DINA

DINA is a restaurant of the chef Alberto Gipponi in Gussago, a town in Franciacorta near Brescia in northern Italy. It serves contemporary Italian tasting menus in a stone house among vineyards.

Gipponi named the restaurant after his grandmother and opened it in 2017. He came to cooking late, after working as a musician and as a social worker, and he holds a degree in sociology. His training included a stage at Osteria Francescana, the restaurant of Massimo Bottura. The Michelin Guide has recommended DINA since 2019.

Diners come in through a heavy wooden door from the late 19th century. Inside are three dining rooms furnished with antiques, most of them from the middle of the 20th century, and one has vaulted stone ceilings hung with large chandeliers. Besides regular service, Gipponi holds dinners staged like performances, masterclasses and talks. Such events suit a chef who arrived from music and social work, where an audience and a conversation matter as much as the result.

His cooking joins classic jus reductions and pasta rolled by hand with forgotten ingredients, such as fig leaves and vinegars made from old varieties of apple. Spaghettoni come with garlic, oil and chilli, crunchy bread, frozen oysters and fennel, and a beetroot soufflé is served with stracciatella and salted butter. One dish carries the name Casoncello crudo ma cotto, ‘raw but cooked’, and turns a contradiction into its title. The cellar holds about 700 labels, which leaves each course of a long menu a wide choice of glasses.