Famous chef uses Conti rice for his arancino

It is but a short step from Messina to Milan. At least it did for Tommaso Cannata: baker landed in the Milanese metropolis with a suitcase full of ancient Sicilian grains, loaves and arancini.
“It is the first time I leave Messina but, you know, Milan is a European metropolis and I need to deal with this type of reality too.”
Tommaso Cannata is as strong and brave as can be: a four-generation baker who recently landed in the Lombard city with the Sicilian Bakery which bears his surname, in a decidedly classy area: Corso Indipendenza 5, on the corner with via Ciro Menotti.
After all, he is very chic. And not only because he loves jackets and shirts. He is part of the Charming Italian Chef association, which brings together more than a hundred food professionals. Cooks, pizza chefs, pastry chefs and ice cream makers with a fixed nail on their heads: that of sustainability.
And Tommaso is definitely a valid champion of this value which, applied to food, becomes recycling, not waste, reuse of waste, ethical selection of raw materials, safeguarding the health of the consumer, as well as respect for the environment and memory.
Memory for Cannata means recovery of the ancient Sicilian grains, the real, authentic ones, both of durum and soft wheat, which bear the name of majorca, russello, tuminia, realforte, bidì and cuccitta. Different in nature and personality, donated by Paolo Caruso – researcher at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the University of Catania.
A direct way of teaching, that of Cannata, one of the founding members of Simenza, cumpagnia siciliana sementi contadine, which, chaired by Giuseppe Li Rosi, brings together island agrobiodiversity. By bringing together farmers, breeders, millers, olive growers, wine growers, researchers, cheesemakers and restaurateurs with the common aim of enhancing the old varieties.
Cannata presents these ancient grains in its Sicilian Bakery in Messina and Milan. The result is loaves, rolls, taralli and bread sticks, presented in the dark brown ceramic heads by Ruggeri.
A minimal and essential place. “Simple and orderly” as Nicoletta, Tommaso’s wife, likes to specify. The whole family is involved in the project, including their children Chiara and Salvatore.
“Imagine that my mother yeast is called Turi, name of my son and father”, proudly points out the master baker, who churns out until evening.
“Every half hour, from 6 to 8 pm, because the Milanese who returns home from work have to find warm and fragrant bread”, explains Cannata and he’s got a point.
But Tommaso also makes the pidone, a sort of crescent-shaped panzerotto-calzone stuffed with escarole, tuma, tomato and anchovies (or panzerotto alla norma or that one stuffed with speck and potato). Outside, a mixture of Petra 3 and Petra Evolutiva, the flour emblem of diversity, result of a mixture of grains organically grown in Sicily. A product born from the meeting between the farmers of Simenza and the millers of Molino Quaglia in Vighizzolo d’Este.
“It is an exceptional flour” proudly declares Cannata, who in the meantime also makes the cunzato bread (stuffed with vegetables and salami) and the Messina focaccia, with Petra 3 and Maiorca soft wheat. “In Sicily we offer it in about twenty verses,” points out Nicoletta.
26. 27.
And then there is it: 100% Sicilian arancino. Breading with tumminia, batter with Majorca, meat sauce made with siccagno tomato and meat by Massimiliano Castro (from Chiaramontano in Chiaramonte Gulfi) and Tino Pintaudi (from Brolo).
And again, tuma and ragusano: peas, celery and carrots from the Frutti del Sole of Marsala, Enna saffron produced by Silvia Turco, as well as extra virgin olive oil from the Iblei Mountains, signed by Frantoi Cutrera.
While rice is a semi-wholemeal carnaroli from Agriobioconti, the farm of Nello Conti, which owns rice fields for about sixty hectares in the plain of Catania.
In short, a Sicilian arancino – in the Messinese is a masculine word – that could not be more Sicilian. “I also prepare it with homemade béchamel,” recalls Cannata, who uses French butter. “But I had Giacomo Gati send some butter and goat’s ricotta”, explains the bakery man, referring to another partner from Simenza, who raises Girgentan goats and produces cheeses in the farm Montalbo di Campobello in Licata.
The great classics of the island rotisserie are not betrayed. And street food becomes learned and slow.
A place that has an ear for its logo. A space capable of giving voice to a generous and industrious territory. A contemporary bakery, which unfolds between tables and social tables – to share knowledge and experiences – laboratory and cellar with island wines, among which the Grillo Cuvée Extra Dry from the Capovero collection by Cantine Madaudo of Villafranca Tirrena stands out.
Let’s not forget the draft beers, branded by the Messina Brewery cooperative, which are added to the other bottled beers, such as: the Tari brewery in Modica, where “Trisca” is born, a blanche with the scent of lemons and hints of coriander, ginger and basil; the Catania brewery Timilia, which takes its name from the ancient durum wheat – also called tumminia – with which it develops the floral and fruity “Sicilian Blonde Ale”, the “Sicilian Red Ale”, with red orange, and “La Mora”, carob addicted.
And the “Sisili”? It comes from a friendship: that one between the brewer Ivan Borsato (of the Treviso microbrewery Casa Veccia) and the miller of Castelvetrano Filippo Drago. A dry and thirst-quenching beer, in which the real protagonists are the ancient Sicilian grains, the same ones Cannata uses to make bread. For a concept entirely made in Trinacria, water included, by Fontalba di Montalbano Elicona, always in Messina.
A strong-willed and versatile banner, open from 7 am to 11 pm and therefore constantly changing: from breakfast to snack, from lunch to dinner, passing through the apéritif, in which baskets of sandwiches full of delights, ideal with a drink or a glass of wine, stand out.
What about coffee? So is it, signed by Barbera (a company from Caserta in Trentola Ducenta), to give glory to the ritual of the morning breakfast with tarts, biscuits, cannoli and brioche with the tuppo (together with granita too).
A dynamic bakery, where you can eat but also buy the products displayed in the niches on the walls. From the extra virgin olive oil from the Frantoi Cutrera to the artisan pasta of the maison Minardo from Modica, up to the Ennese preserves of Agrirape from Leonforte; extra apricot and yellow peach jam from Leonforte; lemon and blood orange jam; as well as “Pastuca” and “Minnula”, with pistachio and almond cream.
“I hope to have customers who want to understand the value of wholemeal, organic and flavors of the past,” admits Cannata.
Milan is smart. People will listen and understand.