Almare, local catch at its best

At the Almare restaurant in Fano, Sicilian Chef Antonio Scarrantino hit the bullseye using locally caught fish, above all oily fish.

During the 16th edition of the International Brodetto and Zuppa di Pesce Festival I was able to try out the Almare restaurant in Fano, having heard good things about it and thanks to festival organizers. For me, it was a kind of an unexpected blast to the past because when I got there I discovered that the owners were the family of Nicola, my classmate from elementary school who I had not seen for 40 years!

There are two beaches in Fano: one to the north of the port, the Lido (sandy); and one to the south, Sassonia (rocky). The restaurant is in Sassonia, near the Go-Kart track, in a modern, almost Scandinavian-looking building of cement, glass and steel that is full of light. It is not only by the sea, it is almost in the sea.

The fare is almost exclusively fish made in a variety of ways, with fixed-tasting menus from traditional cuisine to more international offerings and a vast à la carte selection. The chef is 30-year-old Sicilian Antonio Scarantino who, after gaining experience around the world, would appear to have found his home here, bringing with him the methods, flavors and aromas he discovered elsewhere.

I know fully well that most of you have had their fill of gourmet and conceptional cuisine that by now you eat only on special occasions. Be it out of laziness or the price, more often than not we look for a cuisine that has its roots in tradition, one that uses known, local prime ingredients, better yet if cheap and reinterpreted by the chef. Antonio does exactly this and for me he pleases his clientele the most when he offers concrete, powerful dishes that are flavorful, and comforting, using the local daily catch, above all oily fish. These include his breaded anchovies with tomatoes and basil; mackerel cooked at a low heat on a bed of juniper-flavored red onions; scallops with late-harvest Fano cauliflower; and deboned rabbit stuffed with monkfish and chard.

The menu is long, perhaps too long, but can satisfy almost all tastes in a reasonable amount of time. Everything is made by a crew of a dozen or so in the kitchen while the restaurant seats about 60 people at lunch and dinner.

The best thing to do is select a fixed menu, an approach that since they opened a few years ago is having an enormous success, also thanks to the very reasonable prices.

Since this is DoctorWine, we should also look at the wine list which, for me, rightfully and amply represents the territory, above all with Bianchello di Metauro and Verdicchio, along with some wine from southern Marche and other regions. All the wines have a reasonable mark-up that is never exaggerated.

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