Have you booked for the next event?

The fourth pasta tasting event at Massimo's Restaurant and Oyster Bar is already confirmed for the 29th of May, this means that you have 20 days from now to book your place and no excuses to miss this night.

Next event will see again the chef Luca Seminara, busy with the preparation of some great traditional recipes from the italian tradition with Pastificio dei Campi pasta. All the dishes will be explained in their preparation and everyone will have the chance to see the chef at work while eating his creations.

Are you curious to see what happened during the last pasta tasting event for the first anniversary of Massimo's Restaurant? Here some pictures to show you all the nice dishes and the great night we spent together. 

After a light aperitif with Arancini and mackerel Polpette, we ate the amazing Orecchiette with Genoese pesto, made of green beans and caramelized potatoes;

Then we had Calle dei Campi with gurnard and cherry tomatoes and finally Vermicelli with a delicious lamb ragu’.

We have closed the feast with some chocolate tasting and almond and lime & ginger sorbet, really great after the long and hot cooking night.

Here is the next event: http://www.facebook.com/events/421098671236767/

please write directly to tables@massimo-restaurant.co.uk  to book your place and I hope to see you there.

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Ready for the show and the winners of 2012?

Do you think Noma will still remain at the first place in the World's 50 Best Restaurants or a new restaurant will be selected as the best worldwide? In few hours we will know it... and this year will be possible to follow the event directly from the first row, thanks to the facebook technology.

Click here and reserve your place to don't miss anything from this great show and to be the first one to know who will be the winner this year.

But do you know why these nominees are so famous and recognized all over? Because this is one of the few awards where there isn’t a list of names to select from and any restaurant in the word is eligible.

“There are no criteria that a restaurant has to meet. They certainly do not have to sell a certain product. They do not need to have been open a certain number of years and they do not need to have won any other culinary accolades.”

It’s The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, an influential group of over 800 international leaders in the restaurant industry, to choose the best. The Academy comprises 27 separate regions around the world. Each region has its own panel of 31 members, food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded ‘gastronomes’ each of whom has seven votes. Of the seven votes, at least three must be used for restaurants outside of their region.

These criteria are designed to allow them to vote far and wide. They could vote for a small, unknown restaurant in a secluded region, or select the best-known restaurants in the world.

At this point let's the countdown start! 

I hope you will enjoy the event and I wish good luck to all the participants while I will keep my fingers crossed for our best Italian one, Massimo Bottura and his “ Osteria Francescana”.

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Pin pin pin all the things you like!

Pinterest is a new social tool available online. I know we have plenty of them now but this one is literally taking the web by storm in these days: more and more people are signing in and  have started to... Pin!

A kind of new version of the famous DIGG, i would say, much more 2.0, easy to use, to share, to love. It's really addictive. With this you can simply like and fix on your profile forever all the things you find online and that you would like to have always with you.

You will just need to get an invitation, then sign in (also with your Facebook account) and download the PIN button in your browser tool bar. After this you will be ready to pin whatever you find online and place it in different categories, with your own description.

In the search area you can insert any interest you have and of course i couldn't resist to type food and recipes and you can't imagine what came out ... a paradise of pictures and ideas.

And waiting for my invitation, look what i found!

Look especially the first recipe on the left side.... :)

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An exclusive event with the Chef & Pastificio dei Campi

I have a great news for all of you today: I’m proud to announce a very special evening taking place on the 23^rd of Januray at Massimo, the London’s new speciality fish restaurant and oyster bar.

Italian chef Massimo Riccioli, of the celebrated La Rosetta in Rome, will help you to forget the winter blue with a night dedicated to Pastificio dei Campi.

 "Join Massimo and Niccolo Bittante of Food in the City on Monday 24th January at 7.30pm (£25 pp) for an exclusive evening and see the chef create his famous signature dishes with pasta by Pastificio dei Campi (Gragnano, Naples). 

To book your place, call our reservations team on +44 (0) 207 998 0555 or email tables@massimo-restaurant.co.uk"

In love with this chef since I was in Rome, he recently opened his new restaurant in London between Trafalgar Square and Embankment, in the Corinthia Hotel and I can’t wait to comeback to say hello. The restaurant offers a great Mediterranean menu specializing in the highest quality seafood and he is the most adorable and nice person I ever met.

It will be a great night and I just tell you… don’t miss it.

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The best from 2011

I wanted to write today a little recap of what had occurred in this blog during 2011 and looking back to all the posts, I was surprised to discover how much has been happening this year:

In January we created Linguina Facebook profile and being winter I gave you lots of soups recipes. January is also the Michelin star guide of UK and Ireland and the women took definitely power this year.

In February Pastificio dei Campi took part at Identita’ Golose, the food festival in Milan. In March we received the certification for being 100% Italian pasta, but was also the month of the Dolce Vita event here in London and Taste In Florence.

In April we discovered together the 50 best European restaurants of the year and while in Italy everyone was enjoying Vinitaly and  Squisito, we had the Royal wedding to celebrate.

In may we supported the sustainable fishing campaign and "Two greedy Italians" went to visit us with the English TV in Gragnano.

In the summer I suggested some recipes for picnics and barbeques, but there was also the harvest in Italy, the opening of the Clifton Hill Food market and Melograno deli.

In September Gragnano hosted the amazing Pasta festival called "La festa della pasta", while in October we had Identita’ London and the opening of a new Italian interesting place Fornata.

Last months we had the change to meet lots of food lovers at MasterChief Live in Olympia, while in December I gave you some ideas to make some foodie really really happy with hampers and maxi cube of pasta .

Are you now ready for a 2012 even better?

Happy new year to all of you!

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An occasion to meet Pastificio dei Campi too.

We are happy to announce that we are part of this big event starting today at London Olympia: MasterChef Live 2011.

You probably know very well the Tv programme MasterChef, great occasion for lots of people passionate about cooking and food to try the street of the success, challenging them self with recipes and complicate dishes until the selection of the best one. Based on that show, this event will let you take part to the live challenge, at least as the audience if not as a contestant. (Thanks for the picture at the blog Morethancupcakes.com)

From today until Sunday (11-13 November)  in fact in Olympia  there will be plenty of good food, chefs, restaurant experiences, tasting sessions, wine and food shows, challenges between contestants and real chefs and lot more.

Come and see John Torode and Gregg Wallace, get a master class from Michel Roux Jr. Also, watch MasterChef Professionals Champion of 2010, Claire Lara or cook-off against this year’s MasterChef Champion, Tim Anderson. Come to see the Producers' Village, a space just dedicated to local producers who specialise in seasonal and home-grown produce. But especially…come to meet us at the stand F24.

And if you really can’t be there with us, follow me on Twitter (@linguinadc) and check my Facebook page, to have all the latest news and pictures directly from the event.

See you there?

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The World Pasta Day conference in Rome and some thoughts

As you probably already know yesterday was the Word Pasta Day and it was celebrated all around the world. This year in particular the World Pasta Day returned to Rome, where IPO (International Pasta Organisation) and AIDEPI (Association of the Italian Pasta and Confectionery Industries) have hosted a special conference: "Pasta, global challenge. New markets and new consumers for food that is conquering the tables of the world" .

Have been invited to the occasion the most important pasta producers, economists, opinion leaders and media around the world and everyone  was there to celebrate this ancient food, rich in history, present on families' tables (and eating habits) in 5 continents and candidate to be the food of the future.

In a time of big pressure and bad news about our future alimentation, pasta seems to be one of the few ingredients that will probably be able to survive on our table. If the fish will disappear and the meat will be maybe not enough for all the planet, if not in danger as we have seen in the past, with viruses or weird genetic mutation, it seems we will be able to count at least on vegetable, fruit, rice and pasta.

Finally in time of poverty and war, this is what kept part of the world alive.

So if yesterday in Rome they tried to "understand how this food will help bring answers to one day dominated by uncertainty and food shortages.", I can also give you a little resume  of what came out from a nice event  organized last week in London by Latitudinal Cuisine “a geo-specific dining group, exploring the world a degree a day, meeting new people and cultures as we eat new cuisine”.

Last thursday in fact I went to their event about “Future of Food: dinner & conversation @ The Hub Westminster”. In this beautiful place in the New Zealand House in London, around 30 food lovers and people worried about environmental and social issues cooked what they think will be the food of the future and came together to enjoy it and exchange their ideas.

There were people that brought traditional food from their country, dishes made with sustainable fish, organic food, cake and tarts made by fruits and vegetable cultivated in their own gardens or even in the guerrilla gardens in London… and there was even someone who brought an amazing salad with fried ... locusts with big surprise of all the group. I brought pasta of course, because I believe in it for our future… and to shake and inspire a bit the audience I tried a sweet pasta recipe, with sugar, maple syrup, grated almonds and organic chocolate.

I used the pasta from Pastificio dei Campi not only because it's PGI and 100% Italian but also because is produced following the oldest artisanal traditions and only  with high quality Italian grain.

I bet pasta will be with us in the future! What do you think?

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