From Italy with love: Maplewood artist is off on a tasty caper

By Rose Bennett Gilbert / Correspondent 

MAPLEWOOD, NJ — A Maplewood artist visited a tiny Mediterranean island last year and came home with big plans for capers: the small, unopened buds of the Capparis spinosa bush that will add a huge flavor boost to a favorite dish or cocktail.

John Savittieri is not a chef, mind you. He’s a well-known furniture craftsman whose work has attracted the attention of top New York designers and tastemakers, such as Parish-Hadley Associates, the Rockwell Group and famed restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Rock icon David Bowie’s Mandalay Estate on the Caribbean island of Mustique featured a half-dozen of Savittieri’s custom fan lamps.

However, it was the remote Italian island of Pantelleria — 32 miles of volcanic soil lying some 55 nautical miles southwest of Sicily — that inspired Savittieri to launch his new venture. He’s importing capers, oregano and other prodotti di Pantelleria that thrive on the island, with its rugged farmland and harsh, windswept weather. Actually, Savittieri said, he’s following in the creative footsteps of another island adventurer, Anthony Bourdain, the late celebrity chef who traveled the world exploring the human condition through local traditional food and drink.

“Some years ago I watched Bourdain do a TV episode about historic Palermo, then he hopped a small plane to Pantelleria,” Savittieri said. 

It turns out that a surprising number of world celebrities have also made that journey since the ancient Arabs discovered the tiny island, which they named Bint al-Riyah, meaning “Daughter of the Winds.” Visitors who come today for Pantelleria’s laid-back calm, with its black volcanic beaches and ancient lava-stone dammusi, or farmhouses, have included such Technicolor stars as Sting and Cate Blanchett, and fashion great Giorgio Armani, who for many decades has vacationed at his oceanside estate on Pantelleria.

While the island itself remains relatively unknown, Pantelleria’s capers have long been prized by Italian cooks lucky enough to find them off-island. 

“The farms are small. Conditions are rough — there’s no water on the island except rainwater caught in cisterns,” Savittieri said. 

Capers are picked and sorted by hand, then packed, not in brine as usual, but in Trapani sea salt, famous since ancient times for its precious trace elements. Capturing nutrients from volcanic soil, hot Mediterranean sunshine and minerals from the sea, Pantelleria capers are said to be “the best in the world,” according to Savittieri, who is making them readily available to American cooks for the first time. 

These “timeless fresh ingredients,” including capers and spices, are imported by A & J Savittieri and arrive in a keepsake oval wooden box. Also enclosed is a miniature dammuso, its white roof curved like the real thing to catch precious rainwater. Created by a potter on the island and complete with its own small spoon, the mini-dammuso is designed to keep capers conveniently at hand for daily use, Savittieri said.

“Italian cooks are quick to reach for capers to enhance almost any dish,” he said. “So we are making it as easy for Americans to work the same kind of magic with capers in everything they cook, from classic chicken piccata to capellini, cacciatore, salmon and sauces … even an amazing, upcycled martini.”