From fine-dining to local farms – Dubai’s Bice Mare is seeking inspiration in Italy

Getting to know the Provolone during the Road to Dubai: Bice Mare's 11-day road trip in Italy. Photo by Lorenzo Rossano

Bice Mare, the upscale Italian restaurant in Souk Al Bahar, has closed its doors this summer for a two-month renovation – but that doesn’t mean the chefs are on holiday. Executive chef Francesco Guarracino, the driving force behind Bice Mare’s success over the last four years, has taken his team on a cross-country driving tour across Italy, searching for the best products the country has to offer.

The 11-day, 5,000-kilometre road trip, titled The Road to Dubai, started in Milan at the World Expo on June 28 and ended in Sicily on July 8. The tour included stops in Milan, Florence, Rome, Napoli, Sorrento, the Puglia region, Sicily and many small towns in between.

Guarracino hired three deluxe camper vans to transport his crew, which included six of the nine Italian chefs who work under him at Bice Mare, five journalists from Dubai, two restaurant managers and a ­Dubai-based ­distributor.

The ambitious journey is reflective of Guarracino’s personality. He meticulously organised the tour, down to the minute, on his own with visits to roughly 20 small farmers and artisanal ­producers across the country, many of whom are his personal friends. He also arranged for his team to dine in nine, ­Michelin-starred restaurants along the way, including Don Alfonso 1890 in Sant’­Agata sui Due Golfi and La Pergola, Heinz Beck’s three Michelin-starred restaurant at the Rome Cavalieri Waldorf Astoria.

Beck also has two restaurants in Dubai – Social by Heinz Beck and the newly opened A Taste of Italy.

“I’m a man who doesn’t like easy things,” says Guarracino. “The challenge for me is essential. Everything I do in my life has to be hard work and hard to achieve. My whole life is like that. My dreams are always big. ”

One of those dreams is Bice Mare’s renovation. When the restaurant re-opens in the first week of September, diners will hardly recognise the interior. The plans include everything from floors and a refurbished terrace to a new lounge area and an open kitchen where guests can watch Guarracino and his team construct their signature dishes. The menu will also include tastes guests have not had before in Dubai – using products the team has found along this summer’s tour.

Guarracino says: “We’re finding and showcasing the best of each region from the culture and the food to the land, the products and the people.”

The farms and producers the team visited are family-run operations that create their signature products using techniques passed on down several generations. Many are part of the Slow Food association, an ­international movement formed to promote local, high-quality, and sustainable products.

The next step is importing the products into Dubai, which is no easy feat. Many of the producers are small businesses and not commercial factories pumping out goods for the masses.

Which is why distributor ­Marilena di Coste, owner of Made in Italia, was brought in. Di Coste says importing new products involves everything from translation and certification to government approvals and shipping logistics. She also needs to find enough buyers (primarily chefs and gourmet food shops).

Some of the products Di Coste and Guarracino hope to import are Provolone Del Monaco, a rare cheese made from the milk of Agerolese cows in Campania; yogurt made with buffalo milk from the Marche region; and lemons (that are more sweet than sour) from Sorrento. Di Coste, an Italian with indisputable pride in the flavours of her homeland, says, “There are a lot of products from Italy already in Dubai and some of them are good-quality products, but what’s missing is the soul. There is a difference between commercial products and artisanal products.”

“We really need these new products,” says Guarracino. “Every restaurant does the same thing. It’s very commercial. It’s the same everywhere. The products here come from big companies. I want quality products with history and from hard-working families. To make a special product, you need a special person. It cannot be made by a machine. You will not taste the ‘soul’.”

Sitting in his restaurant a month before he set off on the trip, Guarracino didn’t hesitate when asked why he planned such a monumental excursion when most chefs would opt for a much-­needed holiday during the ­restaurant’s two-month renovation. “Bice Mare is my baby,” he said. “I work a lot. I’m here every day from 9am to midnight. The things I do, I want to do right. I need to do things in a certain way. I want to understand what can be done better in Dubai. I want to bring these lesser-known products from Italy. I want to change the mentality of the people.”

• For more information chef Guarracino’s The Road to Dubai journey through Italy and the products he discovered, visit www.theroadtodubai.net