Contemporary Cuisine at Allure Restaurant Patisserie in Fiumicino, Italy

Posted by Rowena Dumlao - Giardina 4/30/2021

Contemporary Cuisine at Allure Restaurant Patisserie in Fiumicino, Italy

The seaside town of Fiumicino, along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, welcomes a new addition to its growing number of gourmet seafood restaurants. With its 30-kilometer distance from Rome, it has steadily become a favorite destination for open-air dining of quality seafood in both traditional and contemporary representations of the Italian cuisine. Aside from the local chefs who have put Fiumicino in the gastronomical map, new ones are seeing its dynamic reality thanks to the steadfast urban development in the commune.

The latest newcomers are Giampaolo Zhan, a young chef who came from the kitchen brigade of Heinz Beck and his wife Elisa Jin, who has obtained her professional educational preparation in the dining area at Alma Scuola Internazionale di Cucina Italiana in Parma. Giampaolo was born and raised in Rome in a family of restaurateurs. He started his culinary journey when he earned his diploma in professional course of cooking and pastrymaking at A Tavola con lo Chef in Rome. He became a part of the team of Heinz Beck at the triple Michelin-starred restaurant La Pergola in Rome for almost a decade with the addition of S'Apposentu of Roberto Petza (1 Michelin star) in Sardegna, Metamorfosi of Roy Caceres (1 Michelin star) in Rome and Attimi by Heinz Beck in Fiumicino. Backed up by professional international exposure, his foundation of culinary knowledge and techniques has strengthened him to what he has become now.

Pastry making marked the true beginning of Giampaolo's passion in the kitchen which was notably influenced by his first teacher, Giuseppe Amato, the head pastry chef of La Pergola. In fact, the kitchen of Allure took its shape with his consultancy in the pastries and the elaboration of the recipes.

Allure's official opening came at a very untimely moment in the summer of 2020 during the peak of the Covid pandemic. Initially, the patisserie and the bistrot has opened while the fine dining restaurant has been put on standby until the crisis is over. The 320-square meter space is allocated well to different segments. The kitchen, projected by Giampaolo, is a very spacious and well-planned kitchen laboratory for him and his team while next to it is the fine dining area. It is composed of around a dozen tables with an independent entrance from the bistrot. The menu is more elaborate than the one of the bistrot and there will be a couple of tasting menus available. And that's a future project we are looking forward to.

At the moment, Allure is open from 8:00 until 22:00 non-stop daily except Mondays. Croissants and leavened products are offered for breakfast along with some single portion cakes. The bistrot offers lunch and dinner proposals of salted pastries, burgers (€15), sandwiches, salads, pasta dishes (€16 to €20), fish and meat main courses (€15 to €25) and appetizers (€12 to €15) that sometimes change depending on the availability of the seasonal raw materials and catch of the day. Cocktails and finger foods are available late in the afternoon. Because of this particular moment, they created their new takeaway menu, the Temporary Sushi which is composed of proposals of traditional and fusion Japanese sushi, cooked Japanese snacks and carpaccio options.