all, obviously being in a restaurant, the food. This is for me, who am not a food critic, but a simple food enthusiast, a restaurant that deserves the MICHELIN star. Less