The Guest Series with Guglielmo Chiarapini and Francesco Dolcetta

Our first Guest Series of 2023 will see Guglielmo Chiarapini and Francesco Dolcetta join us in the Lyle's kitchen.

Guglielmo and Francesco cooked together at Marzapane in Rome, and are currently on the road as a ‘moving kitchen’, cooking around Europe while they look for a permanent site to open in Northern Italy.

Guglielmo and Francesco first met at cooking school in Parma in 2012 before moving to France to continue their training, working side by side for chef Marco Viganò at Michelin-starred Aux Anges in Roanne for three years. The two friends then went their separate ways, with Francesco staying in France at three Michelin-starred La Maison Troisgros, and Guglielmo returning to Italy to join esteemed chef Valeria Piccini at two Michelin-starred Da Caino in Tuscany. After almost five years in France, Francesco returned to Italy to work at Marzapane in Rome; a year later, Guglielmo joined him to helm the kitchen together. At Marzapane, the duo served dishes showcasing the use of povera, or poor, ingredients, cooked directly over fire, or barbecued on a Sicilian grill.

Guglielmo and Francesco have created an Italian-influenced menu, with seasonal produce from Natoora, to serve with James and our team, beginning with inventive snacks: the chefs’ signature charred potato focaccina, a slightly firmer version of focaccia; delicate bottarga and bitter walnuts; raw Mangalitsa pork gunkan (a type of sushi roll) seasoned with sardella, a Calabrian sauce made with fish and hot pepper; and a tripe skewer with garlic ‘Nutella’ and gochujang.

Starters highlight Guglielmo and Francesco’s ethos of using every part of the animal. There’s cow udder ‘piccatina’, or escalope, with winter tomatoes; agretti, blood orange and herby lovage oil; sweet scallops, in a smoked guinea fowl velouté with oro blanco grapes; and beef heart, raw artichoke and black garlic salad.

The pasta course features fieno pasta served saltimbocca-style, with ham, sage and plenty of butter, while the main event is a stripped-back dish of charred beef with puntarelle, an Italian bitter leaf from the chicory family. An innovative saffron risotto with smoked beef fat is followed by a dessert of chestnuts, hay-infused ice cream, and confit Buddha’s hand, a south east Asian citrus so-named for its long splayed ‘fingers’.

We've also created a special cocktail for the night using The Macallan Double Cask 12 Years Old. With the whisky’s unmistakable sweetness from the Sherry seasoned casks that it is aged in, the Lyle’s blood orange and marjoram Boulevardier combines fragrant new season citrus with a delicate herbal note from the marjoram, to create a perfectly balanced seasonal take on a cocktail classic.

The Guest Series with Guglielmo Chiarapini and Francesco Dolcetta, in collaboration with The Macallan, and with support from Natoora, will take place at Lyle’s on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th February. Tickets are priced at £95pp, with the accompanying drinks pairing priced at £79pp, and can be purchased by clicking here.