52Tutti Matti

Chef Alida Solomon's Tuscan cooking has become increasingly assured and is now so confident that even staunch Italophiles can close their eyes and imagine themselves to be in Montalcino instead of on a bland stretch of Adelaide Street. Tuscans, like all Italians, eat local. I once asked a chef in Montepulciano to make me fish. He blanched and said: but signora, we would have to import it. That Alida Solomon thinks like a Tuscan is evident at first bite of her fettucine with duck, cherries, chanterelles and thyme. The pasta is impeccable, the duck is most tender, cooked down to its essence with a back story of orange peel and enriched by roasted chestnuts. Tuscans adore meat, and so does solomon. She roasts beef short ribs 'till the meat goes soft and tender, scenting it with rosemary and garlic, adding red-wine-braised onions and sensual mashed potatoes. In the winter she stews wild boar, gentling it to tenderness with creamy polenta and porcini; in warmer weather she takes advantage of the season and fries zucchini flowers.