Six years ago, a much-loved Italian restaurant and patisserie that had sat beside a railway bridge in Newport for decades closed its doors.
Gemelli was famed for being among the best restaurants in Newport with its traditional Italian cooking and spectacular pastries earning twin brothers Pasquale and Sergio Cinotti many plaudits. A sister restaurant in Spytty proved very popular and brought in crowds with its increased capacity.
But Gemelli's closure on Clytha Park Road was to be simply a hibernation. In 2018, the small unit reopened as Gem42, promising a new art cuisine experience, a culinary concept that aims to stimulate diners' five senses over the course of a meal.
Read more: The twin brothers from Italy who own the best and probably wackiest restaurant in Wales
This week, Gem42 added yet another honour to its increasingly bulging shelf after the prestigious AA Hospitality Awards 2022 named it Wales' Restaurant of the Year.
Newport may be scoffed at by some as an unlikely place to find such gastronomic excellence, but walking in you begin to appreciate just how far the Cinotti brothers have gone to transport their guests to another world, while ultimately remaining comfortable with their home. Its intimate little dining room features quilted wall panels and a renaissance-style mural on the ceiling. It's a lot - but this is an experience for the five senses and its sight is enough to pull your back up straight and get you excited.
Gem42 is keen to stress its green credentials and its commitment to zero waste. A tasting menu is selected beforehand and guests are asked to notify staff if there's a dish or ingredient they are likely not to enjoy. We selected the "Farm to Table" vegetarian menu, and buckled ourselves in for the show.
Chef Sergio Cinotti begins as he intends to go on, introducing each beautifully presented dish with a detailed explanation of what we were about to enjoy. First up, a hand reaching up to the ceiling offered us spindly grissini to dip into a small pot of olive tapenade. Next to this were two large lollipops of cave-aged Snowdonia cheese further aged on coffee beans and studded with pickled ginger and pine nuts. We gently snacked on these while we selected drinks and waited for the curtain to come up.
The first amuse-bouche bite featured a single ingredient - the humble garden pea - showing off Chef Cinotti's ability to pull everything out of his dish's constituent parts. A tiny tartlet case of pea flour, filled with a vivid pea mousse, with a pod and subtle grassy shoots sitting atop. In one mouthful the fragile creation virtually melts with its sweet flavours and aromas finding every corner of the palette.
We're introduced to the next bite with an explanation of the trickery involved. Chef Cinotti says the apparent single tomato, is in fact three varieties, cooked in three ways, with a skin of Bloody Mary cocktail jelly. We're instructed to simply spread it onto the toast and enjoy. The concentrated tomato pâté is like no experience with a tomato I've had before.
Next dish the vegetable taking centre-stage was revealed by Chef Cinotti to be the cauliflower, looking rather darker than you'd have seen it before. He explained the vegetable had been cooked at a steady temperature for 16 hours, at which point a deep smoky umami flavour sets in. Placing a tiny knife into it, it collapses like butter and spreads just the same over the accompanying toast with a fennel béchamel to dip it in. Alongside this, we were presented with a tiny crumpet-like bread, topped with wild mushroom and truffle.
As we went on to the starter course of Abergavenny goat's cheese, foamed to lighten its heavy texture, with beetroot and garden chutney, we were given an implement that's new to me at a dinner table. A tiny hammer to break the sweet caramel-like casing of the goat's cheese. I began to feel a little guilty each time I thrust a fork into these tiny food sculptures, before greedily devouring while attempting to tell myself to savour. This was among my favourite points in the meal. The slight bitterness of the goats cheese worked fantastically with the sweetness of the casing, chutney and beetroot.
The first pasta dish was a baked aubergine wrapped in pasta cooked in a saffron brine. The sauce of tomato and capers gave a satisfying sharpness around the smoky aubergine. To come after this, we had a little bed of potatoes with a selection of garden vegetables on top.
And next came the palette cleanser of pink grapefruit sorbet topped with foamed cucumber, alongside a small ball filled with a surprise - sweet saki. Adding to the theatrics, a beaker of water pre-distilled with tomato and basil was placed beside our table and a small flame lit beneath. We were told the mixture would be further infused with a selection of herbs before forming part of our second pasta dish of ravioli.
After minutes spent taking pictures with the science experiment at our dinner table, the beetroot ravioli with butternut squash arrived, and Chef Cinotti poured in our herby water blend accompaniment. We gratefully indulged in another celebration of seasonal ingredients, my plus one beginning to struggle with the quantity we'd been through.
Lastly, to finish off a fabulously histrionic meal, we were presented with a mystery plate of smoke contained within a clear glass cloche. Once lifted, an aromatic plume settled onto the plate and then the table, revealing a small apparently half-burned cigar, that is set alight in front of you. To be honest, the thing goes up more like a tiny explosion. A spoon thrust in reveals it’s a smoked chocolate shell containing rum crémeux with a cardamon gelato on the side. A beautifully rich chocolate note to end the meal on.
With coffee, we're given two small peanut-shaped nutty ice cream bites, alongside two chocolate "gems" and an edible QR code. If you scan it, you're taken to a video where the chef you've gotten to know over the course of an evening thanks you and wishes you goodnight.
In all, we had an excellent time at Gem42. It's kind of mad, ostentatious, and let's face it with the bill coming in at more than £200 for two diners it's by no means a choice to make lightly for the majority. But Newport can be proud to have two brothers at the top of their game representing excellence and pushing boundaries with such commitment to their craft. It's the kind of cooking I understand is heavily favoured by Michelin inspectors, so could Newport soon gain its first in the coveted guide?
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