Pass the Butter: Italian Chef Brings Fresh Bread and Rare Fish to Parkview Green
When Umberto Bombana opened his first restaurant, the name he chose was after the Fellini film, 8½. It’s a veiled autobiography – the self-referential tale of the trials of an artist, a director coming into his own. If 8 ½ in Hong Kong and Shanghai have been Bombana’s ateliers, places of process to mature as an independent chef, then Opera Bombana is his playground.
This is fitting for relaxed and blithe Beijing. The space on the lower level of lifestyle center Parkview Green is airy and full of light. Seating spills outdoors onto the sunken terrace mingling with a pack of cast iron wolves. It may be upscale for Beijing, but it’s certainly not stuffy.
Opera Bombana has been fashioned as the space for the eponymous chef to finally realize his passion for bread. The bakery is exposed, opening out into the dining room. The base of the breads is pre-Olympic, with the starter dating back to 2007. Flour is imported from Italy, but the beauty of sourdough is the terroir of it. Inherently tied to place through the wild yeast it absorbs and incorporates from the air, the dough will unavoidably become more Beijing over time, a slow marvel of transubstantiation.
Loaves are surprisingly reasonable, starting with the ciabatta (100 gr) at RMB 18. The Stirata Romana (RMB 48) could be called “pizza,” but don’t be fooled: it is more than that. With a tender, pliant crumb and a crust with character, the substratum of bread is the show. The toppings are just that – accompaniments – there are small soft clouds of mozzarella, a slick of fresh tomatoes, briny black olives, gossamer slices of ham, to adorn a solid foundation.
You can feel the joy that Bombana and Marino D’Antonio (formerly of Sureno) have poured into the space and the great pleasure they must take in it. They are one step ahead of your taste buds. One afternoon, the tagliatelle (RMB 188) prompted my companion to suggest, “This would be perfect with seafood,” as though the bright orange of the sea urchin wasn’t obvious enough. But this spoke to an inattention to the subtlety of flavor by the diner and, perhaps, an exuberant appreciation of prosecco, rather than a lack in the dish. He was right. Seafood was perfect for the tangle of pasta. The saltiness of bottarga – a Sicilian tradition of dried and cured roe – accompanied the creamy ocean breeze bite of the urchin. The seared tuna (RMB 278) arrived, a brilliant hue of red set against a saffron sauce. A long, elegant artichoke quarter gave earthy undertones to the dish. If you previously hesitated to eat rare fish in this landlocked metropolis of ours, don’t here.
