Food is either good or bad even if authentic
Any chef who is worth his or her salt would no doubt have heard of Gordon Ramsey, Anthony Bourdain, Jamie Oliver and Alain Ducasse.
Today though, I’ll like to write about Massimo Bottura, a two-time winner of the ‘Best restaurant in the world’ and the chef patron of ‘Osteria Francescana’, a three-Michelin star restaurant in Modena, Italy, which has been listed in the ‘Top 5’ at The ‘World's 50 Best Restaurants’ awards since 2010.
More than being a world-class chef, he has been recognized for his commitment against food waste and social isolation, having founded the non-profit organization ‘Food for Soul’. He is also the author of ‘Bread is Gold’ and ‘Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef’ – the title of the latter perhaps giving flashes of his wit. A customer once quibbled about the ‘crunchy’ part of the Lasanga, served by Bottura, rebuking him humorously by claiming, “The ragù is not as tasty as my grandmother’s”, to which Massimo had replied good naturedly, “I’m sorry that your grandmother had such bad taste.”
The brightest gems in Bottura’s culinary empire are not restaurants, which, since opening ‘Osteria Francescana’ in Moderna in 1995, now extend from Dubai to Beverly Hills. They are his soup kitchens for the homeless. Not that the 59 year old Bottura would call them that. “A Refettorio is not a soup kitchen,” says Bottura. “It is a cultural project that shares beauty. We treat our guests like we do at our restaurants. That’s the warm hug we are giving. We are saying ‘Welcome, this is a beautiful place, and it’s your place. This is the food that we cook for you. We are here for you.’ ”
Bottura, first conceived of ‘Refettorio Ambrosiano’ as a pop-up concept for the 2015 World Expo in Milan. The organizers had invited Bottura to cook for the grand opening. Showing reluctance, he instead proposed inviting the world’s best chefs to cook surplus food alongside him for the city’s homeless. His idea caught the attention of Pope Francis who offered a theatre belonging to the church in Greco to Bottura, requesting him to run the soup kitchen on a permanent basis.
Campaigning actively against food waste, where an estimated one billion ton of food goes to waste annually, he angrily exclaims “It is criminal when 8 billion people on earth produce enough food for 12 billion and yet 820 million people don’t have anything to eat.
When Bottura talks of food he knows what he is talking about. A 3-star Michelin restaurant operator certainly has a ‘voice’. He considers the word ‘authentic’ to been often abused. To him, the word authenticity when used to boost the credentials of a restaurant means nothing. Food is either good or bad even if authentic. According to Bottura, “Being authentic is an expression of the soul of the chef. I can follow two paths when cooking or when writing music. I can write my own music but I need to be talented, or I can follow tradition and copy something that’s gone before - or follow a recipe if I’m cooking.”
When asked what then makes a successful restaurant? He referred to the importance of connections - connection to the produce, connection to your guests and connection to the time, place and emotion. “Wherever I go, the chefs need to act local,” Bottura said. “That’s in buying ingredients but also in getting to know the guests. Whether the people are regulars or here for the only time they come, everyone needs to be treated the same. The power of hospitality is the key to a successful restaurant.”
Massimo Bottura has certainly seized the opportunity to convert fame into lasting impact, both socially and environmentally.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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