Lorenzo Viani, owner of the Lorenzo Restaurant
We publish the interview conducted for Firenze made in Tuscany Summer in 2017
Lorenzo Viani, owner of the famous Michelin-starred Lorenzo restaurant in Forte dei Marmi, is one of the figures who helped turn this resort into an international gastronomic icon. His adventure in catering began in his homeland, Lido di Camaiore, but it was in 1981 that he landed in Forte dei Marmi, launching a project that would redefine culinary excellence in the area. Today his daughter Chiara carries on the restaurant's history with experience and passion.
We publish the interview conducted for Firenze made in Tuscany Summer in 2017.
Let's start with a bit of amarcord: the opening date of your restaurant?
1981, from a well-known trattoria to a restaurant recognised by all the guides as one of the best.
An unforgettable evening?
So many... every evening for me is an emotion that is renewed.
Your first dinner at your place: what dish should you try?
There have always been dishes on the menu that we call historic, such as the bavette on fish and the nature of baby squid in the oven. But who commands here is the raw material, always fresh and perfect, which I research and choose every day with maniacal attention.
Versilia, a dish from his memories
Simply a dish of sage cée. Which today has the taste of the forbidden.
The Versilia of your illustrious ancestor?
The Versilia that my great-uncle Lorenzo Viani - one of the most dazzling expressions of 20th-century Italy - portrayed is an unprecedented Versilia: a sea that grants and takes away, that speaks of work and suffering. Viani paints faces that express the tragic fate of those condemned to wait. In one of his pages - from Il nano e la statua nera (The Dwarf and the Black Statue) - we read: ‘The distant docks, dreary as grazed woods in the foliage, are thick with trees on which the flagpoles cross each other in sign of grief; on the carabots, watchful as old mastiffs, only the guardsmen are left, caked in rough tarred coats’.
Your ideal day when not at work?
If the weather and the sea permit on the Gombo, my boat where I eat my catch of the day with the rezzaglio, or the muscles gathered on the rocks in front of the San Rossore estate.
A view that tells of the ancient soul of these places?
The profile of the sandy shore with its typical dunes, the scent of the undergrowth and the pine forest, and - to paraphrase D'Annunzio - ‘on one side to the east, the Apuan Alps, almost immense amphitheatres, and on the other, among the turquoise clouds... the sea waves...’.
