The temple of meat “Al Bronsèr”, all homemade as in the family

Born in Sant’Angelo as a tavern, it has grown over the years thanks to Nadia Dal Zilio, and the brothers Paolo and Adriano Picchetti

TREVISO. “We are a family and this is our home. Our concept of hospitality starts from here ». Nadia Dal Zilio chooses these words to present “Al Bronsèr”, which she has been running for thirty years together with her husband Adriano and to his brother-in-law Paolo Picchetti. They were all very young, when Mario and Linda Picchetti began to leave them the management of the tavern they had opened in 1969 in via Sant’Angelo. A tavern that has been able to evolve from the “cicchetti” to the counter, first elected by customers as “Club del gnocco” (it was the era in which the “Spaghetti Club” arose), offering rigorously homemade potato gnocchi in a large number of variants. Then, thanks to Nadia, AIS sommelier, creating a sumptuous cellar that made Bronsér one of the first wine bars in Italy, re-entering the circuit created by the Venetian host Mauro Lorenzon to identify the wine bars / taverns that offer a large number of wines in poured according to precise rules of service.

«Mauro is my mentor», Nadia explains «and if I became a wine lover from almost a teetotaler, I owe it to him, who passed on to many skills and passion with great humility and generosity. Thanks to him, I understood the difference that a reasoned and original menu can make for a restaurant, as well as a well-proposed serving. And, including the value, it turned out that I have always preferred to buy wines rather than clothes ». At Bronsèr Nadia takes care of “everything that is not cooking: from welcoming to service, from setting up the rooms to managing customers and collaborators” according to a very precise division of tasks that the trio gave itself many years ago: Adriano , who learned the job of a cook from his father Mario, is the official chef while Paolo, his elder brother, is an inexhaustible source of ideas as well as an expert in pizzas, focaccia and braziers.

“If from a practical point of view the tasks are well divided, we are a team as assorted as it is united, which always wants to grow”, explains Nadia. “In 2019, to celebrate the first 50 years of business, we revolutionized the restaurant rooms by giving them a personal touch, which resembled the one in our homes, right upstairs. For us, in fact, there is no great distinction between the restaurant and our homes, and we like to welcome customers with simplicity just as if they were guests in our home ». An aesthetic revolution that focuses on the evolution of Adriano’s kitchen, who almost exclusively uses the open fire of the large fireplace in the dining room, right next to the guests, to cook his preparations.

“Gnocchi are never lacking, to honor the old tradition”, Adriano emphasizes, “but the commitment in the selection of meats that I started over twenty years ago, going to visit the farms in many parts of Italy, brought me closer more and more to cooking on the coals, where in addition to meats that I know very well – especially those from the Montello butcher of the Mazzaro brothers – I cook the vegetables purchased in the gardens near the restaurant or in those of the Venetian Lagoon. We cook almost everything on the fire – with exclusively Italian wood that I personally select – except the desserts, bread, focaccia and pan pizza that my brother Paolo offers on Sundays and which always attracts many young people and families. But we do everything at home, from cured meats to pickled vegetables, without any recourse to preparations ». Between the warmth and the scent of the large fireplace, between the wide spaces of the bright rooms and the large tables set up with creativity, the relaxed atmosphere of the Bronsèr seems not to have suffered particular shocks due to the pandemic. «Obviously we were taken by surprise by the lockdown», Nadia continues «but we had already started the home service earlier, so we were already“ run in ”. Today our grills are shipped to most of northern Italy. In addition, Paolo has perfected a project of “itinerant embers” at home: he brings barbecues and braziers but also meat, recipes and experience of cooking over high heat in the gardens of homes and companies. And they really like the idea ». –