Becker, the king living in the shade

There are arrogant people who think they have climbed Everest without oxygen, and in fact they have just had a stroll on Alpine paths, and others who really step 8,000 metres from the ground and almost keep it to themselves. German Rainer Becker, from a village of little over one thousand people in the Moselle region, belongs to the second and less substantial group. For years, during the last century, he was a valuable executive chef at Park Hyatt, first in Sydney, then in Tokyo. Putting the basic curiosity aside, a long series of no’s pronounced by a colleague who inside the same establishment in Tokyo ran the kaiseki restaurant was crucial. «I was attracted to Japanese cuisine and as soon as I had a spare moment, I would join him and he would turn his back to me. He literally didn’t want me to watch him work. I would ask him how he did something and he stood quiet. But I insisted and I once told him I didn’t like tofu so he made me taste his. A world opened in front of my eyes and he opened up with me».

Turning of the century, change of scenery. He goes to London and in two year’s time opens the first Zuma. Fourteen years later he opens the tenth, in Rome, last 22nd March in Via della Fontanella di Borghese. Eight more months and the eleventh will come, in Las Vegas. Over time he launched a second line too, called Roka & Shochu Lounge, always starting from the British capital, which he also chose for the third challenge, which has nothing to do with Japan. On the 32nd floor of the tallest building in Europe, The Shard, designed by Renzo Piano, which totals 72 floors and 310 metres, Rainer launched Oblix in 2013, with spit, grill or wood oven, lots of meat but also fish and pleasant Mediterranean notes.

According to an article on Bloomberg from the summer of 2015, when it arrived in New York, the group, which has the brand Zuma as the crown jewel, has 3,000 employees and a turnover of over 200 million dollars. The first to be astonished, in a way, is Becker himself: «I was born in a family of engineers and when I turned 18 I should have gone to university but moved ahead and told my father I wanted to be a chef when I grew up. I must say he didn’t stand in the way,

at least not with words, in fact he looked for a place where I could get some experience, though he did it his way. He called a friend who had a restaurant and asked him the favour of taking me, on one condition: he had to wear me out with work. ‘Treat him like a dog, so he will soon change his mind and start studying’. Nothing of the kind happened and at the end of the season I returned home and told him: ‘I love it’. Dad gave up». A very intelligent father, really.

And now here he is, guiding a restaurant empire. Zuma was chosen because it sounds good a bit for everyone, it’s easy to remember and it’s impossible to mistake its pronunciation. It doesn’t mean a thing, unless you pronounce it differently. Then it stands for second wife. When in doubt, better not go with the first wife if you’re in a crisis.

Zuma Roma, fourth and fifth floor at Palazzo Fendi, with a terrace on the fifth floor and another, smaller one of the roof, one of those beautiful elating views Rome is capable of, has 65 employees right now. The official language in English but the people in the four key places are all Italian: Massimiliano Blasone, previously with Heinz Beck in London, is the chef; Pasquale Gislao the maître; Stefano D’Ippolito the bar manager and Michele Brando the sommelier with a double vocation, wines and sakè.

A concrete and cordial person, who doesn’t brag, and he could, Rainer in Rome only got emotional when he learnt that at a pre-opening event Ornella Muti had come by, and he wasn’t there. He lightened up and so those close to him arranged so that the actress would return on the first official day, on Tuesday 22nd, with him present. When he saw her, they say not even ripe tomatoes can give a good idea of the colour his face turned.

1. To be continued