A Spurcacciun-a Restaurant in Savona, one of the most famous on the Ligurian Riviera, has its roots in a long family tradition that goes back almost one hundred and twenty years. It all began in the early years of the last century, in the Fornaci district, when grandmother Paola ran a bakery, famous for its excellent farinata, which was later transformed into a trattoria.
At the beginning of the 60’s, her daughter Giuliana had the intuition to move the restaurant to its current location, strategically located near the highway exit: a wise choice that in a short time increased the fame of the restaurant, appreciated by the coming and going customers for its excellent seafood cuisine, always very fresh, and led to the construction of the Hotel Mare.
In the mid 80’s the management passed under the aegis of the brothers Claudio (who died in 2022 in an accident at sea) and Pervinca Tiranini, the former in the kitchen, the latter in the administration.
With the enthusiasm and daring of youth, the two siblings breathed new life into both the hotel and the restaurant: after the renovation of the hotel complex, with the introduction of the striking infinity pool and the large terrace from which to embrace the sea, in 1997 the recognition of the Michelin star, then lost in 2003, regained in 2009 and unfortunately confirmed only for the following year.
A new chapter in the history of A Spurcacciun-a opens in 2018: the total renovation of the kitchen, open and open to the room, the theater of Chef Simone Perata, the opening of the Marea Savona bistro, independent from the gourmet proposal, and Sushi Beach with Japanese chefs.
Chef Simone Perata
Simone Perata was born in 1988 in Celle Ligure, not far from Savona. After graduating as a surveyor, he enlisted in the Navy as a volunteer with the goal of attending the Naval Academy in Livorno.
Assigned, initially with great disappointment, to the kitchens of the Coast Guard in Savona for a year, he actually discovered a real passion for cooking and the realization of a certainty: “when he grew up” he would be a cook.
His first experience at Cambio in Turin, then his meeting with Claudio Tiranini at A Spurcacciun-a (Michelin-starred at the time) from whom he learned the basics of traditional Ligurian cuisine and the importance of raw materials.
The desire to learn and the ambition to increase his skills as much as possible stimulated him to continue his training in Milan at the Marchesino with Gualtiero Marchesi, where he stayed for a couple of years.
Maestro Marchesi then directed him to the brigade of the historic tristate restaurant Taillevent in Paris, one of the oldest maisons in France with an extraordinary wine cellar. Here, under the guidance of Alain Solivérès, he learned about great traditional French cuisine and the importance of values such as hierarchy, rigor, order, cleanliness and discipline.
His desire to experiment with a more modern and creative approach took him to Spain, specifically to Barcelona at Martin Berasategui’s Lasarte with Paolo Casagrande (himself a pupil of Solivérès at Taillevent), where he stayed almost four years being part of the brigade that won its third Michelin star in 2016.
Ready for the role of chef, and eager to return to Italy, he returned to his native Liguria in January 2018 to embrace the Tiranini family’s new project for A Spurcaccin-a: a major open kitchen where he expresses his own gastronomic ideas through dishes inspired by tradition and interprets it with surprising pairings and cultural contaminations resulting from his international experiences.
Local ingredients, freshness and seasonality. Raw materials and territory have always been at the center of the gastronomic proposal of A Spurcacciun-a and the Tiranini family: in the new and spacious kitchen, technologically advanced in terms of equipment, fishermen, farmers, breeders and small local producers land every day with their first fruits.
Since his arrival in May 2018, the challenge to Simone Perata immediately seemed clear: to renovate a restaurant with a traditional proposal while preserving its history and giving it, at the same time, a more contemporary gastronomic imprint through an open vision of the world that would cross regional borders while exalting Ligurian raw material.
From the catch of the day offered by the sea, purchased at the market in Savona or loaded directly from the fishing boats in Sanremo, to the lamb from Brigasca sheep from the shepherd who also supplies the tome (Slow Food presidium of Albenga), from the artichoke and asparagus of Albenga, to the lemons of Varigotti, from Taggiasco oil to the herbs and sprouts grown in the garden surrounding the terrace.
Decisive, with sharp, well-defined flavors, personal: this is how Simone Perata describes his cuisine, which he creates freehand but with the ingredient always the protagonist. Each dish is an experience, a journey that places the territory at the center told through the different influences that have characterized his path. Experimentations that are not an end in themselves, but express the chef’s personality and his vision of cooking based not only on technique but also on gluttony and the satisfaction of taste.
Among his signatures are the Millefoglie of foie gras, bluefin tuna, nori seaweed, marinated daikon and sumiso – a personal re-interpretation of a famous icon dish by Martin Berasategui; My Cappon Magro – a dish of great Ligurian tradition between history and contemporaneity; and the Spaghettone with murici (sea snails), focaccia, parsley oil and finger lime.
In addition to the à la carte menu, there are also two exceptional tasting menus Alta and Bassa Marea: two paths, in eleven and eight steps respectively, whose Chef synthesizes past and present between the tradition of local cuisine and the innovation brought by research and his personal experiences between France and Spain.
The dining room accommodates sixteen tables in a modern and elegant atmosphere; in summer, the large terrace overlooking the infinity pool and surrounded by an exotic garden is available to guests for an even more immersive experience just a few meters from the sea. In the dining room for over thirty years, maitre Giuseppe D’Angelo has been welcoming guests with cordiality and skill.
The important wine list offers more than seven hundred labels from Italy and around the world: about sixteen thousand bottles kept in the Cantina Teatro (in the basement below the restaurant) with temperature, humidity and light control, and made among the design rooms of Sushi Beach. The indoor room has approximately forty seats to which are added the fifty in the terrace.
Sushi beach restaurant
Fish is also a great protagonist in the proposals of Sushi Beach, a restaurant opened in 2009 and born from the desire of Alessandro Danello and Alberto Tiranini, the fourth generation of the family, to share discoveries and inspirations gathered during their travels.
It is particularly the Orient that fascinated the two cousins, who decided to bring a breath of exotic air to Savona by combining Japanese gastronomic culture and the freshness of Ligurian fish.
In the kitchen, Japanese sushimen give life to a rich and absolutely trendy menu, in which to find all the icons of the Japanese table – sushi, sashimi, nigiri, temaki, gunkan, hossomaki – made, when possible, with local catch such as purple shrimp from San Remo, but also vegetable variations on the theme (such as vegetarian and vegan temaki), and chef’s dishes such as Panko maguro, Braised Pork Belly and Tuna Tataki in Tropea onion sauce.
Also making Sushi Beach unique is the futuristic style that characterizes the three winter rooms: environments with a strongly contemporary atmosphere expressed through designer architectural solutions. In summer, on the other hand, sushi is served on the summer terrace by the pool and with panoramic sea views, to fully enjoy a pieds dans l’eau experience.
I was at Spurcacciun several weeks ago. The fame of the place was known, but I had resistance about the Place, Savona is the terminal of the Large cruise ships.
A cold windy evening the first of the season for the coast, and suddenly the doors of the Sushi Bar opened.Sommelier and sushi man did their part very professionally, a tasting of several courses of a very fresh sushi accompanied by a bubble of a small manipulant recoltant.
It is from the small details that the best things are discovered, it takes luck, curiosity, or perseverance, intellectual honesty.
The morning envelops me with a warm sun skies and clear and from the little terrace of the hotel rooms I have a deja vu, a feeling of already seen, maybe on one of the Keys years ago, beach and palm trees and access as to the sea as the most celebrated 5 stars have it. I am not Hemingway, but this sense of the sea, of beautiful nature came through like when you discover a jewel in a small chest. And then it was reinforced after an excellent breakfast and coffee taken on the nearby beach of Varigotti.
Simone, the chef was waiting for me with the promise that I would go all the way through the tasting, 11 courses. It was not difficult, and the memory of this breakfast by the sea is still alive in me thanks to the advice of the sommelier who from the height of his 1600 wine labels made me taste a sparkling Pigato, a small zero km production
Go there with your partner, wife, girlfriend who will come home with the feeling of having been really pampered.
