From the chef: Emanuele Mugnaini

Our restaurant, Café Bistro, is open around the clock, serving lunches, snacks, Italian and Asian specialities, as well as healthier options and a selection of desserts. We also organize food promotions and festivals, the current theme of which is summer salads, ice cream and iced tea. As I come from Tuscany, I can confirm that salads are very popular in Mediterranean countries, especially in summer, as they are very tasty and easy to digest.

Trying something a bit different, we have decided to serve salads representing various countries, such as the Bohemian salad with ham, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, red radishes, cucumbers and mixed greens with apple dressing; the fisherman salad, representing Norway, with baby octopus and other seafood with shallot dressing; and the gourmande salad, representing France, which combines mixed greens, foie gras, pink shrimp and truffle oil.

The recipe for Mediterranean salad is a typical Sicilan salad. However, I have retouched it a little bit. The traditional Mediterranean salad contains only grilled eggplant, tomato, mozzarella and lettuce. I use eggplant that is marinated with an emulsion of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, chili and fresh oregano. The marinade underlines the original eggplant flavor and makes it tastier. Instead of normal tomatoes, I use cherry tomatoes from Pachino, which is a village in Sicily known by every Italian food lover for its famous cherry tomatoes. Instead of classic mozzarella I use baby mozzarella, as it has the same size and shape as the cherry tomatoes, which adds to the visual impact. In Italy this salad would include lettuce, but we use rucola instead, which makes it even tastier.