Diana Lee: Journalist covering food and lifestyle trends in Italy, based in Milan.
Davide Oldani: Grana Padano and a chef's quest for harmony
Chef Davide Oldani’s sustainable cuisine is underlined by a seasonal menu composed of products with a strong Italian DNA, crafted into dishes of perfectly-balanced flavours, tradition and innovation that sing in harmony, and a finesse achieved by a pillar ingredient, Grana Padano PDO.
“I use Grana Padano because I am Padano, I am from Lombardy, born in Milan, where Grana Padano has its history,” explains Davide Oldani, speaking of the importance of the ingredients he selects at his two-Michelin-starred restaurant D’O. To be “Padano” might not be as recognisable to a foreigner as it is to be Sicilian, Neapolitan or Roman, but it certainly ought to be. Geographically speaking, it means to be of the Po Valley, that vast plain in Northern Italy that extends from the Western Alps to the Adriatic Sea. But it is more than that - it is to be part of this fertile land, rich with culinary traditions that have come to define its many thriving cities nourished by the river Po.
Grana Padano was born here, around a thousand years ago at the Chiaravalle Abbey just a few kilometres south of Milan. Cistercian monks back then found a way to preserve surplus milk, creating the first wheel of the aged cheese. To this day, not much has changed in the making of the Italian flavour hero. Traditional and painstakingly precise routines are repeated daily, starting from the raw milk of free-range cows that graze on fresh forage and silage in strictly restricted areas of the Po. 1,000 litres of it make just two wheels of Grana Padano, and each wheel is aged in closely monitored warehouses for at least nine months before they can be sold. The entire process is watched, worked, touched, tasted, even listened to (a part of the quality testing involves tapping the wheel with a small hammer to ‘hear’ its fermentation status) by skilled artisans.
Over at D’O, in the chef’s hometown of Cornaredo just outside Milan’s centre, Oldani has built his brand of progressive yet accessible fine dining, a culinary style that has identified him as one of the country’s great chefs of contemporary Italian cuisine. The freshest local products are the foundations of his cuisine, where artful dishes appear deceivingly simple, yet they are innovative, without ever being pretentious.
Harmony is key to his creative process. Grana Padano, he explains, “means to my kitchen one of the ingredients to build up our idea of food. To be good food, it has to be harmonious.”
The various nuances in taste, body and intensity depending on its age, give a chef like Oldani the creative breadth to use the cheese of different ages on his menu. Whether it is the 22-, 24- or 27-month-aged cheese, his preference is clearly for the Riserva grade that indicates a Grana Padano aged for over 20 months. Crumblier and more complex than its younger counterparts, it has an intense, tangy flavour that shows off the full flavour potential of this unique product from the Po Valley.
“We use 2-3 types of Grana Padano, and each one of them is used for a different dish; there is never any repetition,” explains the chef. D’O’s current autumn menu features Grana Padano Riserva which may be creamed, blended, grated, siphoned or served simply as-is, alongside locally sourced produce that reflects the changing colours outside the windows of the restaurant in the town’s square.
A perfect example of Oldani’s idea of harmony is found in the chef’s most iconic dish, the “cipolla caramellata“ (caramelised onion). At the core of the dish is caramelised onion, with Grana Padano Riserva aged 24 months that is presented cold as a quenelle of gelato on top but also as a warm pillow of cream below the crunchy layer of caramel. “Onion and cheese, it’s a classic combination,” he says of the dish, but there is nothing classic about Oldani’s onion. When paired with Grana Padano, it conjures up many warm memories of a mother’s cooking but here it simultaneously creates an entirely new one. The dish is a striking contrast of textures, temperatures, and sweet-savoury flavours, in the perfect proportions that find balance among each other.
In this way, Oldani is more than a chef but a designer who crafts original experiences for those who come through his doors.
Pioneering people like him make Granda Padano what it is today: a product founded from centuries-old culinary customs that continues to be intrinsic to the birth of new traditions in this land.
Paid and
Presented by:
Presented by:
Grana Padano PDO, a Timeless Treasure
Grana Padano cheese has been a part of Italy's proud gastronomic heritage for almost 1000 years. Naturally lactose free due to the long ageing process, with a nutty and distinctive flavor and granular texture, it is extremely versatile and comes aged between 9 months to over 24 months. Grana Padano possesses unique nutritional features such as quality proteins, vitamins and mineral salts, especially calcium.
Further reading
Further reading
