Four Seasons Hotel Firenze opens Magnolia GastroBar in collaboration with the Michelin-starred Japanese Chef Haruo Ichikawa
Florence, Italy, 2019-May-16 — /Travel PR News/ — Four Seasons Hotel Firenze opens a new restaurant for the summer season, Magnolia GastroBar, to be launched on June 3, 2019 in collaboration with the Michelin-starred Japanese Chef Haruo Ichikawa. Located at La Villa, the residential style accommodation within Four Seasons Hotel Firenze, Magnolia offers an elegant greenhouse with an intimate outdoor space to enjoy the perfect summer evening overlooking the historical Gherardesca Gardens.
The new restaurant will feature the best Asian specialities by Haruo Ichikawa, previously chef at the Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant Iyo based in Milan. Chef Haruo has worked closely with the Four Seasons kitchen team and the Hotel’s Executive Chef Vito Mollica to elaborate the menu and select the signature dishes for the Florentine hotel.
Guests at Magnolia will be able to enjoy seasonal vegetables tempura and a variety of sushi, combining the best of Italian and oriental excellences such as Japanese wagyu, king crab, amberjack, lobster, red prawns and many more different fish specialities. Among the menu highlights features Chef Haruo’s signature dish, the vegetarian nimono, featuring sautéed vegetables, bamboo, trumpet mushrooms, taro potatoes, eggplants, carrots, taccole green beans, konjac with soy sauce and mirin.
“I have a great interest in Asian cuisine, and thought that our local and Hotel guests would enjoy having an additional food option to enjoy in our beautiful garden. We chose one of the best Asian Chefs in Italy as our partner, Haruo Ichikawa, who has been one of the first chefs in Europe to get a Michelin star in an Asian restaurant,” says Vito Mollica, Executive Chef and Director of Food and Beverage at Four Seasons Hotel Firenze. “We loved the idea of a gastroBar, halfway between a bar and a restaurant, a place where you can have a seated served dinner, but also a dinner sharing-style, listening to lounge music and enjoying an Asian cocktail. Magnolia has this informal setting where guests can chill out and enjoy an unforgettable summer night in our garden.”
Magnolia will complement the culinary offer from Four Seasons Hotel Firenze, allowing guests to choose between four different food options during their stay. Those looking for a fine-dining Michelin-starred experience will choose Il Palagio, while for a more informal atmosphere, the Atrium Bar offers all-day dining and the best cocktails in town; and for an en plein air dinner by the pool, Al Fresco Trattoria welcomes families, couples and friends with pizza created by an awarded pizzaiolo.
- Magnolia Asian GastroBar will be open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 5:00 to 11:00 pm
- Reservations: 055 2626477 or magnolia@fourseasons.com
About Haruo Ichikawa
Michelin-starred chef Haruo Ichikawa, former chef of Iyo restaurant in Milan, is one of the few Japanese chefs with this important recognition in Europe. Graduating school in 1954, his journey saw him train between Tokyo and Los Angeles and then in the most important Japanese kitchen in Milan, where every year the Milanese Guide of Gambero Rosso assigned him three globes. Haruo’s kitchen is an art and ritual, beginning with the freshest ingredients and with concentration and extreme attention to details in the making of the final dish, perfect both from the flavour point of view and in the aesthetic form. He strongly believes that the perfect dish is the one that makes the guest fall in love with it. Even though he remains faithful to Japanese tradition, Chef Ichikawa often integrates products from his adopted country into his preparations.
Contact:
Caroline Mennetrier
Director of PR and Marketing Communication
Borgo Pinti, 99
Firenze, 50121, Italy
caroline.mennetrier@fourseasons.com
+39 02 7708 1795
Source: Four Seasons Hotels & Resort
###