UliassiA white house caught between the canal mouth and the beach

Sea and hills on the same menu

Senigallia, Italy — Coastal tasting menu on the sand.

The first line of the restaurant's own text says that cooking gives a person the chance to hand pleasure to someone else. The kitchen is rooted in the tradition of the Adriatic coast, and they say they use plates to tell forgotten flavours and stories, in order to light memory up. Then comes the phrase sea and hills: along this coast people both farmed and fished, and the two were always grown together. In recent years they have put the work into the five senses, sight and smell and taste and texture, and the rhythm of a dish arriving at the table, so that the people sitting there keep thinking about the next mouthful.

A first visit usually starts with the collection of dishes most ordered over the years. Anyone after something new waits for the weeks set aside each year for experiment. Either way the whole table orders the same menu, so numbers and dates have to be settled first.

Two siblings run the place, Mauro in the kitchen and Catia in the dining room, both born in Senigallia. It opened on a Sunday in May, when the house was still a wooden shack by the sea.

A white house and two waters

The house is one storey. Along the sea side a row of white columns carries curved awnings that step out towards the beach, one behind the other. The wooden deck is laid straight onto the sand, the tables go on top and the cloths hang to the floor. Railings, steps and benches are all white, the sand is pale grey, and the sea lies further out.

There are two dining rooms. One faces the sea and has a covered terrace, its tables almost against the sand. The other is smaller and looks towards the dock, where the canal runs past. The official site lists the two side by side: one to the sea, one to the canal.

How the menus are arranged

Four tasting menus are divided by purpose. Classico gathers the dishes most often ordered over the years, and the site describes it as the way in for a first visit. Easy Classico is shorter, six courses chosen by Catia. Lab is what comes out of the weeks set aside each year for experiment, ten dishes that have never been served. Caccia is counted separately.

Two rules are firm. A tasting menu is ordered by the whole table. Lab and Caccia have to be booked in advance, while the signature menu is available every day. The site also warns that menus move through the year with what the market can supply, so the names read at the table may not match exactly what arrives.

Who painted the walls

The paintings in the dining room are all by Catia. She runs the front of house and paints; the work hangs in the restaurant and has been shown in galleries in Italy and abroad, from New York to Hong Kong.

Mauro came by another route. He started behind the bar of a disco, moved into restaurant and hotel kitchens, went to hotel management school, and two months after graduating was asked back by the same school to teach cooking. He says he understood the weight of cooking while making dinner for his wife and her friends.