Carne Diem
Jane Anderson talks to butcher, Dario Cecchini about his respect for nature, and his new restaurant at 25hours Hotel in Florence
Renowned Tuscan butcher Dario Cecchini has chosen 25hours Hotel Piazza San Paolino for his first restaurant in Florence. Despite being asked many times before by various organisations, Cecchini in Città meaning ‘Cecchini in Town’ opened its doors on 19 September to hotel guests and the publicwith Dario looking nattier than ever with his signature moustache and white apron.
The seed for this collaboration was born when 25hours Hotel founder Christoph Hoffman met Dario in the hills around his hometown of Panzano in the Chianti region of Italy. He was bowled over by this charismatic butcher’s generosity and charm. Dario cooked him a meal and refused to take any payment. A friendship was forged.
Dario is no ordinary butcher. The star of Netflix series Chef’s Table originally wanted to be a veterinarian, hence his deep respect for animals which goes back to his childhood. He explains, “My father had a Vespa and took me around on it from the time I was three-years-old, to the farmers’ homes and courtyards, to buy the animals: cows, pigs and sheep. I remember the smell and the warmth of the stables, and the faces of the farmers that literally seemed carved in stone. I was left alone with my sister after our parents passed away early, left with the smallest butcher shop not only in Tuscany, but in the world. I remain proudly tied to my village of Panzano, and to the fact that many visit here for my butcher shop and restaurants.”
Dario has been working every day for 49 years, 14 hours a day, without breaks, without holidays, without Sundays, closing only on Christmas Day. He now operates three dining rooms from his Panzano Kitchen, along with a butcher’s shop and precisely 435m away, the Cecchini Panini Truck serving a mean beef belly sandwich for just €8. “We have been butchers for 250 years. I proudly represent my family name and hope to be a good butcher, and try to improve myself in my art. I believe I can give thanks for my energy and artisanal ability to my Tuscan blood,” he says.
If you want to dine at a Cecchini restaurant, you do it the Cecchini way—with just one sitting for lunch and one for dinner. Traditionally guests in the queue for the one o’ clock sitting were served crostini topped with lardo as a large bottle of red wine was passed round. The same ethos applies at Cecchini in Città where there’s the option of a Cecchini Griglia—a long lunch or dinner that begins with a special tartare and includes his famous nose and knees broth. As Dario says, “I try to do my job as a butcher well, and to take it further and further, to be able to explain a path of sustainability, of respect; a good life for animals, a dignified death and using every part well from nose to tail.
“I am not a professor, I am not a scientist, I am not an expert. I believe that I try every day to do my job correctly and in the meantime by using everything well, fewer lives are sacrificed, and the animal is honored. This is my form of gratitude.”
As Sara Orselli of 25hours Hotel Piazza San Paolino says, “People want local food now in Florence. There is a demand for the dishes of traditional kitchens and Dario has so many family recipes. He is a god in Panzano and collaborates with his neighbours including local wine producers whose wine he sells in his shop with no markup.” And of his new collaboration he says, “25hours is a magical place, with magical people inside and a magical architect, Paola Navone, who designed for my friends Christoph Hoffman and Stefan Gerhard, Dante’s paradise and inferno—my bible and my religion, The Divine Comedy. I couldn’t find a better place for a collaboration in the beautiful city of Florence. I’m enormously happy. You’ll see the rest when you see me at work.”
