Back for More: Mio

As age settles in, I’ve increasingly experienced those revelatory moments when I realize I may be becoming my mother. It’s less worrying than fascinating – and were I Marco Calenzo, this would be strictly a blessing.

We caught his mother on a working holiday (she’s obliging, too) when she joined her son in his kitchen at the Four Seasons. In Mrs. Calenzo’s hands, food of the home and hearth is remixed and elevated for the dining room table. Four sturdy squash blossoms, breaded and flash-fried, concealed nibs of anchovy so that flowers take on the taste of the sea. The spiny artichoke forgets its thistle heritage when Mrs. Calenzo strips it down to its tender interior, chops the tip blunt and transforms it into something supernatural with caramelized, undulating edges and a soft briny heart.

Calenzo honed his skills in Michelin-starred restaurants, but it’s easy to imagine that whether nature or nurture, there’s something in the bloodlines. Classic tastes from the kitchen table are remixed for the dining room one. In the tonno tonnato (RMB 178, all prices exclusive of 15 percent service charge), he riffs on a traditional vitello tonnato. A curious avalanche of pale powder slips down the slope of the bowl in an auburn pool of gel and black beads. A brutish slice of seared bluefin tuna dwarfs a tiny, but exquisite veal croquette. Then the first forkful reveals this: the dish of the duo of ocean and pasture. The avalanche mystifyingly melts from frozen flakes back almost into the texture of yellowtail tuna, and the auburn pool unveils itself as a very adult veal consommé jelly.

The flavors of the trafila pici (RMB 225) are delicate – long lengths of house-made squid ink pasta, king crab and a subtle carrot coulis – but the colors are almost cartoonish in contrast. Calenzo must be the perfect son – sensitive, tender with a residual boyishness. Of course, a mother knows, nothing would be as delightful without an explosion. A sumptuous pair of langoustine and foie gras (RMB 285) arrives with the evening’s most stunning moment: a gorgeous smattering of 25-year-old balsamic from when a single strawberry quarter hit.

Mio
Daily 11.30am-2pm, 5.30-10pm. 3/F, Four Seasons Hotel, 48 Liangmaqiao Lu, Chaoyang District (5695 8522)
朝阳区亮马桥路48号北京四季酒店3层
200m northeast of Liangmaqiao station (Line 10)
 

Photo: Ken