Apr 2001
In this issue:
Compliments of the season
New head chef Ananda Bareño is helping to ensure that Four Seasons’ Vivace restaurant is the place to linger this winter
Issue: Dec, 2009
We ate, the photographer worked. It was excellent division of labour as we polished off a cecina beef salad, a veal-and-fennel-sausage pasta and a ridiculously good pistachio parfait and chocolate mousse tower. It’s lunchtime in the Four Seasons’ Vivace restaurant and amid the business tête-a-têtes going on around us, head chef Ananda Bareño is showcasing her latest creations – or at least trying to. Her work hardly lingers on the plate long enough to offer much in the way of learned reflection, and besides, too many conversation tangents lead us away from the food altogether.
Ananda, an American of Mexican and Italian heritage, seems equally happy discussing trips to India as her favourite polenta recipe, and as more food is brought to the table for us to sample, she’s genuinely amused that the restaurant’s waiting staff are delivering her full plates of food for a change. “They’ve not offered me a drink though,” she smiles, with a line in dry humour – no doubt honed in kitchens on three continents – that surfaces regularly throughout a long, leisurely conversation.
She arrived from the Four Seasons in Damascus in July and has been adding her authentic Italian touch to Vivace’s menu, ensuring it evolves with the seasons. Like any good chef, she believes she should be not just a great cook but a food champion. “We’re trying to introduce different products to the local clientele,” she says. “If they order a beef carpaccio, say, I try to offer them a cecina beef, which is from northern Spain and has, I think, a greater depth of flavour. I also do a braised beef cheek here, which no one in Amman would usually think of ordering.
“You do have to change your dishes for the palate where you work, though,” she adds. “I don’t like to mix seafood and cream or cheese, but here that’s very popular, so you have to provide it. But I hope we can tempt people to be more adventurous.”
As the last spoonful of Campari sorbet is scraped from the plate, and with the photographer joining us for a freshly-prepared plate of scallops in asparagus risotto, she is certainly earning new converts by the second.
