On June 22 and 23, the big top of the ‘Circo 8 e ½’ of flavors returns to Rimini for the festival led by Massimo Bottura that each year gathers 24 culinary talents, featuring showcooking and starred dishes at street food prices. Along the seafront, the best local products ‘parade’ at the market stalls. Around the circus roundabout, special gourmet street food points meet starred ice cream. An open-air hall of creativity and craftsmanship hosts the best artisans. Then there’s the beach party on Saturday night and the starred picnic on Sunday morning. This year the event embraces the ‘plastic free’ philosophy and is committed to the theme ‘sea as a common good’ and fighting food waste.
The arrival in Rimini of a small traveling big top, with its charge of art and poetry, was Federico Fellini’s first encounter as a child with the world of the circus. And it is precisely in the square named after the great Rimini director, who filled his films with dreams and powerful circus references, that on June 22 and 23 the colorful big top of the “Circo 8 e ½ dei sapori” will rise.
“Al Meni” – in Romagnolo dialect ‘The Hands’, from the title of a poem by Tonino Guerra – is the great festival created six years ago by the world’s number one chef, who chose Rimini to stage a grand celebration of Emilia Romagna cuisine and products, calling together 24 culinary talents to create unique dishes. The goal is to bring the world of starred cuisine down from the pedestal of inaccessibility, in the atmosphere of a popular festival.
“Emilia Romagna has raw materials of such extraordinary quality,” says Massimo Bottura, “that we chefs only need to touch them with respect to make them express themselves. From abroad they watch us. And they see that we are a region that can wait 25 years before tasting a traditional balsamic vinegar. Are we crazy? No, we still know how to dream.”
A dream shared together with the city of Rimini and twelve of the best chefs from Emilia Romagna, accompanied by an equal number of international colleagues, called in rotation to perform open kitchen shows under the circus tent, to create the wonder of flavors in unique dishes, at street food prices. Outside the big circus, the market of excellent producers animates the seafront with an extraordinary showcase of excellence products from the Region, the only one in the world boasting a basket of 44 products among DOP and IGP; the starred chefs’ street food stalls gather around the Circus; the ice cream is inspired by the chefs’ recipes and the artisans of Matrioska meet to present the best of their craftsmanship strictly ‘by hand’.
And there could be no lack of the call of the circus, the real, artisanal and contemporary one, which will burst in and around the Al Meni tent with twenty tireless dreamers under 35: “I MagdaClan Circo”, who combine the imagery of itinerant life with the innovation of a contemporary, ironic, poetic and multifaceted language, bringing wonder for the two days of the event.
Al Meni increasingly attentive to sustainability and recovery
The sixth edition of the event will have a particular focus on the city’s important themes, those of environmental sustainability and the recovery of food surpluses. This is indeed the year when the city of Rimini, among the most important in Italy in terms of hospitality, extends the ‘plastic free’ philosophy also to the beach, with a new bathing ordinance banning the sale of drinks in disposable plastic cups or straws. Al Meni has decided to join Romagna Plastic Free / 2023: a memorandum of understanding proposed by the association Basta plastica in Mare, whose goal is the complete phase-out of single-use plastics.
While allowing for a realistic transition period for the many protagonists, events, actors and guests of Romagna tourism, it is signed by public and private entities. The association that fights to prevent plastic pollution in the sea recognized in Al Meni a sensitivity since its origins in the gastronomic preparation offer (all compostable tableware) as an effective example of good practices. During the event, the association will provide participants with kits of water bottles and natural canvas bags labeled Romagna Plastic Free/2013 and “Romagna, lo dici e sorridi” the brand of Destinazione Turistica Romagna.
The commitment is to become the first event free from single-use plastic waste and to focus on reuse and recycling. All producers and gourmet street food points will use only paper or biodegradable materials for serving the public. Free water distribution points will be multiplied to protect the environment, in collaboration with Hera, avoiding the use of plastic bottles and limiting waste production and pollution, as well as the use of containers for separate waste collection. There are many appointments and workshops organized by Slow Food dedicated to ‘sea as a common good’. The commitment continues on the front of fighting food waste thanks to collaboration with Food for Good, which provides for the recovery of uneaten food at the end of the event: a commitment that from this year will also involve Rimini hotels with the Food for Good Hospitality project.
The chefs’ showcookings in Circo 8 e ½
The roster of chefs leading the showcookings under Massimo Bottura seeks to combine the great traditional school with a focus on sustainable ingredients and the courage and irreverence of encounters between different cultures. The foreign talents who will join the chefs of Chef to Chef represent meetings with young people who, as immigrants, have opened their businesses in foreign lands with courage and positive energy. Opening the showcookings of this sixth edition will be Davide di Fabio, sous chef of Osteria Francescana in Modena, ambassador of Italian cuisine worldwide. There will be the return of some absolute champions of our region’s tradition such as Franco Cimini and Giovanni Cuocci who will bring with them raw materials produced directly.
There are those, like Rino Duca or Mario Ferrara, who blend their southern native tradition with the regional one, creating kitchens with unique personalities. There will be Luca Marchini, starred chef from Modena, and his elegant relationship with the most iconic Emilian province. Marco Cavallucci, after years leading one of the restaurants that made the gastronomic history of our region, now applies his infinite experience to more traditional formats and preparations, refreshing Romagna products with great technique. Matteo Salbaroli and Michele Bacilieri have a cuisine guided by a sense for the sea and respect for raw materials from two quiet cities like Ravenna and Ferrara. Raffaele Liuzzi is instead one of the most creative kitchens in the region, with an incessant drive for research and contagious energy. Mattia Borroni is a Milanese borrowed by deep Romagna: the young head of the Alexander restaurant in Ravenna proposes a cuisine of the territory, but with an international vision.
Among the foreign chefs of this edition, talents who anticipate times and places, starting with Bledar Kola, a reference chef in Albania where he is an entrepreneur and cultural protagonist. Two totally different expressions of Canadian gastronomy, Colombe Saint Pierre, explorer of Quebec’s gastronomic diversity and very attentive to product sustainability, and Jefferson Alvarez, who tells the scents of South America giving an absolutely iconic name to his Cacao in Vancouver. Simone Tondo is an Al Meni icon, having participated in all editions; this year joins him Giovanni Passerini, who was the master of all Italians expatriated in Paris, who with his eponymous restaurant first brought the quality of contemporary Italian cuisine to the French capital. Even closer to the heart of an idea of understandable cuisine attentive to raw materials and artisans are the works of Tischenko in Paris, who even has a section of the menu dedicated to tartares, or Marie Victorine Manoa from Lyon, recently from the latest French edition of Top Chef. There was no lack of a glance at contemporary Nordic cuisine, developing along extremely different lines with Evenlyn and Kim from Inari in Helsinki or Francisco Cardenas, Argentine sous chef at Kadeau Copenhagen.
Then an international input from the Berlin scene with Thai chef Dalad Kambhu who, after ten years of American experience, opened a place of absolutely personal cuisine in the heart of Europe’s new cultural wave capital. Tom Anglesea is the chef of one of the coolest places in London right now, The Laughing Heart being one of the most followed venues, especially by restaurant colleagues. Tim Butler is more than a rising star; he is a guest star. After years in the ‘50 best’ with his EatMe restaurant in Bangkok, he embarked on new projects that led him to Malta. A bright and eclectic personality who will leave a mark. Jordan Bailey was born in Cornwall but after being head chef of the 3-star Norwegian Maaemo, he decided to open Aimsir (the weather) in Ireland, a fresh and innovative idea like the young people who run it.
The market of excellence products
The excellences of Emilia-Romagna’s enogastronomic products gather at Al Meni’s market with an extraordinary showcase that allows for a two-day journey through gustatory and olfactory sensations: a narrative of how the sovereignty of the dishes created is always a child of the territory and its fabulous products.
Waiting for the public in the market spaces next to the seafront will be the culinary spokespersons of the Region (to which some Marche products are also added) such as the Parmigiano Reggiano from white cows and the Comacchio marinated products (both with their Slow Food presidia), the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena, the Mora Romagnolasalumi, honey and fruit producers, oil, vegetables and biscuit makers. A crescendo of flavors and scents gathered in a unique exhibition to taste, learn about and buy. The selection is curated by CheftoChef Emiliaromagnacuochi, with the collaboration of Slow Food and the Rimini Wine and Flavor Road.
