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Bellagio, he is rearing his offspring without conceit, enhancing flavours with scientific rigour
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important professional experience. He was born in San Secondo, up in the unglamorous guises of dishwasher, barman, greenin the province of Parma, from working parents who ardently grocer, fishmonger and fill-in at a tavern, he finally broke into worshipped the cult of good food: “My aunt Linda occasionally the hotel industry in Punta Ala. At the same time, his training worked as a dishwasher for Cantarelli, in Samboseto, and it was continued at the École Lenôtre, at the Étoile School, and with a great opportunity to swap recipes with Mirella. I often hung Yves Thuriès. “Reading his magazine, where Hervé This had a out there. I remember Peppino always talking in metaphors, column for some time, I started to get absorbed in ‘molecular’ and only now do I understand just how much I owe to him. cuisine.” Scientia potentia est: and it became the path that his Because he initiated me to great French wines and whole career would follow. he instilled in me an obsession for the ingredients. Yet the karmic encounter occurred in Bellagio, THREE VERSIONS OF RED TUNA When the restaurant closed, the catering school with physicist Davide Cassi, with whom he emAbove from left, tartar with I attended at Salsomaggiore held a party in his barked on a lengthy partnership from 2001 to quail’s egg and sesame; honour; while I was preparing the rice savarin he 2003. The click as their pieces slotted together tuna belly caramelised with went into a passionate explanation of where and rang out across Italian cuisine: the cook and the soy sauce; reduction why he had bought that certain carnaroli rice and scientist, empirical and abstract knowledge tied of katsuobushi with enok the meat and the culatello.” After working his way together in a close-knit dialogue, who shared a mushrooms and coriander.
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