Organic Dawn

The ingredients for Chef Michele’s summer salad

Stepping into the kitchen at Aurora, my attention is drawn immediately to a huge wicker basket filled to overflowing with colorful fruits and vegetables. Bell peppers, tomatoes, melons, lemons, eggplant, ginger, mushrooms, zucchini and cucumber—what a happy sight! Head Chef Michele dell’ Aquila grabs a bright yellow lemon and drops it into my hand. It’s the size of a grapefruit, heavy and fragrant. “From the Amalfi Coast,” he says. “The sweetest lemon you’ll ever taste!”
Michele, like every serious chef, loves to talk ingredients, not just because of his own passion for good food, but also out of a sense of mission. “We want people to understand what they are eating,” he says. “We want to teach people about the different ingredients we use, where they come from, who produces them, how we cook them—this is important.”
He shows me the ingredients he’ll use to prepare tonight’s selection of totally organic dishes. There is lamb from a farm in the UK, and olive oil from Liguria, in north-western Italy, and, of course, the profusion of incredibly fresh, beautiful vegetables.

Michele’s cooking draws on his love of healthy, seasonal, farm-to-table produce and the culinary traditions of Italy and France. And he’s not afraid to spice things up with things he’s picked up while cooking in Thailand, Bali and Japan. The results are remarkable.

Michele grew up in Bari, in the south of Italy. “I spent my childhood in the garden with my grandparents, learning about different fruits and vegetables, understanding the seasons.” His interest in locally grown organic produce intensified when he began working at Don Alfonso, one of Italy’s most celebrated restaurants. Set on the cliffs of the Sorrento peninsula, the restaurant is surrounded by sunny gardens, terraced olive groves and lemon trees. Michele spent many happy hours picking whatever was freshest for use in that day’s dishes.
Now at the helm of Aurora, the Michelin-starred restaurant on the 10th floor of the Altira Macau hotel, Michele draws on his love of healthy, seasonal, farm-to-table produce and the culinary traditions of Italy and France. And he’s not afraid to spice things up with things he’s picked up while cooking in Thailand, Bali and Japan. The results are remarkable.
First up: a summer salad. This is no ordinary salad—it contains no less than fifteen ingredients, ranging from rocket lettuce to white asparagus tips to red and yellow endive—nor is it tossed like a normal salad. With a pair of large tweezers, Michele carefully selects each item, dips it into his dish of Liguria olive oil and carefully puts it into place on the plate.
“All these ingredients are in season this month,” he says.

Chef Michele in action with his tweezers

I can taste the truth of that freshness. Every new bite delivers unique, intense flavors, and the salad somehow manages to be both exuberant and refined.
“Ideally,” says Michele, “I’d like my own organic garden.”
“How about right there?” I point to Aurora’s outdoor terrace, where the tables and chairs are nestled among stands of bamboo. The sun is setting and there is a spectacular view out over the water towards the Macau skyline. “I can imagine your vegetables growing very happily right there.”
“You’re right!” he laughs. “Maybe one day.”
Michele’s next dish features a lamb ragu that is a twist on the classic Italian bolognese sauce. “I cook the lamb very slowly so it maintains its taste and texture,” says Michele. The meat sauce is served with mascarpone cheese over the long, rectangular pasta known as pappardelle. Everything is organic. Even the pappardelle is made from organic flour, its light flavor a perfect complement to the hearty lamb ragu.
We finish our tasting with a tender, subtly-flavored loin of lamb. Michele serves it with fregola—a Sardinian pasta that’s a bit like couscous—and tops the whole works with grilled slices of porcini mushroom. “I like to keep things simple, so people can taste the true flavors,” he says. Actually, his method, which involves seasoning the lamb in a vacuum-sealed bag and very careful, very precise sautéing, isn’t what most people would describe as simple. There is no question, however, that the results are simply delicious.
“I just love to eat good, fresh food,” says Michele. “I want to give my guests the same experience.”

To add flavor and zest to his dishes, Michele uses aged balsamic vinegar from Modena, Italy. The vinegar is made from pulped wine grapes. The aging process begins in oak casks. Each year the vinegar is moved to new barrels made of different kinds of wood—chestnut, ash, mulberry and juniper. From each new barrel the balsamic vinegar absorbs a new layer of flavor.

The lamb Michele used in two of his dishes came from Rhug Estate, an organic farm in North Wales. The rolling green pastures there provide the perfect environment for raising free-range livestock on an all-natural diet. The meat is hung and aged to give it deep flavor and succulent texture.