Big ovens, appliances for unfreezing and creating the vacuum, ergonomics: the chef Antonello Colonna tells his kitchen concept and the role household appliances play in its inside.
A start as innkeeper, in a town in the outskirts of Rome, and at the finishing line as great starry chef, with a restaurant in the heart of one of the most appreciated art galleries in the world, “Antonello Colonna Open” inside “Palazzo delle Esposizioni”. In Rome, Antonello Colonna embodies the most topical expressions of the high-quality cuisine today: the respect of genuine products, the research and the strong relationship with the territory. We asked the chef to illustrate us the limits of the industry that produces the kitchen universe to discover that the chef’s skills match the capabilities of designer and engineer.
How much is the contribution of household appliances important in the kitchen?
I like pointing out that the kitchen itself is becoming a household appliance. Today, thanks to the importance that many TV programmes recognize to this ambit, the food meant as expression of the culinary art is within many people’s reach. The DIY logic dominates, encouraged by showcooking.
I think I have shared, in my 31 years of career, in the creation of a new concept of cooking and of chef.
How?
Starting from the image of the chef himself as conceived by the collective imagination some years ago, with caricatural traits: big belly and subtle disproportioned legs. Behind this representation, there is a concept of obsolete cooking, first of all, as well as of surpassed chef. The fat chef embodies a fat cooking, made of fried foods cooked in unhealthy and smelly environments, where you sweat a lot. Household appliances, especially state-of-the-art models, have determined a turning point thanks to the suction technology equipping hoods, then in their turn surpassed by ventilation ceilings and by the temperature control.
In your opinion, what is important in the kitchen?
Creating a tailored environment for the chef. Cooking meant as a culinary course has evolved in the last few years, has become research, and this process has not been followed by an adaptation of the tools with which preparing the food. I make an example. Filleting pigeons, quails or some types of fishes or preparing the stuffing for “ravioli” and “cappelletti” are procedures that take a lot of time, besides requiring undisputed skills. I have designed a suitable stool for the daily life of a chef. Working so many hours in uncomfortable position endangers the health of the chef who in time will suffer from backache, cramps in the calves, swelling of the veins and capillaries of his legs. I worked on ergonomics, a concept that applied to the kitchen makes cooking more practical and functional. In my kitchens, and “Antonello Colonna Open” makes 200,000 covers per year, we do not sweat because environments are perfectly conditioned. But in 90% of restaurant kitchens, there are still cast iron plates that reach 400 degrees.
What is the look of your stool?
It is a perfect example of ergonomics. Feet can be positioned behind, like in the sessions of physiotherapy massages and the stool back reaches the height of the second vertebra, favouring the correct position of the back.
Did you involve some manufacturers in your designer activity?
Yes, I collaborated with Valcucine and with Boffi. The design in itself, however, has nothing special but it takes the chef’s specific needs into account. Actually, it is the revisiting of the American stool used for breakfast. I intervened on that model reducing the height of the legs and calibrating the back to the worktop that measures 90 cm. Sitting on that stool I can bone 100 quails without feeling backache! I teach the other aspects concerning the right posture together with the secrets of my recipes: I ask my pupils to work standing upright on the stool and keeping tools within reach.
What kind of instruments?
The traditional ones but also objects that do not directly pertain to the kitchen meant in traditional way, such as brushes (I buy them at hardware stores!), the tweezers for eyelashes or the plumber’s torch that, thanks to the use of the flame, is useful “to lacquer” some dishes.
Could you define your cooking as cutting-edge also in the use of cooking instruments?
I am betting considerably on eco-sustainability, considering that professional cooking requires a big use of energy. In my new resort at Labico I use a trigeneration plant, the last frontier of renewable sources. Concerning heat, I completely achieve it with wood. I use 89 kW for the power supply of the entire resort of 3,000 square metres, equipped with services such as steam rooms, saunas, heated pools and induction plates. And they are completely self-produced.
What is the industry’s response to these solicitations?
Over the years, I have been consultant for important companies like Valcucine, Boffi and Arclinea. However, I often found a lack of practicality. An example? Why designing induction plates, notoriously strong energy-eaters, when in Italy a family has just 3 KW at disposal for the domestic energy consumption? This just to say that we often design without considering real needs and utilities, maybe following the trends in vogue in other Countries.
Today there is lively interest in cooking, as witnessed by the proliferation of amateur, semi-professional and professional courses. The household appliance world must adapt to it interpreting however the real needs of those who approach cooking.
Please, make us an example.
I suggested to my friend, Piero Lissoni, who produces marvellous design kitchens, to introduce into the equipment a blast chiller or a vacuum device that, frankly speaking, I consider more useful than ironing boards!
You work as consultant also for private citizens who design a tailor-made kitchen for a starry chef. What do you suggest?
First, good ovens. Big: 90 and not 60 versions. It can be a winning choice if you ask a starry chef to come and cook at your house, a demand that I constantly receive since it represents a trend of the haute cuisine, in the north and in the south. But unfortunately this does not happen and then, instead of cooking on the spot, I bring with me my Sansonite equipped with a kit purposely conceived for this goal. I study the menu according to the kitchen I will have to use.
You have signed a socially useful project. Can you tell us something?
Yes, it is the kitchen customized for a family where lives a disabled person. It is composed by large and not narrow spaces where it is easy to move with a wheelchair. Then it is supported by hydraulic pistons, solution that makes it flexible: it can move horizontally and vertically, in this way the worktop is versatile. It can be used by all family members, including the disabled person.
A defect shared by chefs’ kitchens?
The position of the stoves. Big ones are generally positioned in the front, the small ones behind. In some kitchens they are even placed close to the wall.
There are some rules to cook in functional manner. The big stove must be positioned left on the top; smaller flames can stay in the front, to allow the best optimization in working phase and to have the possibility of doing various things in sequence, such as to drain the pasta and to stir using the range of pots and baskets with the right sizes.
Why does industry make errors of this kind, even if it avails itself of research and of a high engineering degree in the design of furnishing and then of kitchens?
Because it privileges design choices that are not always functional, too. Some companies like Angelo Po, Alpes Inox, Electrolux are approaching the chef’s requirements considerably but there are still enormous errors. An example? 50-litre fryers that produce simultaneously a big waste of raw material and health problems. What restaurateur throws away 50 litres of oil at night? None, then it is recycled and fried again.
How do you fry?
In the pan.
What else must be eliminated in the kitchen?
The storage, to the benefit of a daily provisioning. “Antonello Colonna Open”, which prepares 200,000 covers yearly, according to the old stocking logics, should have enormous warehouses. In my restaurant, there are no warehouses. Because the food chain has changed.
What are the most important appliances in your kitchen?
Refrigerators. I use those with doors, like in pharmacies. In most kitchens, the standard 90 cm worktop is combined with 70 cm-deep doors that compel the chef to kneel to search for what he needs. Designing instead two drawers, 40 cm each, you take up the same footprint and you can have everything within reach comfortably, wine or vinegar bottles, too.
What is your design model?
The kitchens of big international chefs like Thomas Keller, Charlie Palmer Tom Colicchio, JoJo. I draw great inspiration from my period in New York. Big American chefs have come to Europe, France and Italy to learn our know how, then they have become big in their turn and in their restaurants they have designed marvellous kitchens where you can see little because everything is technological.
Certainly, our cuisine is more complex because composed by more courses: entry, first and second dish. The other Countries in the world have no first course and the North Europe, then, has no “warm” dishes. At Noma, in Copenhagen, you can see neither a stove because all dishes are cold.
In your kitchen, the light contribution is important as well. Can you talk about that?
In my kitchen, the lighting starts from the ventilation ceiling. Inside are installed some fluorescent white lamps.
Do the solutions you are describing involve a huge investment?
No, they do not. Having a forefront kitchen – like the one of my friend Andrea Berton in Milan, structured even without walls and with the departments divided by worktops – does not involve higher costs. It is fruit of higher care of details and of solutions. The contrary is instead true. Designing the kitchen in rational way helps in avoiding wastes. And obviously in living better among the stoves.
