President: Giampaolo Pioli |Editor in Chief: Stefano VaccaraThe First Italian English Digital Daily Newspaper in the USFrancesco Antonucci (Photo by Terry W. Sanders)It is difficult to find poets.But not impossible.Just don't look for them only in libraries.I, for example, have found many in other places.Poets-painters, poets-singers, poets-husbands (and poetesses, wives and poets-children).They all had something in common.They were carried by a dream, just as a leaf is carried by the wind, and a river pebble by the current.Never ask a poet where he goes.He doesn't know, or if he tells you he is wrong, because the force that pushes him can suddenly change direction, without him noticing.Among the hidden poets, the most mysterious are the cooks, those who today are called chefs.But even rarer and more enchanting are the chefs who create not only their food, but their environment, their world, their paradise, and open it to others.Well, if you want to find a poet like this, you have to come to New York, walk along Central Park on the east side, starting from the big Apple store on 59th Street, and don't be in a hurry.After all, a poet needs a clear mind, and a walk is what it takes to whet the appetite.What's better, then, than having nature on the one hand (including a small farm with cows and goats), and on the other a city always on the run?When you finally arrive at 81st Street, just turn right, go past Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, Lexington (the real beating heart of the city) and you have arrived at Antonucci Cafe.Antonucci Cafe.No. It is not an invented name.The chef is really called Antonucci by surname (first name Francesco), and if you go there in the evening, he is there, sitting at a table in front of the front door.If some guest arrives alone and does not like to eat with an empty seat in front of them, their face bent over the plate, with the air of a beaten dog, they simply sit at Francesco Antonucci's table.Francesco's first poem is about friendship.There are always empty seats at that table in front of the door (in short, if you don't arrive too late), and Francesco with the sense of humor that only Venetians have (he is from Mestre, Bissuola district) will make fun of you, he will make some jokes (maybe spicy), and will force you to smile even before the dish you ordered arrives.But you will certainly have a glass of wine in your hand.And in front of you sits an extraordinary friend, who doesn't love you just because you are his customers.Francesco's second poem is movement.A continuous flow of waiters and waitresses that seems drawn by a painter, or taken from a film with Audrey Hepburn.The waitresses in black dresses, with a string of pearls around their necks, graceful, seem to dance with plates in hand, and you, as you look around, think ... this scene must have been rehearsing for days and days, otherwise how would they not collide, not to blow the dishes, not to soak the necks of customers with a spritz shot off during a vault?Only poets succeed in these acrobatics: reality bends to their will, and the eyes of Francesco (who looks at you, but together never stops searching his room) guide everything with invisible threads.The waiters do not know it but for the most part it is Francesco who moves them, and gives them an extraordinary grace, halfway between dance and the circus.And then the customers.Francesco's third poem is the customers.Do you really think they are true?I don't believe it at all.Francesco must have collected some from Hemingway's novels (Il Café de Flore, do you remember?), A little from his Venetian training (Cipriani, the Harry's bar of yesteryear, and there Hemingway has something to do with it again, and especially the Locanda in Torcello), a bit from his world tour that brought him here to New York.Women of different ages from Antonucci are all graceful (even facelifts are 'see and do not see'), gentle (yes, like Beatrice), elegant without being overdressed.Men maybe with a jacket and shirt, but without a tie.If everyone knew this restaurant I would love to write "Antonucci wear" in my invitations and it would be clear what I want.No sloppiness, no stiffness.Feel good in elegance, don't wear it as a breastplate.But who is under the dress?Who goes to this place?Not just couples, but friends, friends, a world happy to be in the world where everyone speaks a bit of all languages ​​or at least tries to speak them: Fiesta mobile, cheers!Come in the evening, this is the time for the Antonucci experience.Perhaps his magic will transform you for two hours (no one here hurries you) into the character of the book you have always dreamed of reading.Or to write.Francesco's fourth poem is of course food.To understand this you must learn to use the microscope, as is done in a poem by Ungaretti, where every word counts as a speech."I light up / immense".Two words.A risotto by Antonucci, four ingredients.But wait.Can you smell the rosemary in that mushroom risotto?that rosemary that brings the scent of forest resin next to the boletus?Fois gras: but can you smell the poultry in that dish that often tasted of everything and nothing in other restaurants?I don't want to suggest other perfumes.But the point is this.Like any great poet, Francis needs great readers.Readers who stop at his dishes flavor for flavor, and who know how to use food as Proust did, to go back to a welcoming and sweet oasis that perhaps we have all forgotten or have never known.Francesco's fifth poem is the local.Modern paintings by great artists on the walls and small tables, which can be combined and recombined as needed.As you go back you realize that even in this combinatorial game there is a direction, a harmony, and at this point - I'm sorry - there is nothing more to be done.Francesco Antonucci, as a new sorceress Circe, has captured you and will never let you go.You are prisoners of him.This restaurant will be the place you will want to return to whenever you are happy, whenever you are unhappy.Because there, in the middle of the room, is Francesco, the great poet for whom it is worth taking a flight and coming to New York.But please don't eat what you need during the flight, even if you are on business.Here you have to come up with a fresh mind and an empty stomach.And Antonucci's poetry, as the tide does with the sand at the sea in the morning, will wet you and give you his secrets.President: Giampaolo Pioli |Editor in Chief: Stefano VaccaraVNY Media La Voce di New York © 2016 - 2022 Main Office: 230 Park Avenue, 21floor, New York, NY 10169 |Editorial Office / Editorial Office: UN Secretariat Building, International Press Corps S-301, New York, NY 10017© 2016/2022 VNY Media La Voce di New YorkLogin to your account belowPlease enter your username or email address to reset your password.