By Dylan Dias
At Don Alfonso 1890, in the misted air and coastal light of Sant’Agata sui Due Golfi, I experienced one of the most memorable meals, and stays, of my life. So much so, that reflecting on it now feels like touching an apparition – a dreamlike memory that pacifies my heart, as vivid and blue as the Tyrrhenian. All I have are my words – attempting to paint glimmers of an evening that felt like poetry. Hopefully, my stories capture it well. Following that dinner, surrounded by the colourful and majestic gardens of Don Alfonso’s estate, I had the opportunity to sit down with Chef Ernesto Iaccarino himself – the driving force behind this prolific restaurant.
At its heart, Don Alfonso is emblematic of its region, its storied history, and the legacy of the Iaccarino family – built over four generations of hospitality and a profound respect for agriculture, winemaking, and gorgeous cooking – both through local lands and the exploration of cultures abroad. It is an architecture of place, like the palazzo itself, of a time-honoured property that understands its past but lives towards its future. Which is why, when modernizing the historic villa, honouring this concept was paramount. Don Alfonso sifted through six architects before settling on a vision that felt both true to itself and true to the changing world around it. To Chef Ernesto, the restaurant’s celebrated and enchanting food is not so different.
“Food has always been evolution. Tradition is just a picture of that moment, in that century, in this part of the world.”
The breadth of land around Don Alfonso holds nearly 3000 years of cultural history. Throughout these swaths of time – through immersion, influence, and trade – ingredients, techniques, and food itself has transformed and changed shape; creating roots where perhaps there were none only centuries earlier. Like the tomato, Chef Ernesto would then teach us, which was discovered in the Americas and brought to Italy – not indigenous to its land. It was not until the 19th century that tomatoes began its prominence as a staple ingredient – weaving itself into the tapestry and legacy of Italian cuisine and culture. A young history, but with a profound impact on what we consider innately Italian.
“Great recipes and great innovations will become tradition in the future. It all depends on the quality you [create]; it all depends on the vision you have.”
In this spirit, Chef Ernesto has quietly refined his menu at Don Alfonso – a manifesto that has evolved through his hands over decades of creativity, expression, and honour. Its beginning is heritage, always, but with the intention of stepping forward each day and personifying the changing nature of the world from a place of grounded identity. In their local farm – Le Peracciole – where the restaurant nurtures its own regional produce, bananas and avocados were unable to grow only ten years ago. Though now, they do. Like traditions, climates too have evolved. And there is coffee, though not produced in Italy – it is intrinsically tied to the Italian sensibility. And even rice, which was brought to Sicily a thousand years ago from the Arabic world – leading to cultivation throughout the south of Italy. Culture, in all its complexities, is both an edifice and a river. But that is also why – Chef Ernesto would express – that preservation matters. As we look forward, we must also look within.
Music, visual art, painters – all the emotion we feel from outside our body. We see, we hear. But food is energy inside the body. Food is much more intimate; it becomes a part of you.
— Chef Ernesto Iaccarino
“We step into our roots, into our identity, into our cultural way of doing food that is based on the Mediterranean – olive oil, vegetables, blue fish. But we are open-minded; we must not close our eyes. But there is a core; there is heritage. It is a matter of culture.”
Chef Ernesto speaks about his food in the same vein that he speaks of architecture, design, and philosophy. Within the hands of artisans, people, families, and generations of tradition – all things are connected. Places of origin become places of trade, distant plants foster fresh, local gardens, and the creativity of blending these forces in thoughtful, mindful ways encourages beauty. Not in a way that erases where we come from, but in a way that allows us to perceive new vistas while protecting that which we are. Ingredients act as words; dishes act as poetry – like the pillars of great buildings.
“If you close your eyes and you stand in front of a church in the Amalfi Coast – it seems like a mosque. Because we have the influence of the Arabian people in the Mediterranean. Food is the same.”
When dining at Don Alfonso the evening prior, one of my favourite courses of the night was the plate of organic, seasonal vegetables. Verdant, warming, and bright – pulled from Le Peracciole – finished in marinated, grilled, pickled, and crisped textures of its produce. But it was an amber thread of a turmeric glaze – sweet and sour – that echoed that sentiment of touching something, just barely, elsewhere. Though, at its heart, still here. In this region, from this place, and of this land – all the same. What Don Alfonso produces, they serve, but it demands ingenuity, perspective, and talent to translate zero km agriculture into a sublime tasting menu – bridging the gap, with exacting finesse, between sacred foundations and delicate modernity.
“Turmeric is an incredible antioxidant and anti-inflammatory ingredient. Food for us should be healthy – we are what we eat. This is the philosophy.”
Clean, purely-sourced ingredients, food of stunning design and quality, and a focused commitment to sustainability has anchored Don Alfonso’s two Michelin stars – one of which is a green star specifically awarded to restaurants of zero-waste, ethical gastronomy at an exceptional level. Something Chef Ernesto holds dear – as it is not just about food itself, but about wellness and integrity – for oneself and for the earth.
“[Over the last] twenty years, the chemical [elements] they are presenting to chefs are strongly treated by the hands of technology. We are not used to digesting those ingredients. So, as a starch we use kudzu that is a natural plant. And we use tapioca that is like a potato. These are natural ingredients that allow you to do things technically as a chef. So, it’s completely green. We are 100% sustainable. Everything we produce is at zero emissions. When you eat here, you will have very good digestion – the best ingredients, the best quality.”
Carrying these philosophies abroad can be a bit more of a challenge for Chef Ernesto, though it opens doors to cross-cultural regionality and inventive possibilities. Don Alfonso now has eminent restaurant outposts in multiple countries, though its identity – rooted in produce of origin, local lands, and a Mediterranean lens on technique and interpretation – remain true. It’s about translating the cuisine to other continents and other places, but filtering it through the unique produce, vegetation, and wildlife of that area – honouring, again, provenance – but, as Ernesto would say, with “open eyes.”
“I say to my guys in Canada – don’t go in the kitchen. For the first month, go search for local producers, organic producers, wild fish, wild animals. Then, once we’ve found the top ingredients, put [them] on a desk. I’ll come for a week. Together, we make the menu. In Canada, we found fantastic mushrooms, we found fantastic beetroots in different colours. We highlight the best. [We do] the same in China, the same in any country.”
Although it is impressive, it is also a challenging task – studying entirely new cultural landscapes, making amends and adjustments when those environments are vastly different, and still finding a way to build a connection back to the core ethos of who you are. It is less about creating an entirely new restaurant and more about sharing a dialogue that is already written beautifully – with new words and new colours.
“[I say to musicians], you’re lucky. Because when you get the guitar and you go to Canada, or any part of the world, your notes are the same. I have to make the same music with different notes.”
Design, in any movement, is composition. Negative space, crescendos of sound, texture, depth, and light. Colour, contrast, the expression of an ingredient, or the expression of a paint brush. An artist is an artist – though, I have come to learn, Chef Ernesto might still be something more. There is the heart of a creator and the precision of a technician, but there is also a person as interwoven into the fields of his home and heritage as he is to the shifting nature of becoming. As within, so without – so to speak. All art is created with dimension, but the design of food seeks more. It is not just the heart and the mind; it is the body itself. Speaking to Chef Ernesto, sitting beneath the radiant trees of Don Alfonso’s timeless grounds – citrus and wildflowers around me, the memories of a meal that will stay with me, eternally – I was reminded of the reasons I fell in love with food of this calibre to begin with. It is, in no uncertain words, sincere and honest beauty.
“Music, visual art, painters – all the emotion we feel from outside our body. We see, we hear. But food is energy inside the body. Food is much more intimate; it becomes a part of you.”
Indeed – it will stay with me forever. – VV
Photography by Amalfi Coast Photographers
