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The Cavallino, which has been owned by Ferrari since 1942, has been renovated, entrusted to the care of a star of international cuisine such as Massimo Bottura, who has the Osteria Francescana in Modena, and inaugurated this summer: «Isn’t the maestro here? »Asks Piero Ferrari with affectionate irony to the waiter. No, Bottura is not in Maranello today. His boys and girls immediately bring us a reinterpretation of the Erbazzone: two sheets of Parmesan cheese with a cream of beaten herbs inside. Then, an interpretation of the tigella, transformed into a macaron stuffed with parmesan, lard, a cream of sweet garlic and salted lemon.
We are at the epicenter of the factory and of the imagination, of the memory and of the future of Ferrari. In front of the Cavallino, crossing the road, opens the entrance to Via Abetone Inferiore 4, where just after the barrier, on the left, was the first office of Enzo Ferrari and where, above all, there are the production lines from which the Gran Turismo. Behind the Cavallino, instead, there are the Formula 1 team and the department dedicated to wealthy enthusiasts who can afford to buy – and leave in custody here, coming to then run them on the Fiorano ring – the historic single-seaters of Formula 1 or the cars of the FXX program, the machines that instead of going on the road are enhanced in their performance and remain available to the owners for racing on the track.
As we read the Cavallino menu, Piero chooses the wine: «I really like Piedmontese reds, in particular the Barbaresco that my father already loved, but above all I love Tuscan reds. I would go for a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino di Poggio di Sotto, from 2018. What do you think ?. For me the wine is perfect: «Is it okay if, as a first appetizer, we take fried dumplings with salami?», I ask him. Piero gives me a nod of assent and understanding and specifies: “Don’t forget, let’s not formalize, you can eat fried dumplings with your hands”. The dumpling with raw ham, pancetta and mortadella is remarkable. As an additional appetizer, he takes a carpaccio of arctic char with porcini mushrooms, celeriac and black tea, while I go on a parmesan crème caramel, made with a thirty-six-month Parmesan omelette, onion and Villa Manodori balsamic vinegar. When we have to choose the first one, the emotional temperature rises, because – among the dishes – Lina’s macaroni appear. “Lina was my mom. She was a great cook. One day I told Bottura about her recipe, who wrote it down and then she made this addition to the menu “, she tells her not without a hint of nostalgia. Maccheroncini della Lina are with a three-tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese and thirty-six-month raw ham. Piero cannot fail to choose them. The dish is very inviting. But I am happy to have had the tortellini del Tortellante, in cream of Parmigiano Reggiano. Il Tortellante is the association of Modena in which boys and girls with autism work and prepare fresh pasta, in a wonderful combination of family intimacy and taste, daily commitment and relieved solitude, hand-rolled pasta and sales to individuals and restaurants. .
Lina was Piero’s mother. Her grandmother, on her father’s side, was called Adalgisa instead: “she was the only person my father listened to and whom he obeyed. She was from Forlì. She always said “we Romagna people discuss with the knife under the table”. My father didn’t want me to join the company. She, on the other hand, was in favor. My grandmother Adalgisa died in October 1965. I, like an entire generation of entrepreneurs and sons of entrepreneurs, had graduated from the Technical Institute Fermo Corni in Modena. In her will my grandmother wrote, among her last wishes, that I had to join Ferrari. November 1, 1965 was my first day on the job. My father didn’t want people to think about favoritism. As a result, every time I was assigned a position, I received no more than the basic salary for that function. He was a tough man. But he never overwhelmed me. Coming to eat here every day, alone or with others, was a way to legitimize myself in the company and to show affection in private. He was my father. I was, and am, his son. “
A second glass of Rosso di Montalcino is fine. Piero Ferrari is not certain about the future of the car industry: “The energy transition is not unique. The large geographical areas, such as the United States, Europe and China, follow lines that are only partially overlapping. In general, there are electricity, hydrogen, nuclear, biofuel. Ferrari has a hybrid, the SF90 Stradale. The electric Ferrari will be released in 2025, the first without the Ferrari rumble in the engine. Our society has historically adapted very well to regulatory changes. I always mention the American case: in the 1970s the United States issued anti-pollution regulations at the federal level which, in California, had a more stringent version. We adhered to the Californian standard. This too allowed us, in the following decades, to transform the United States into our first market ».