Chef's menu, between sea mayonnaise and pheasant anolini

There is no Christmas without delicacies, and for those who choose to celebrate the eve and lunch of the 25th in the restaurant, you are spoiled for choice, with one certainty: red turnips and beets are a must

. Outside the home, plastic-free is a choice of style rather than ethics, but the Greta effect has also arrived in haute cuisine with sustainability in consumption, from sea urchins to game, and anti-waste recipes to act as common thread of menus and menus. Starting from Antonino Cannavacciuolo who in recent days signs copies of his latest book, "Christmas lunch. The dishes of the holidays and the kitchen of leftovers ''.

Sea mayonnaise and the sea urchin bottarga of Lele Usai at Il Tino di Fiumicino are some of the novelties for the dinner on the eve. "Fish is the protagonist of the Christmas dinner, as tradition dictates: I combine it with raw materials of Mediterranean excellence - says Lorenzo Di Gravio dell'Assaje, the starred restaurant of the Aldrovandi Villa Borghese in Rome. - The choice to insert the octopus comes from my connection with the Island of Elba, mother's land of origin, and its sea rich in this fish; on the menu I also propose risotto with sea urchins because this is the best time to eat them ".

At the Rome Cavalieri, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel, while Heinz Beck makes special the menu on the eve with oyster with celery, apples and snow with the scent of carpione, duck fatty liver with pear and ginger and Norway lobster on Rosa di radicchio Gorizia with pomegranate cooked in ashes, the pastry chef Dario Nuti makes the French toast of panettone with Zibibbo ice cream and the harmony of gingerbread sumptuous. Even a pop dessert like crunchy can be special at Idylio by Apreda, where the chef combines dried fruit with vanilla and clementines. A stone's throw from the Pantheon, among the proposals for Christmas lunch, the cappellotti in capon broth and black truffle, the spiced lamb, semolina and Castelmagno, and the Mont Blanc with chestnuts and tamarind stand out.

Four vegan recipes proposed in the Merry Veg Xmas Lav 2019, created with FunnyVeg Academy: creamy spiced with purple potatoes; tomato lasagna roll; delights of red lentils; Babka with vanilla sauce. While the animalists of Lac (Lega Abolizione Caccia) remember that only meat from farmed animals can be served at the table. Therefore wild birds other than mallard, red partridge, Sardinian partridge, partridge, pheasant or wood pigeon cannot be traded.

The Lega Abolizione Caccia invites consumers to say "a decided no to any offer of suspicious dishes because" there is no tradition that holds. "But the tradition wins, and how, at the Antica Corte Pallavicina in Polesine Parmense where the New Year will be based on Carnaroli rice savarin stuffed with a ragu 'of leftovers in Culatello sauce, the anolini stuffed with pheasant in third broth and the pike perca fillet.

The appeal of Peruvian cuisine is also growing in Italy: at Christmas it is a triumph of flavors, aromas and colors with six inevitable dishes: Lechón al horno, the roast suckling pig; Puré de camote: a mashed sweet potato; pachamanca, an Andean specialty cooked by the heat of the stones under the ground; the cheese with honey and La Bola de Oro, literally "golden ball", is a typical Lima dessert covered with egg yolks which give the dessert a golden color. (ANSA).