LA PRIMA DONNA
Chef Martina Caruso is staying true to the traditional tastes of her native Salina, one of the Aeolian Islands near Sicily
Martina Caruso is now a household name in Italy, having been crowned the country’s best female chef by the Michelin Guide last year. This is just one of her accolades, as she was also the youngest female Italian chef to be awarded a Michelin star in 2016 for her restaurant in Hotel Signum, Salina.
“My philosophy is simple. It is to use the local ingredients of Salina island in Sicily and stay true to their tastes. I also pay particular attention to the seasons and what they offer,” says the chef. Caruso’s love for the island she grew up on and its produce is apparent. One of the most important relationships, she says, is that between a chef and local producers and farmers, because in the end what matters most is the quality not quantity of the ingredients.
“I travel around on inspiration trips to help me have different influences for techniques and ingredients, though my focus is always on traditions. I try to use these trips to make interesting mixes without changing the local ingredients, which are always the main characters of the dish,” says the chef whose favourite ingredients are olive oil and tomato.
“The dishes I made when I was 25 are different now because I am a different person,” adds the chef. “I look for simplicity, nothing fancy.”
Hotel Signum is open only seven months of the year, April until November, and the seasonal menu changes three times — spring, summer and autumn. “What we are focusing in on now is using winter ingredients in the autumn menu. Using traditional techniques from 30-40 years ago, like drying herbs and spices. Back then there was no electricity on many of Italy’s islands, and the people have learned to adapt. Hence, there are many techniques to showcase winter ingredients in the autumn menu.”
The hotel has its own land where vegetables and fruits are grown and 80% of Caruso’s produce, like fish, comes from Salina or Sicily’s local producers. The remaining ingredients are sourced from other regions of Italy, but always with an eye on quality.
Hotel Signum is not open during the winter because it was built for enjoying the outdoors and views of the sea. “One cannot enjoy it in the cold. Also, a lot of the islands are closed during the winter, as they are inaccessible and there is no transport to the mainland because the weather can be bad. We have tried to open during the festive season in December, but people don’t really enjoy coming to the hotel during the cold months,” says the chef of having to operate a kitchen only seven months of the year.
“Tradition is very important and is always the base when creating a new dish,” she says. “I have never stopped trying traditional recipes and dishes because there are so many old and local recipes that are yet to be discovered. The other components that form my menu at Signum are travelling and putting the dishes to it into a modern era.”
Caruso is one of a few female Italian chefs who has gained recognition, despite the cuisine being influenced heavily by the kitchens of mothers and grandmothers. “It is true that there are not many female Italian chefs when the cooking is so much about ‘mama’s cooking’. The Italian male chefs do learn to cook from their mothers and grandmothers. However, there are a growing number of female Italian chefs. The Atelier des Grandes Dames, a network of women who are chefs by profession, committed to enhancing the female talent in this area, is doing a lot to put female chefs in the spotlight. In Europe, Italy has the highest percentage of female chefs, so we shall see a lot of them in the future.”
Being voted Italy’s best female chef in 2019 got Caruso more attention than the Michelin star in 2016.
“As soon as I got the award, I was inundated by the media with requests for interviews. I even had to cut short a trip to Copenhagen! The biggest change was in our customers.
People coming to Salina knew about me and knew about our work at Signum. This was a different type of customer base — one who knew what to expect when coming to Salina. Now people come to Salina just for me.
“My future is in Salina at Signum. What I would like to do is to expand and have a pizzeria. I would also like to work more on ingredients conservation and create a lab using the traditional methods of storing food and produce. I also would like to involve my guests in foraging produce from our land. The hotel has only 30 rooms and we would like our guests to get the family experience. It is important to feel your food and see where it comes from, and since most of it comes from around the hotel, this is possible.”
‘‘The dishes I made when I was 25 are different now because I am a different person. I look for simplicity, nothing fancy