If called upon, how confident would you be in turning out a decent risotto? I suppose – and hope – most would suggest their abilities are lacking. Fair enough, it is a tricky dish. And a laborious one.
There will also be a group in 2024 who would be able to knock up something satisfactory, one even an emotional nonna might enjoy. Maybe there are people in Britain today whose risotto is outstanding. They toil at the stove, pore over cookbooks, watch Italian chefs in Lombardian ristorantes while holidaying in late spring.
It is those who think they are able, but simply are not, I worry about most. And their number is high. Britain’s feted dining renaissance is robust and has been buoyant. The final piece in the puzzle is risotto, a dish which has proved elusive to so many cooks – even those who hang Le Creuset pans from metal hooks above the hearth, bake fresh loaves of Sunday sourdough and buy fine cheeses from the Courtyard Dairy.
Risotto is also trifling to countless chefs. They cannot all be Angela Hartnett, Giorgio Locatelli or Jacob Kenedy. Francesco Mazzei once cooked me a saffron risotto on the roof of the Dorchester hotel: mind-blowing.
Still, visit a middling pub in Surrey or a decent restaurant in the Cotswolds and there might be risotto on the menu. It can be painful to witness. More often than not it will not be creamy enough, there won’t be that Cleopatra-bathing-in-milk silkiness, that deep, penetrating flavour established by so many stirs with a long wooden spoon.
I read recently that the weather in Italy means the dish might fall on even harder times. Why? The climate crisis, obviously. Specialist rices – imperative when crafting risotto – such as carnaroli and arborio, both grown in the Po valley, are suffering due to the worst drought in 200 years. Italy has lost 26,000 hectares of rice fields and production has dipped by 30% as a result.
Some have suggested risotto rice has become too expensive and that it is already too late for Britain. I think we are already safely batting in a profoundly middle-class field here so that isn’t the main concern. What those with the means must do now is master the dish before it is lost for ever.
The point is, it isn’t too late. Pick up your pan, your spoon, your rice, and get stirring. Invest in quality chicken stock and stand, this weekend, at the hob until your arm aches and your mind can think of nothing else other than rice absorbing liquid and starch being released.
It would be fashionable to do so. Risotto is about to have a moment in Britain. I’m talking about serious risotto, confected and mellifluous, made by chefs who do not reheat but who wear down their Birkenstocks with such efficiency they really ought to have a sponsorship deal as well as a brightly illustrated cookbook.
This is not more evident than by the arrival of All’onda, a new risotto-centric restaurant in London from Andrea Granzarolo, who used to work at the three Michelin-star Hélène Darroze at The Connaught. The chef has promised “traditional risotto with a contemporary twist”, and the fact that there’s an Italian who has convinced investors the time is right for a restaurant based entirely on risotto, in the UK, is promising indeed. I suspect others will launch.
And so yes, I think a risotto trend is coming. If my call to arms a couple of paragraphs ago didn’t inspire you to drive to your nearest deli, be well aware that chances are you will be required to cook one at some point soon, given the dish has been all over the TV, talked about, paraded. You had really better get cooking.
