Harry Cipriani - The Harrys Bar Cookbook: Recipes and Reminiscences from the World-Famous Venice Bar and Restaurant

THE HARRYS BAR COOKBOOK
A Bantam Book / November 1991

All rights reserved.
Copyright 1991 by Harry Cipriani, Inc.
Jacket and interior photographs copyright 1991 by Christopher Baker.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cipriani, Arrigo.
The Harrys Bar cookbook: recipes and reminiscences from the world-famous Venice bar and restaurant / by Arrigo Cipriani; introduction by Jan Morris.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54059-1
1. Cookery, Italian. 2. Harrys Bar (Venice, Italy) I. Baker, Christopher. II. Title.
TX723.C562 1991
641.5945dc20 91-8408
CIP

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v3.1

To my father, Guiseppe Cipriani

I wish to extend my special thanks to the following people who shared the unique experience of preparing this book for publication:

When Molly Finn and I first sat down together and talked about Italian restaurants, risotto, and our shared dislike of pretentious food, I knew this book would become what I wanted it to be. As we sat together in Bellini by Cipriani in New York, in Harrys Dolci, in Harrys Bar, in my little office above the restaurant in Venice, and at Mollys table in New York, she asked questions and I talked. In all our kitchens she watched, tasted, and asked more questions. In her own kitchen she developed the recipes, cooking all our food until it tasted just as it does in Harrys Bar. I thank her for understanding what I said and for sounding my voice in the text. It has been a satisfying partnership.

Jane Garmey helped in the writing of the text; Blair Brown Hoyt developed the original recipes and tested them; Christopher Baker captured Venice in his photographs; Sally Schneider styled the food photographs; and Michael Belardo chose wines for my recipes.

Thank you, Michael Winner, for all of your kind words about Harrys Bar.

In addition, sincerest thanks go to Fran McCullough, my editor; Coleen OShea, who gave me a home at Bantam Books; B.W. Honeycutt and Christiaan Kuypers for their most beautiful book design; Sharon Squibb, who prepared the proposal that got this whole effort started; and Angela Miller, my agent, who made it all happen.

And, finally, I want to tell my relatives, friends, and colleagues in both Venice and New York how much I have appreciated their help. They are Alfredo Del Peschio, Paolo Rossi, Nicola Cicchini, Guiseppe Appezzato, Giovanni Fabbro, Tommasina Cipriani, Tullio Fabris, Giancarlo Tondin, Guiseppe Marangi, Salvatore DAndrea, Philippe Forcioli, Euton Callwood, Evaristo Cassol, Adis Schiavo, Vanni Dal Pan, Giulia Tirraoro, Barbara Timm, Giovanni Pirina, Alessandro Moro, Alessandro Schlessinger, Francesco Tozza, Eduardo Ynami, Tiziano Caminati, Mikial Mozo, Angel Moreno, Sal Musso, Lap Nguyen, Manuel Baez, Marisa Sparer, Stefania Pango, Sandro Orlandi, Claudio Ponzio, Mario Berton, Vladimiro Tome, Lucio Zanon, Bruno Dussin, Melinda Skehan, Nevio Torresin, Valentino Carlon, Luigino Calzavara, Pier Giuseppe Sereno, Remigio Ianna, Carlo Marcolin, Otello Cazzin, Mirco Zampieri, Ugo Carrano, and Vittorio Tom.

by Michael Winner

It is quite simple. The best meals in the world are to be purchased at Harrys Bar in Venice. There is no restaurant that comes anywhere near it, in my view, for excellence, freshness, taste and simplicity. The ambience of the downstairs bar where tourists mingle with celebrities is sensational! The great thing about the food at Harrys Bar is that it is clear, extremely fresh and beautifully prepared without being over-fancy or plate decorated. In fact I have never seen plate decoration at Harrys Bar which these days is a miracle.

The other thing about Harrys Bar, which sadly you wont get from trying to make the food at your own home, is the extraordinary brilliance of the service. Theres a ballet of incredible precision and skill as the waiters glide between the tables. The service is like lightning. And masterminding it all is the food guru, Arrigo Cipriani. Arrigo is one of the greatest restaurateurs ever in the history of the planet. He has great knowledge, enormous charm and a marvellous quiet dignity which pervades the room when he is there. And when he is not there the staff manage to keep up almost the same ambience.

The crowning glory of any meal at Harrys Bar is the desserts. Enormous cakes are somehow displayed in all the hubbub and chaos, each one of which not only looks good (which is easy for a cake) but tastes outstanding.

I am glad you are being offered these recipes to try at home. If you cook them to only half the standard of Harrys Bar restaurant food you can consider yourself a triumph.

MICHAEL WINNER
LONDON, 2006

A Few Memories of Giuseppe Cipriani, Founder of Harrys Bar

It is with sadness that I tell you today, once and for all, of my fathers death.

Two months ago, after a violent bout of influenza, he insisted on being taken home from the hospital. With the craftiness of a child he persuaded the doctors that he would find all his old familiar things in his room, from the bell-push to his spectacles all ten pairs of them, which he would put on and take off in continual confusion, looking around each time with the curiosity of a blind man seeing things for the first time.

He knew by now that the end was near. With that extraordinary inner knowledge that he had of his own brain he had even shown me just where the trouble was. Something happened here, and he pointed his finger at a spot just behind one of his large ears. The pain is here, but they, and he pointed at the hospital, dont want to listen to me.

Once he was home he realised that he could no longer find his things as before. I fixed the bell-push to the head of his bed with some Scotch tape and I put his spectacles at a place on his left exactly where he wanted them. Then, with that habitual look of his, he said: Get me up on my feet.

I immediately knew then, and he knew it too, that all the life in him went into those few stiff, lurching steps that we took together, in those few yards. Certainly, we all felt an immense love.

Then the house was invaded by Baxter glucose bottles and, winking at me, he said: Harry, were over the hump now. It seemed that the life had to go into him this way, drop by drop, into his almost invisible veins, but no, out it came again with agonising pains. Then he burst out, What a farce! Those clowns