Pastamadre
via Bernardino Corio, 8 - Milano
From Sicily, passing all the way through Scandinavia.
A cook with a past experience as a war photographer, who decided, after his first daughter’s birth, to change his life and settle down. In Milan.
This is, in short, the backstory of Francesco Costanzo, a “homemade” chef who taught himself everything he knows about cooking, learning from his mother and grandmother and absorbing their love and care towards the preparation and presentation of food; food me ants as nourishment and expression, as a form of human congregation and conviviality.
Here at Pastamadre, Francesco doesn’t limit himself to proposing typical sicilian recipies, but he tries to express the love and respect towards his heritage through his dishes, and through the use of products that mainly all come from his land: he has fun experimenting with changing different recipies, and transforming them. An example could be his revisited broccoli pasta recepie, made not with toasted croutons but with a crumble of pistachios, almonds and pine nuts.
The wine selection is also not “Sicilian themed”, but oriented almost exclusively towards natural wines, made without any added sulphites: here, you’ll find wines that are “alive”.
A great level of coherence and an attentive cure to simplicity make Pastamadre a place of ecologically sustainable nature, that transforms the use of various existing objects to offer an original decor: the seats and the counter are made out of old wooden crates, that were once used to transport pieces of art (imported directly from Villa Panza), the ceiling is decorated with cardboard pipes (Francesco calls them “cannoli”, to underline his sicilian heritage), the coat hanger is made of old wooden spoons and forks, and the door handle is an old trowel. This whole decoration idea was created by following a project signed by Studio Albori.
Allow yourself to have a tasty, delicious Saturday breakfast here, and enjoy!