Food - Drink
Italy's Top Restaurant Reale Features A Meat-Free Tasting Menu
By CLAIRE REDDEN
Reale, located in Castel di Sangro, Italy, boasts three Michelin stars, rankings in the world's 50 Best restaurants, and a team led by Niko Romito, Europe's 2020 chef of the year. However, Romito isn't content to just keep doing the same thing, and has shaken things up by axing meat and fish dishes from the restaurant's tasting menu.
Romito noticed that more clients were seeking restaurants where they can eat well and make less of an impact on the environment. For 2022 and 2023, he has restructured Reale's tasting menu to elevate locally-produced vegetarian ingredients like legumes, chickpeas, lentils, and beans, as a new note in the exceedingly popular Reale's 20-year history.
Reale's menu now features exciting dishes like lentils with hazelnut and garlic oil, capellini pasta with leeks, and a rosemary artichoke. Romito wishes to write a new, different, more sustainable chapter in Italian cuisine, saying that "the real difference is when a chef can make an ingredient we all know well and tell a new story."