Hidden in a narrow street, between Piazza Duomo and the San Domenico Palace, there is Casa Grugno, one of the many sanctuaries of good cuisine in Taormina. From the outside it looks like an old austere medieval building, just like the look of its president, Enrico Briguglio, from Taormina, who also is one of the owners of the restaurant Al Duomo.
But despite the first impression, Casa Grugno is a welcoming oasis, with warm, colourful furniture, which is even more beautiful when you have dinner in the small candle-lit terrace. Briguglio, the owner and president of the Association Le Soste di Ulisse, that includes seven restaurants awarded by the Michelin guide, is a real gourmet who is very careful towards his clients and accompanies them personally to their tables.
What are the Soste di Ulisse?
“Not many people know that it was born from a national association, Le Soste, and includes the best restaurants in the world, said Briguglio. At the end of 2010 we will turn 10, we have come a long way, envied in the rest of Italy for our initiative, born from 12 Sicilian restaurants with president Nino Graziano, owner of the Mulinazzo, near Palermo, who has now moved to Moscow. Now we are 43, a small army, an unlimited heritage of quality and resources composed of chefs, hotellerie and cellars, which are the sponsors of the association, since there cannot be good cuisine without a good wine”.
You have just come back from Vico Equense, where a three-day fair on food and wine took place, but your “reign” is Taormina. How does this small beau monde capital react to the economic crisis and the decrease of foreign tourists because of the cloud from Iceland?
“Fortunately German, American and also Japanese know very well what they want to eat, our clients understand quality and do not look at the bill when they finish eating, they still resist in Taormina. A pizza, even a pizza, with this type of client must be perfect because nowadays no one eats because of hunger, but to spend a good evening, eating a pizza or having dinner at Casa Grugno”.
What is you “war horse” that you propose to your clients and what is the role of the wines that accompany your dishes?
“On our tables you just have to rely on our chef Andrea Zangerl, from Austria but used to Mediterranean tastes, which he treats with simplicity and not to astonish. So he creates the cold starters, an eggplant spuma, tomato sauce and parmesan cheese mousse, the vegetables cream with codfish, tuna browned with chickpea sauce and finally ice-cream with berries from Mount Etna. What counts is the right sequence of tastes, accompanied by the most suitable wine”.
Projects for the future?
For the following months we are studying some initiatives for our clients to promote the excellence of our territory through a communication project “one to one” to lure our ideal customer and offer him an always better product. We are starting to contact our public and in a couple of months we’ll have at least three thousand devoted clients, proposing to them incentives in our restaurant and hotels. Incentives will include the best table to be booked last minute to a bottle of champagne for couples, to special solutions for weekends. Moreover our banner will accompany two Italian crews, the one of Giuseppe Tasca d’Almerita and of Marco de Grazia, in the prestigious boat race Palermo-Monte Carlo, that will take place in August”.
Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute
