Identità Golose (3-4-5 of march)
Milan
“My team is my family: we share purposes and dreams, we fail together and we win together.”
Massimo Bottura, owner and chef of the “Osteria Francescana” in Modena, concluded in this way his speech at “Identità Golose” in Milan.
This fair celebrate the high cuisine and this year is arrived at its fourteenth edition bringing up on the stage chefs, confectioners, maître and all the main characters of the high cuisine in the world.
This year the principal subject was the “Human Factor”.
The “Human Factor” conceived like the attention to the relationships between producers and clients, like the respect to the restaurant’s staff and like the terroir’s exploitation and the communication of his traditions.
The value of human’s relationships is seen in different ways from each chef.
Massimo Bottura wanted to bring on the stage some recipes conceived and created by his employees that, coming from all over the world, know different techniques.
“I’ve always tried to be a trainer of ideas, giving directions and leaving space for creativity and urging people to be creative and to share. I put the technique, they put the personality and together we stimulate the memory and the emotions of our clients.”
“I was stressed and demotivated, I didn’t find any stimulus in my chef’s role and my bad mood was also reflected in the work of my employees, when one day Netflix arrived.”
Ana Ros’s speech starts like this.
She’s the owner and the chef of the “Hisa Franko” ’s restaurant in Caporetto, Slovenia and she was named “Best woman chef” in 2017 by the 50 best Restaurant’s guide.
Netflix asked to her to be the main character of an episode of “Chef’s Table” and she wondered “What I would like to communicate to the audience?”
And in that moment she found again her power in the team.
From this day all the brigade practice yoga or jogging in the morning, then they start to cook at 11 a.m. in the farmhouse where Ana lives with her husband and two sons.
A stream in the green grass, some tanks of trout, a vegetable garden and a big cellar for the cheese making.
“Hisa Franko” is a restaurant that explains the story and the terroir of the “Valle d’Isonzo”, offering raw materials personally grown or well checked and waste materials like apple cores, some products marinated with whey, …
“In relation to the meat, I have a farmer who knows all his cows by the name – concluded the chef – I go beyond the traceability to include all my suppliers in a global project.”
Now we moved to Thailand, Bangkok, to know the extravagant Gaggan Anand, owner and chef of the homonymous restaurant.
Here we find the first starred menu to eat entirely with the hands… or to “Lick”.
“Lick it up” is the name of the dish that was created to put in the same level all the costumers, from the businessman to the back pack traveller, encouraging them to do a crude act but at the same time natural for everybody.
“Gaggan” menu is an emoji menu, like this everybody can understand it. The menu unify the world in a restaurant that want to put everybody on the same level, focusing on the strength of the equality and offering Indian traditional recipes with international techniques.
“Gaggan” will close in 2020, to open the following year with a new restaurant in Japan.
Only 10-12 seats, in order to canalize the attention on the client and to have good performances from the employees.
In the end Virgilio Martinez explains what’s the “New Amazonian cuisine”, the Human Factor’s symbol.
We are talking about a kind of cuisine that describe the Peru’s biodiversity.
Everything start from the permanent research center in Cuzco: “Mater Iniciativa”.
Here, an explorer’s team discover new products, ancient and unknown ingredients, endangered species, …
Their last project? Recover the 200 varieties of potatoes that grow in Peru and put them in a unique recipe.
So the “Central” in Lima is the last step of a continuous work.
“For me the act of cooking starts from the growing of the cocoa plant, from harvesting some roots or coca leaves, from catching marine bacterias or lake’s snails – said Virgilio – In my restaurant there’s a “vertical menu”: declined in relation to the distance from the sea. All the dishes are composted to have ingredients that you can find in the same area and altitude, in this way the client can discover step by step all the Peru’s biodiversity. We are the exasperation of the local cuisine – he concludes – in our restaurant also the drinks are homemade with local herbs.”
The “Human Factor” of the “Central” is focuses on the responsibility to the environment, without forgetting human’s relationships.
After three days I come back home with the desire to travel and discover the dishes of all the world, the chef’s traditions and their backgrounds.
The “Osteria Francescana” ’s cuisine that present past, present and future, the biodiversities of the Peru that Virgilio Martinez put in his recipes, the pure Slovenian’s countryside, the Asiatic’s street food declined in the starred Gaggan’s restaurant.
By Giulia Gattiglia
