A Taste of Sardinia in Florida

Alongside Andrea Fadda, Deborah and Sheila Marras, daughters of emigrants from uri and Pattada

by STEFANIA PUORRO

There is a lot of sardinia in Weston, Florida. you can recognize it by teh fregula that smells of the sea, by the handmade culurgiones, by the crunchy suckling pig, by the golden seadas and above all by those famous spaghetti with clams and bottarga that make people drive not only from Miami, but also hundreds of kilometers just to sit down in front of a plate of pasta. It is Sardinia that chef Andrea Fadda – 53 years old, Sardinian from Sant’Anna Arresi – brought to the United States and placed at the center of Zona Blu, a restaurant that has become a small ambassador of the island in the heart of florida. «These flavors have always been inside me – he says -, they are my childhood, my roots, my history». This story, however, is not made only by him. it really took shape when Andrea met deborah Marras Bautista and Sheila Marras David, daughters of Liliana Ledda – originally from Bantine, a hamlet of Pattada, and raised in Sassari – and Giovanni Marras from Uri, who emigrated to the United States in 1967. The family lived first in Michigan, where Liliana’s relatives had moved, then in Florida, attracted by a climate that reminded them of home. «Yes, Sardinia has always been home for us, even while living in the United States – they explain -. Every summer we returned to relatives, to villages, to kitchens full of perfumes. What we are today was born there. Those wonderful summers rooted the Sardinian identity in our hearts and were the basis of the choice, together with Andrea, to open a Sardinian restaurant and share the cuisine and traditions of the island. We are immensely grateful for the support the community has given Zona Blu over the past ten years.”

The meeting with Andrea takes place in his restaurant Pappa e Ciccia, in South Beach. «Deborah and Sheila told me: “Let’s open somthing together in Weston” – Andrea remembers – let’s bring our land there, you’ll see it will go well. At first I thought they were crazy… then I realized that they were right.” «We wanted