Brendan Becht has fused the delicate forms of Japanese sushi with vibrant regional flavours from all over Italy. The result is food which doubles as art, says Adrian Dannatt. Photographs by Jason Lowe.
That Brendan Becht, a Dutchman, should be one of Italy's finest chefs is merely a standard Euro-paradox, but that he has also invented a new culinary genre, which merges the flavours of Italy and Japan, seems pan-globally ambitious.
In fact, 'sushi Italiano' is an almost mathematically neat summation of 33-year-old Becht's career. It is the obvious, logical result of an Italian food expert spending half of every year in Japan. For if the style and presentation is entirely Japanese, all the ingredients are specifically, uncompromisingly loyal to Italy. "I have been to Japan at least 15 times in the last few years, creating Italian food for the Japanese," says Becht. "They love it because they find it very similar to Japanese food in its directness. It leaves individual ingredients to stand for themselves, unlike classic French food. In Italian food, you taste individual ingredients, so the approach is the same even if the flavours are different."
It took a foreigner to see these underlying similarities, not least that Italy has its own strong tradition of raw fish - swordfish, mussels and squid have all been eaten uncooked. Both countries also have a rice-based cuisine, even if the importance of rice in Italian food has only recently been appreciated. "But the aesthetic part is the most important for me," explains Becht. "Especially with Japanese food. Sushi are like small sculptures, tiny artworks. My idea was to create sushi with Italian ingredients only, removing the typical Japanese ingredients like soy sauce, seaweed and so on. But they remain sushi because they are the same size, shape and design."
Thus the flavour of these sushi is obviously not that of wasabi but of sea bream with pesto, or prawns with a sweet and sour rag� of vegetables. The only Oriental element is rice flavoured in a Japanese way with sugar and vinegar.
So far, Becht has created some 15 versions of sushi Italiano including moonfish, tomato and blood orange - a typically Sicilian flavour; a basil, marjoram, pine nut and sultana combination; and a simple spaghetti vongole served like a delicate petit four.
Becht's culinary curiosity is endless. "One could make sushi with almost any fish from the Mediterranean, and each has a local tradition attached. For example, the Sicilian way of stuffing and baking sardines with parsley and black olives would make perfect sushi. Or fresh red mullet with mint sauce. I invent nothing, these are all based on well-established flavour combinations."
Becht does not claim to be an expert on Japanese food and his dishes do not claim to be Japanese. Rather, he is an acknowledged specialist on regional Italian cooking. This comes from years of work with Gualtiero Marchesi, Italy's most renowned chef, and the first Italian ever to win three Michelin stars. Becht worked as a chef in Marchesi's Milan restaurant and then collaborated with the maestro on books such as the seminal La Cucina Regionale Italiana, for which he personally created 400 dishes, and a volume on olive oil. "Not being Italian helped," says Becht. "Italians are so attached to their local origins - Mamma's food. Few are able to grasp that a whole range of regional Italian cooking exists."
He also travelled the world as Marchesi's 'Flying Dutchman', organising gastronomic events in the leading hotels of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Santiago in Chile. "I have the greatest respect for Marchesi. He's one of the few people who possesses a really original understanding of food. From him I learnt a philosophy of eating, which is not just about flavour but also texture. We would discuss minute details of presentation when planning events together. He's very open, without the attitude of some star chefs."
Though born in Holland, Becht has pursued a varied culinary career, arriving in London as a teenager to work at La Tante Claire and The Connaught. Through his connections with the art world (his father is a collector of contemporary art), he was employed to cook intimate meals for the likes of Peter Blake, Ian Drury and John Pawson. Moving to Paris, he became a patisserie expert at Fauchon, then worked for the revered chef Alain Senderens. Becht became a key figure in the kitchen of Senderens' fabled restaurant, Lucas Carton.
Still based in Milan, Becht is now established as a food consultant. He was asked to set up the largest Italian restaurant in Japan, Sogni di Sogni, at the Osaka Dome. For the same group, Becht is to open a new Tokyo restaurant, as big and doubtless as busy as the Osaka prototype. It was as a freelance consultant Becht first created his 'sushi' for the modish Milanese restaurant La Terrazza, where it is proudly described as 'la nostra specialità'. It is a particular success with resident Japanese who come back for it every week.
Becht produced a very precise and detailed guide to creating his combinations, which has not changed in the slightest since it was first introduced. The strict rules and standardised measurements are now carried out by Raji, La Terrazza's Sri Lankan chef, in his custom-built corner sushi kitchen. Becht remains rigorous about ingredients: "On Mondays we don't serve sushi because all the fresh fish markets are closed."
At La Terrazza, sushi are not presented individually but in groups of five, seven or nine, the waiter describing the composition of each one when he brings them to the table. All this will change when a series of sushi Italiano bars are opened shortly. Here the emphasis will be on a wide selection of individual sushi, like up-market tapas, offered at competitive prices. The first such bar is planned to open in the centre of Milan at the Piazza del Duomo, serving well-suited Italian wines such as Franciacorta Brut, that long-underestimated rival to Champagne.
Other cities beckon in the future but Becht retains one particular ambition. "My greatest dream is to bring sushi Italiano back to Japan, to provide the Japanese with an alternative to their own dish, right in the heart of Tokyo."
Sushi Mediterraneo at La Terrazza di Via Palestro, Via Palestro 2, 4th floor, 20121 Milan. Tel 00 39 2 76 00 21 86. Fax 00 39 2 76 00 33 28. Closed Sunday and Monday lunchtime