La Pista: a chef who is conquering Turin cooks on the largest roof garden in Europe

Photo of the Lingotto on the cover: Benedetto Camerana Studio, Stefano Mattea

The restaurant

Who knows how many car models and prototypes raced on the legendary Fiat testing track, on the roof of the Lingotto in Turin, before the redevelopment designed by Renzo Piano? This has become a peculiar place: transformed into the largest hanging garden in Europe which has over 40,000 plants of which 300 are different species and varieties, from up here you can enjoy a view that does not leave you indifferent, starting from the large bubble of glass and steel designed by the very famous architect himself, and then sweeping over the city, its hills and the Alps.

War 1927, group headed by the entrepreneur Roberto Munniahas created a lounge bar and a restaurant, The Track precisely, where he cooks one of the most interesting young chefs on the Turin scene. While it is certainly worth looking out and taking a look at the large circuit, the interiors are no different: you sit in large, bright rooms with imposing windows. The tables are well spaced from each other and the atmosphere is just right, even for a romantic dinner.

The chef

Alessandro Scardina, born in 1991, has the healthy ambition of someone who deeply loves his profession: “I didn’t choose this profession by chance, I was born and raised in a southern family – both my parents are Sicilian – in a very modest context with salaries that were enough to make ends meet. So my mother always made everything at home and I remember a childhood of wholesome dishes, vegetables, preserves, jams, fresh pasta and seasonal products, never frozen or canned goods: we always bought at the Porta Palazzo market.

I’ve always cooked, I’ve never liked things like video games. I actually stayed with my mother, cleaned the green beans and sang; I have a great passion for singing, I was in the children’s choir at the Teatro Regio. When I started hotel school, I felt ahead of the kids who didn’t know what it meant to make fresh pasta, because I already had some flour. Then I don’t like sitting idle: if I get home and I’m not tired I don’t feel right.” Beyond some stops in well-known restaurants, including the Or, Alessandro claims to have learned much more in his experiences in lesser-known venues.

“It’s not a question of stars, but of what you can take home from the experience.” Like the Tre Galli of the Risca brothers who now have Magazzino 52 in Turin: “After finishing school I went to work with them, it was a good apprenticeship until I was 21. I learned quality, discipline, education, they directed me to build a credible CV.” A year passes with him Adriano Cavagnini a Londra, all’Amaranth del Four Seasons: “He taught me a lot of things, I worked with subjects I didn’t know. Another one who made an impact on me was Federico Zanellato from LuMi in Sydney.”

We still find him in London, al Coyaa place serving traditional Peruvian cuisine. Having returned to Turin, at the time of the pandemic, he found himself working as a private chef for some important family until he went to Villa La Bollina in the Alessandria, called by Ivan Famanni. Here he remained for a couple of years, before spontaneously introducing himself to Roberto Munnia, aware of the fact that a The Track the chef at the time was leaving.

“Mr. Munnia asked me to cook for him and his wife for lunch: I went to the fishmonger in the market. Half an hour after eating he called me and said ‘Scardina, you are the new chef of La pista’. A great satisfaction, I still have goosebumps. Now I’ve been here for a little over a year and I’m trying to make it a restaurant where it’s worth coming to eat.”

The experience and the dishes

In our opinion, Alessandro Scardina has already succeeded, with a very personal cuisine, full of ideas, which, drawing freely from his experiences, becomes an original interpretation. “I work a lot instinctively, but if I don’t feel good about myself I can’t cook. Then there are days when I feel happy and maybe even 4/5 new and good dishes come out.” At his side Daniele Lo Grasso: “He did everything with me, we left school together, we traveled and slept in the same bed, where I don’t go he goes, it’s like we were brothers”. The picture of a close-knit team is completed with Evi Polliotto, pastry chef and a very well orchestrated room by Davide Sterrantino, maître and sommelier (nice wine list with more than 350 preferences and an excellent choice of Champagne) e Mattia Dagnelli, vice master.

The sequence of amuse bouche, of those carefully designed to pave the way for the dishes, is remarkable and not at all predictable (as unfortunately, often happens elsewhere). The experience begins with Piedmontese beef tartare seasoned with a sea urchin garum: at its base a tarragon puree and on the surface ginger caramel and tempura spheres, beautiful morsels.

We continue with the voluptuous Egg pasta ravioli filled with lacto-fermented potato, celeriac puree, cooked and raw vegetables, finishing with a green curry sauce. Delicious spaghetti cooked in red turnip extraction with smoked herring, herring in oil, its caviar and 30 month Parmigiano Reggiano fondue, what is now a flagship dish of Scardina cuisine.

Of seductive texture and flavour cod marinated in red miso and cooked on the barbecue, supa de choclo and bitter lupine shoots. Also very good kale (kale), also barbecued and served with tamarind and vegetable extraction.

Very tender and with great taste Oriental-style glazed pork rib and finished on the grill. The fresh pre-dessert is also worth mentioning: sake and rose extract sorbet with candied Peruvian botija olives. It ends happily with the perfume fig leaf ice cream, red fruits, trehalose meringue and Modena balsamic vinegar. For those passing through Turin The Track it is a stop not to be missed.