Restaurant owner who invented tiramis diesù

BBC News Brazil

Ado Campeol, dubbed the “father of tiramisù” by Italian media, died at age 93. He was the owner of Le Beccherie di Treviso, a restaurant in northern Italy where the famous dessert was invented by his wife and a chef.

The dish, with biscuits dipped in coffee and mascarpone, was added to the menu in 1972, but never patented by the family. Since then, it has become an icon of Italian cuisine, adapted by chefs from around the world.

There are long disputes over the origin of tiramisù, including claims that it was served as an aphrodisiac in a brothel in the northern Italian town of Trevisio. However, the story that the recipe was developed in Campeol’s restaurant is widely accepted.

Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region, is among those who paid tribute. He wrote on Twitter that the city had lost “another star in the history of food and wine”.

Alle Beccherie was opened by the Campeol family in 1939, and he took over the business at the end of World War II.

According to chef Roberto Linguanotto, co-inventor of the dessert, the dish was the result of an accident during the preparation of vanilla ice cream.

Linguanotto put some mascarpone cheese in a bowl of eggs and sugar and, after noticing the pleasant taste of the mixture, told Campeol’s wife, Alba.

The pair then perfected the dessert, adding coffee-soaked cookies and sprinkling it with cocoa — calling it “tiramisù”, which means something like “pull me up”.

The dish appeared in the 1981 print edition of Veneto, a local food and wine publication, and is now one of Italy’s best-known desserts.

Tiramisù variants feature alcohol such as rum or marsala, but the original recipe – certified by the Italian Academy of Cooking in 2010 – was alcohol-free because it was intended to be suitable for children.