Rustichella X Ephernité Media Lunch

Chef Vanessa Huang Brings You the Pasta of Your Dreams

It was a serendipitous encounter that paves the way for this crossover collaboration. Years ago, chef Vanessa Huang (Ephernité) received a pack of Rustichella pasta as a souvenir after a class she attended in Italy and was surprised by its superb quality.

Being one of the leading restaurants in Taiwan, Ephernité is keen on sustainable food sourcing and the «farm to table» concept. This means while keeping all the valuable traits in the culinary traditions, Ephernité also emphasizes the importance of uncovering new creative possibilities. This echoes perfectly with the pursuit of Rustichella, to preserve the culture and history of pasta making yet at the same time vigorously seeking inventions.

GQ Event

On August 13th, Rustichella together with chef Vanessa joined one of the biggest fashion magazine- GQ’s event about style & gourmet.

To serve as an appetizer, chef Vanessa used fruit flavor paccherini mixed with salad then splash them with Greek yogurt. The distinctive colors and texture of the paccherini certainly made this more than a normal salad.

For warm dishes, chef Vanessa wanted to stay with the classicstraditional gree (pesto) and red (ragù alla Bolognese) sauces, to bring out the unique shapes and subtle character of Rustichella pasta.

The purpose of this GQ event was to generate buzz in the market and to reinforce the impression of 2nd media event. More like a trial sell to the public.

We made a brochure in a newspaper format to deliver brand core value and use it for further communication.Dishes prepared by chef Vanessa Restaurant Ephernité, Taiwan.

Media Lunch

On Septenber 29th, we served a fourcourse lunch, prepared by chef Vanessa. She has been listed in 25 of Bébés Barbot, children of Barbot, by the French magazine 《 Omnivore 》 in 2015. This is no doubt a great honor and a recognition for her outstanding work.

We invited 12 journalists and KOLs to the lunch, aiming to broaden the impact of exposures among gourmets, press, fashion magazines, and young key influencers.

Goal and Lunch Concept

The goal was to build a brand recognition of true artisan, and at the same time to communicate Rustichella as a traditional brand with innovative vigor. After careful planning, we decided to use lorighittas to showcase Rustichella’s craftmanship and set the cornerstone of premium brand positioning. Then the fruit flavor paccherini was utilized to demonstrate the creative and innovative quality of the brand.

The theme of the lunch was “romantic encounter”. Chef Vanessa used 8 types of pasta to create four contemporary French cuisines. The most special pasta she chose was lorighittas, one the most expensive and rare type of pasta in the world to tribute to traditional Italian female and her former self.

Chef had presented an extraordinary way to enjoy pasta, under her delicate cooking style and creativity. You can tell from the name of dishes that the concept linked to the impression of Italy, while the presentation is contemporary. This is a careful arrangement to echo tradition and innovation.

Love or Bread?

To make it rarer and more valuable, this variety of pasta has been listed as endangered by Slow Food’s Ark of Taste.

Lorighittas – a braided, ring-shape pasta, can be seen as the crown jewel of Rustichella. Because it can only be handmade and because of the complexity of the making process, only 750 grams of lorighittas can be produced per day.

Lorighittas placed on a pink ring tray made by pâté de foie gras with a fruit jewel crowning on top, echoing the romantic connotation of lorighittas. For the bread, chef chooses Cavatelli because its similar shape to baguette. The sauce is porcini white sauce with a slice of honey white truffle, to echo the meaning of “bread and honey”

Lorighittas: an All-but-Lost Sardinian Pasta

Due to the rareness of lorighittas, hardly anyone knows about it. It’s one of the well-kept secret of Sardinia. You can only find it there. Rustichella d’Abruzzo has the widest catalogue in the market and the largest selection of regional pastas. It is the only international brand that carries lorighittas, demonstrating its craftsmanship.

Lorighittas was said to be prepared by unmarried young women and teenagers. The traditions in Sardinia relating to food and marriage. Young female there wish to get married and making lorighittas implies they are waiting for a wedding ring. Usually, the way of making lorighittas passed down from generations, and each family has their own way of weaving the dough.

Protecting culture is vital to Rustichella. It is the reason why Rustichella determines to keep this beautiful tradition from disappearing and works with talented chefs to spread lorighittas around the world.

Portovenere

Portovenere is the secret spot of Cinque Terre. We named it to emphasize the secret flavor of paccheri. Fruit paccheri is also a secret ingredient of Enrico Bartolini.

Portovenere

Portovenere is a secret spot of Cinque Terre. Chef Vanessa visited Cinque Terre and was surprised by the colorful scenes there.

Starting with fruity flavor paccheri - pineapple, bergamot, and berries- with creamy minced shrimp, scallop mouse and veggie mouse sprinkled with a hint Sichuan pepper as entrée. The fruity and spicy contraction serves to escalate your expectation.

Chef Vanessa uses her impression of Italy to connect with Rustichella’s invention. The slow dried fruity flavor paccheri has strong flavor, invented for contemporary chefs full of creativities. Chef Vanessa successfully rock the paccheri and had magically pileup an exquisite‑ fragrance and taste.

The dish seems complicated with different kinds of flavors but is actually fresh after chewing the paccheri. All the participants loves it the most.

Paccheri with Fruit

The invention of fruit paccheri was designed to meet the desire of chefs and restaurants to create innovative recipes. Paccheri stimulates the creative flair of the most ambitious chefs, including the well-known three-star chef Enrico Bartolini.

Vanessa said, “to many chefs, pasta is a type of noodle, however, to me it is an ingredients with countless possibilities.” She cook fruit paccheri based on its unique flavor, shape, and texture. For example, stuffing shrimp paste into pineapple is a western style of pineapple shrimp ball. See how she plays around with pasta!

Through the collaboration with Rustichella, she had a chance to try more than 10 different pastas. It was just like knowing 10 more new ingredients. It was a lot of fun.

The Sky of Milan

Traditional ossobuco alla Milanese with Cestini and spicy spaghetti.

The Sky of Milan

The main dish is the classic ossobuco alla Milanese but with a little naughty twist. Instead of the common side dish such as risotto or polenta, Chef Vanessa uses pepper flavor tonnarelli. She said ossobuco alla Milanese was the first traditional Italian cuisine she learned twelve years ago when she was travelling in Italy, and she wants to remind people of the excitement and passion you would experience when you get the opportunity to see the world. Spicy pasta goes with burning passion.

Cestini was used to imply clouds, and fried spicy spaghetti to structure the space on the plate to make the sky she saw in Rome. Cestini has a great shape to contain sauce also has an excellent texture, while the spicy spaghetti gives crunchiness and flavor.

The spicy spaghetti is a spotlight here to amazed our guest. The heat is gentle and mild, but the after taste is fine and strong. It was a successful choice.

The Sunset Glow of Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

Florence has a well-known beautiful sunset glow. Chef uses white fungus colored with shiso syrup to make it pinky. White fungus looks like white flower that symbols Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. On top of it, there is cherry and peach sorbet. Finally, pouring Shanlinxi High Mountain Tea to make the dish look like sunset glow.

The dessert is mixing several Taiwanese elements. The concept is close to Taiwanese shaved ice. Chef uses pasta to replace a common ingredient- candied oat, because pasta has similar texture and aroma.

Guests are surprised to find no pasta in the dish, but soon after, there are star-shaped pasta appear as a proper presence to satisfied your desire of eating a dessert.

Special Thanks to Our Actors

The tradition goes on