Foodies, you’re in luck. The guest country for this year’s Abu Dhabi International Book Fair is Italy – and that means the fair’s popular show kitchen will be filled with Italian chefs whipping up the food that makes them so proud to be Italian. Don’t expect simple pizza and pasta; this cuisine – and the chefs appearing at the fair – will serve up much more for your palate. The star chef this year is the venerable Heinz Beck, executive chef of La Pergola, the only three Michelin-starred restaurant in Rome. Beck is as big as chefs get, and the fair offers a rare chance to see him during one of two live cooking sessions (Wednesday, April 27, 6pm and 8pm). Catch Beck preparing dishes that pay tribute to Italian novelist Umberto Eco, who died this year.
Francesco Guarracino is another notable at this year’s fair. He was the executive chef at Dubai’s wildly popular Bice Mare in Souk Al Bahar for four years before moving on last year to start up a new restaurant in the capital. That restaurant, Roberto’s in The Galleria Mall on Al Maryah Island, is scheduled to open in July. In his single show-kitchen session (Thursday, April 29, 8pm), Guarracino will be making slow-cooked octopus with artichoke and cheese and pepper sauce, inspired by Italian writer and historian Valerio Massimo Manfredi.
Other eminent Italian chefs hosting sessions in the fair’s show kitchen include Andrea Mugavero, from Roberto’s Dubai; Maurizio Lazzarin from Casa Mia, Dubai; Vincenzo La Vecchia, the 2015 Pizza World Champion from Eataly, Dubai; Wladimiro Gadioli from Saadiyat Beach Club; Fortunato Ostacolo from Lounge Cafe Italiano in Dubai; Paolo Bellamio from Trattoria Toscana in Dubai; Daniele Capobianco from Dubai’s Positano; and Andrea Falcone from Bice Dubai.
Additionally, there will be other cuisines featured in the show kitchen, with chefs demonstrating how to make Emirati, Polish, Lebanese, Iraqi, Moroccan, Jordanian, Indian and Bahraini dishes. There will also be healthy eating sessions on cooking with and for children. All cooking sessions are free to attend.
sjohnson@thenational.ae