«Taking care of who you eat is a compromising choice»

By Flavia Tomaello, https://flaviatomaello.blog/, Instagram @flavia.tomaello

In a serene corner of Salento, a gastronomic project on a deliberately intimate scale proposes a different relationship with time, taste and hospitality. AMA, dialoghi di gusto, created by Anna Maria Altamura together with her husband, the sommelier Enrico Mercanti, articulates cuisine, thought and space within a unitary and deeply conscious vision.

Muro Leccese presents itself discreetly, demands a careful look and rewards those who accept its rhythm. Between ancient walls and an architecture that preserves the memory of centuries, a palace from the 1600s has been brought back to life through a project that integrates restoration, hospitality and reflection. There, AMA manifests itself as an experience that unfolds without fanfare and that finds its strength in coherence.

Anna Maria Altamura’s story does not begin in a professional kitchen. His journey spans years of rigorous training and high-level responsibilities in the world of strategic communication and luxury marketing, experience that today translates into method, clarity and discipline applied to the gastronomic universe. This previous trajectory is perceived in each choice, in the precise definition of identity, in the way of conceiving the restaurant as a complete organism and not as a sum of isolated elements.

AMA is part of a larger complex that includes a Relais de Charme with few rooms, a respectfully restored historic court, a garden maintained with constant attention and a wellness area designed to accompany the well-being that begins at the table. Each space participates in the same narrative, each transition reinforces a common atmosphere, each detail confirms a promise of authenticity and care.

In the kitchen, Anna Maria works from responsibility towards others. The choice of raw material responds to strict criteria, the processes respect time and balance, and the result favors healthiness, harmony and sincerity of flavor. At his side, Enrico Mercanti accompanies the experience from wine, oil and drinks, building routes that dialogue with the dishes and with the people, with precision and sensitivity.

The project is based on clear decisions, a limited number of covers, a direct and constant relationship with trusted suppliers, management that rejects large volumes and hospitality exercised in person. Here, value is expressed in attention, listening, in the time given to the guest and in fidelity to an idea of ​​excellence that is not negotiable.

AMA is built from a defined identity and from a conception of success that is measured internally, in the silent satisfaction of the room, in the desire to return, in the need to share an experience that is perceived as honest. In the interview that follows, Anna Maria Altamura covers her personal history, her connection with cooking and the ethical and conceptual principles that shape this project, where taste becomes dialogue and hospitality becomes a form of thought.

Tell me about your childhood. Where were you born? What was your family like back then? What did you like to play when you were a child? What did you dream of being when you grew up?

I respond by writing and following the course of thought as if we were talking, I don’t want to create the text because it would run the risk of it becoming a cage. I was born in Vernole, from the unlimited love that united two people who loved each other infinitely and who still love each other today, although my dad is no longer with us since October 2019. I think his is the most beautiful love story I know. Mine was a traditional family, we lived in Otranto, dad was a soldier in the Italian Air Force and mom was a housewife, and mom… which was no small thing considering we were three sisters. Every morning of my childhood, for my parents, was a real obstacle course. My father chased me around the house trying to feed me while I got ready. He did it until I left home at 18… I ate very little and they were worried. Before going out, my mother would go through my clothes and comb my hair, creating pigtails, braids, curls, and pompadours that I adored. Then my dad ran like a desperate man to get me to school on time, to the convent school he attended.
Let’s not even talk about when, as a teenager, I would chase the bus or the train that I had to get on to go to another town where I went to high school. I think everyone in Salento was aware of our adventures. What wonderful memories I have of those mornings. He got very angry because it was not possible that I was so lazy, slow and always late, but then we laughed so much at how the car doors opened when the vehicle was not yet completely stopped and I managed to literally «fly» onto the train. How many times we tell each other those races.
At lunchtime, my mother’s desperation reached its peak… she hated vegetables, which I now adore, and if there were vegetables at lunch, she would pretend that she had already eaten something at school. Once she was so exhausted that she threw a heavy ceramic mug she used for milk at me… I managed to dodge it in time and the indelible mark of that moment is still imprinted on the front of the oak refrigerator, definitely “wounded.”
When dad returned from work, mom would inform him how the day had gone and if we had exaggerated, he would make us sit on his lap and explain to us that «the mom is the mom, whatever she makes wrong, she is still the mom, she is dedicated to you and you should never disrespect her. And if it wasn’t enough for you that she is the mom and therefore the figure you should have the most respect for, then remember that she is my wife.» I will never forget those phrases.
In the afternoon I began with homework under the supervision of my father, who is the architect of my infinite love for the Italian language, for writing well, for speaking well. I prepared my compositions, he read them, showed me new ways of exposing my thoughts and suggested more pertinent words, then he invited me to correct the text autonomously. Meanwhile, he made the same composition to show me how many different styles there are to say the same things. Each time I fell in love with his writing and asked to be able to present his text at school. Although Mom was worried that I might not learn to write on my own, he allowed me to do so on the condition that we first studied it together and understood each word used well.
Now I know that its objective was, through healthy competition, to stimulate me to compose texts that were increasingly higher in style and content… and that was the case. Over time it was no longer necessary for him to develop the same text. He had made me fall in love with well-done writing, he had planted in me the seed of the beauty of the well-spoken Italian language… and so it happened with many other teachings.
He never imposed visions of life or behaviors on me that he had not tried to explain to me hundreds of times before. The generational struggle is physiological, but I spent entire nights talking with him to confront our different visions. He taught me to recognize mistakes, to be available to change my mind, to respect different thoughts, to listen before taking a position, to ask for forgiveness. And only when my very hard adolescent head continued to support the unsustainable, I said: «It’s okay Anna Maria, one day, if you still believe that what you say is the best solution, you can do as you want; now, for your own good, you will do as I say.»
When I wasn’t at school or studying, I played with my two younger sisters or the four of us went out for walks with dad together. He dedicated his entire life to us and his wife, until his last breath. He ascended to heaven holding the hands of his women, while they declared to him, one by one, all the love they felt for him. In the town where we lived, Otranto, we were known as the girls who always went out for walks with their father. Those who have not had this privilege, of which perhaps they were not fully aware at the time, cannot imagine what they have lost.
With dad I played “names, cities and things”, a game that stimulated the mind to look for words in different areas with the same initial. We played naval battle, based on the strategic positioning of the fleet. We played checkers, another game of strategy and observation. Thinking about it, it is not surprising what my study and work choices were later. Everything was born here. With the.
With mom, during childhood, the relationship was more conflictive but equally loving and instructive. She was very severe and, unlike in recent years, less inclined to dialogue. For her there were few rules: eat well, study, be honest, never lose dignity with behaviors that would harm ourselves first. With her I learned the first rudiments of two of my great passions: cooking and crochet. He made me sit on a low stool next to him, I was as tall as a Smurf, he showed me how to do the different points and I repeated them. I don’t know how many beautiful jobs we did together.
During Covid he had me by his side and taught me how to cut and make the curtains with precision. Before marrying Dad, she had been a wonderful dressmaker; The most beautiful and valuable clothes of my life were made by her. Both mom and dad knew how to transform what they wanted to teach me into a game, or rather, administer to me in the form of a semi-serious game. Perhaps it was that wise methodological choice that transformed those activities into the greatest passions of my life: writing, cooking, knitting.
Few friends in childhood because of mom’s protective approach, but I can’t say I wasn’t happy. It is a priceless treasure of wonderful memories. Today I don’t call my mother mom but rather “love of my life” and she still exerts her influence. When she calls me I tell her: “Here is your subject, my Queen,” and I kiss her with double the love, hers and that of my father, to whom I can no longer give it.
What I wanted to be when I grew up came later. As a child I studied classical dance and played volleyball, but I never wanted to continue there. Later I imagined myself as a juvenile judge, a journalist, a writer… until I came to the study choices that seemed incongruous but actually outlined the necessary profile for what I wanted to do: deal with communication, strategy, branding and marketing.

How did cooking enter your life?

Cooking has always been part of my life, it was transmitted in my blood directly from my mother’s womb. For mom, food was the panacea for everything. Are you happy? Let’s celebrate by preparing something delicious! Are you sad? Let’s distract ourselves by preparing something good. Are you not feeling well? Let’s prepare something that gives you energy and heals you. Do you feel good? Let’s prepare something delicious to reward ourselves.
I remember that on Sundays at home breakfast was wonderful. We would get up and run directly to the kitchen where she would make us find the table set with the white porcelain plates painted blue… I remember those little Chinese houses… the Chinese women… the cherry trees… the white tablecloth… and those wonderful little white and blue cups filled with her magical lemon pastry cream… and the cookies that she prepared to accompany it… what perfumes! If I concentrate I still feel them.
From those first moments, cooking always represented for me a way of saying “I love you… I like to take care of you… I care about your life… I want to grow with you… I want to make you happy…”. That’s why, during my university days in Bari, but also later in Milan during my work days, when I finished studying or working, it was always at my house for dinner or Sunday lunch. Friends, colleagues, suppliers turned friends, all sitting together around the table sharing moments of life, beautiful and less beautiful, stories that began, stories that ended… good food and good company were always a help.
Then everything gradually took the form of an authentic passion, a way of c ocommunicate… and became an object of constant study, from then until now. With Teachers to whom I am infinitely grateful.

How does a culinary project become a coherent identity and not just a collection of well-executed dishes?

I think that there is too much talk about cooking on television or, at least, that it is done in a wrong, deceptive way, conveying – consciously or surreptitiously, I couldn’t say – the false myth that the world of restaurants is all success, fame, money, glory and that it is enough to know how to cook.
The world of restoration is above all a company and, as such, it needs a study that, at least preliminarily and paradoxically, could even dispense with the figure of the chef. Yes, because what counts primarily is a correct strategic positioning of the company in the market, a clear vision of who it wants to be and how it wants to be perceived, an unequivocal identification of a distinctive promise to make to the public, a logo that embodies that promise, that positioning and that vision, a strong will not to be carried away by events or trends in the attempt to please the public or, worse still, to expand the customer pool, an ethical and fair definition – and no I use these words at random—of prices.
Because of too many people focused solely on quick and easy profit, people eat out less and less and travel less and less. And honestly I find it understandable. Is this approach really strategic? Personally I don’t think so.
But back to us… Coherence with the strategy is the key word. For us, this phase of analysis, study and identification of the path was simpler both because this was my job in the past, and because I am the person who must translate that strategy into substance, in menu, in dishes, in personnel selection, in a communicative tone of voice, in a brand image and in much more. But paradoxically the menu is only the consequence of all this.
Many boys or ladies who simply know how to cook—underestimating the abysmal difference between cooking at home and cooking for the public, between managing one’s own kitchen and managing the kitchen of a restaurant, which presupposes knowledge of hygienic standards but also of personnel management, administration, economics—think that you can open a restaurant like you open the door at home. And clearly then you find proposals that are all the same, exorbitant prices and, above all, the “reason why” you should choose one place over another is lost.
I’ll give you a really stupid example. My husband and I have a golden retriever named Pittula. Our dog is perfectly clear who to go to according to what he wants: does he want to eat, go out, just company? Choose my husband Enrico. Want some rule breaking and pampering devastation? Come with me. In restaurants this has become really difficult: everything looks the same or very similar.
True quality, and not presumed quality, has become only a communicative banner. When I hear «quality raw materials» I instinctively respond «why specify it? What should the alternative be?» And yet, unfortunately it has become necessary to say it to induce the client to make a comparison, but to compare you also need knowledge and not a simple “sprinkling” of information.
What is defined in the world of creativity as “lateral thinking” has also disappeared, a different way of looking, seeing, decoding, interpreting, elaborating and solving what surrounds us. Healthy curiosity has disappeared, the awareness that studying is essential. In its place has come what I call the “let’s make it strange” approach, as Carlo Verdone would say in his films, when in the midst of this ocean of strangeness perhaps what is missing is something simply good, genuine, not strange, simply inviting, capable of stimulating a little curiosity and satisfying the taste buds more than the famous wow effect.
When a dish is born, it must first of all be consistent with the promise, then it must be healthy and good and, only ultimately, also Instagrammable, because today it is necessary. But ultimately.

What structural decisions define AMA even before a menu is conceived: timing, suppliers, dimensions, limits?

Suppliers are our true added value: many are proposed, but at the moment no new one has managed to enter. My fish supplier, may God live a hundred years, I will never change him, not only for the quality of what he gives me, but above all for his intellectual honesty. A priceless value. The same goes for my butcher.
If neither of them has what I want, they leave me without it and invite me to insert an off-menu to do something else, but they never give me the product I am looking for if it is of a lower quality than that to which I am accustomed and to which I have accustomed our guests.
The times: for us in the kitchen, especially during service, they are hectic, but for our guests time must be slow again and they must enjoy it again, leaving thoughts and anxieties outside the entrance gate. It takes time to do things well, it takes time to do well, and we want our guests, at least during a lunch or dinner with us, to do well by allowing us to do good to them.
The dimensions: also for everything said so far, our dimensions will always remain what they are: small numbers, maximum thirty covers, because we want to continue doing things well, with love even for the details, without qualitative compromises in the processes, without looking at the large numbers. You cannot say that you want someone’s good, that you love your own guests, and then compromise with the substantial and aesthetic quality that is put on the plate.
Limits: We will never get rich this way and with these budgets. But I consider it a plus. We want to continue being Anna Maria and Enrico. Genuine and transparent as always, with arms always open to friends and with hearts and ears ready to listen to whoever wants or needs to speak, to “dialogue.”

How do hospitality, cuisine and space interact to build an experience based on coherence?

They interact perfectly because when you proceed being very clear about who you are, what you want to be, what you intend to offer and how to do it, you have a kind of litmus paper that is immediately colored differently depending on whether an idea is coherent and strategic or is purely a click-hunting tactic or for occasional customers.
The way the rooms in our Relais are furnished speaks the same language as the dishes we serve in the restaurant; The atmosphere in our SPA area has the same taste as the way we take care of our garden and our court. There is a kind of storytelling that runs through the entire Palace and that, in the transition from one room or environment to another, is enriched with value, confirms what has preceded it and opens the doors to what follows. We have looked at this work of ours as a great narrative, like the script of a film or a story that does not allow contradictions.

What is gained and what is lost when a project decides to expand in depth?

If you work strategically, you gain time to understand whether or not a choice is correct; It is gained in the capitalization of the value of one activity to another, because each part of the work and each initiative collaborate to confirm what has been said and done up to that moment and what it is announced that it wants to do. Energy is gained to explain, because the elements become self-explanatory.
What is lost? Everything has a price in life. Especially doing things well. Sometimes it happens to me that I am not satisfied with a preparation. My husband, who cares about quality as much as I do but retains a small dose of lucidity or pragmatism more than I do, tells me: “Anna, it’s perfect, maybe it’s not perfect for you, but it is perfect for the rest of humanity and, in any case, it’s a billion times better than everything around it.” And I answer: “It’s true, you’re right, but it’s not exactly us.” And I remake it.
But I guarantee that whoever has the opportunity to taste our dishes clearly feels the difference. And I don’t want to betray them or the promise I have made.

How is an idea of ​​excellence maintained in a non-urban context without resorting to replicating external models?

Simply always hating the word “replica”. I’ll give you another example out of context, but it will help you understand: I already worked in the world of communication, with excellent results I can say. But he had learned in the field, although from great Masters. I left my job and completed a master’s degree in economics first, then the creative writing school, the film and comic script laboratory, and the journalism and audiovisual techniques laboratory, because I did not accept the idea that, not being the owner of the instruments and not knowing in depth the cause-effect relationships between the different activities and levers that could be activated, I could only limit myself to replicating what I had always done or imitating what others already did, without awareness of whether I was doing good or bad. brand I worked for.
That. I hate the word “replicate”. That’s why I study, study and study. Always. Nightly. Everything that is possible for me.

How is AMA’s success measured internally, beyond external validation or media recognition?

We have very clear internal indicators: the dishes that come back shiny to the point of wondering how it is possible that the ceramics have not also disappeared; Enrico’s smile when he enters the kitchen and tells me the guests’ comments about each dish; the polite request of guests to meet me before they leave, because they feel the need to tell me what they experienced while eating; his punctual return.
The sense of satisfaction with which I go to sleep after a night of work. And it doesn’t matter if we had twenty guests that night or just two.

What tensions emerge between the original vision of the project and its real evolution in contact with the public?

At the moment none, thank goodness, but we constantly monitor everything to make, where necessary, corrections, which however must be strategically coherent and not at all complacent. It is not necessary to please everyone, but only those who are looking for what we promise to offer.

How do you design a kitchen that engages with customers without losing its character or becoming complacent?

I have inadvertently already partially answered this question before, when I explained the need for a strategic, strong, incorruptible, coherent, but also emotional and exciting approach.
I can only add that when interacting with clients, an extremely honest, sincere, non-cunning approach becomes – at least for me – crucial. If I’m wrong about something, I’d rather come out, say it, and apologize than bet that a customer might not have noticed.
I made a mistake precisely on the day of the inauguration. I apologized and invited the guest to return clearly to our shore. For me, a cold egg in our emblematic dish was unacceptable. When he returned and was satisfied, my mind and heart found peace.

Tell me a little about your work with biscotti. I know you produce ninety different versions.

Biscotti are my greatest passion, nothing secret anymore. We have many, divided by categories – for dipping, thin shortcrust pastry, whipped shortcrust pastry, nuts, traditional -, by occasions of use – breakfast, tea, after dinner, pastry, temptation, craving -, by intolerances – gluten, lactose, sugar, nuts, eggs -, by degree of lightness – light, dry, sweet, sinful -, by tastes – chocolate, fr fresh, dehydrated, dried fruit—, by choosing a dietary style—vegetarian, vegan—.
There are so many that even choosing sometimes becomes difficult for guests, but I adore them and I only manage to add new ones without ever removing any… that’s why our catalogs are really “important”. Whether they are biscotti, or large levados – panettones, colombe, veneziane, nuvole, brioches – or jams made by us or from the pantry – meat sauces, fish, vegetables and much more.
I get attached to the dishes and keep them all. But this does not harm production because, apart from a minimum quantity always available for our guests, everything we produce responds to an order received. This allows us to make a product that is always aligned with the wishes of the person requesting it for purchase.
It can even be a cookie that contains sugar, lactose or gluten… we also make it without these allergens if requested. It is a custom-made production. I don’t think anyone does.