Leading quartz manufacturer Caesarstone is teaming up with British designer Tom Dixon on a dining concept for this year’s Milan Design Week. “The Restaurant by Caesarstone & Tom Dixon” will be presented at the Milan Children’s Museum in the 17h-century Rotonda della Besana. The collection of recipes was curated by Italian food design studio Arabeschi di Latte and is billed as “a food experience that challenges all the senses in an exercise of  materiality, luminosity and texture.” The courses, which will be executed using both traditional and modern techniques, will be cooked and served in four Tom Dixon–designed Caesarstone kitchens and dining rooms, each one inspired by one of nature’s elements: earth, water, fire and air.

Caesarstone and Tom Dixon share the unique menu:

EARTH - The Root Box
roots | mushrooms | terracotta | hay | brown sugar
Ingredients pulled from the warm embrace of the ground are prepared to a recipe that makes use of the flavorful surroundings of barns and soil. The recipe is prepared with the traditional cooking method of the hay box, which uses hay to isolate the heat of the cooking process, stretching it for hours. The combination oven as well as the induction zone are utilized to re-create the feeling of soil life and all its comfort.

FIRE - Black Flat
layered dough | spices | cheese | smoke
Dough and heat go into play around crispy surfaces and layers that are about to merge. Blackness, as the remains of a lapsed fire, entirely enlaces the bread. Cheese balances out with a savory softness. The sear hob, a flat, heatable metal square, works here as a cooking device able to roast like the sun or heat as a fire that just dwindled.

WATER - Frozen “Stracciatella”
clear stock| frozen herbs and vegetables | egg | Parmesan
Hot, steaming broth transforms thin layers of crackling ice into a moving green, tingeing the liquid slowly as it circulates with floating pieces of Parmesan and egg. A twist on the traditional stracciatella. An induction zone and chill blaster transform water into all its states.

AIR - Skyfruit
cream | meringue | fruit of the air | egg | aromatic herbs
In a small collection of recipes, air is the very matter of preparation. Egg is the fruit of this environment, its versatile combinations with air and whipped cream arranged with other uplifting counterparts to create a landscape of aromatic clouds and void. For this purpose, the vacuum sealer and mixer work with air’s transforming powers, creating density of all kinds.

La Rotonda della Besana is located at Via Enrico Besana, 12, 20122, near the San Babila or Crocetta metro stations. The restaurant is open April 12, noon to 7 p.m.; April 13 to April 16, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; and April 17, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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