A preview of Expo at the Food&Wine Festival

A sort of preview of Expo; a great Festival dedicated to the palate which, «with less than one hundred days to go to the World Fair, is an important chance through which one can get an idea of all the goodness that awaits us». This is how Paolo Marchi describes the Milano Food&Wine Festival, which has always been an event simultaneous to Identità Golose, scheduled one day earlier in the rooms next to those of the congress dedicated to signature cuisine. As never before, these two events are so awaited.

There are eight "Ambassadors of Taste" at Expo, that is to eight say great chefs who have put themselves to the test, interpreting the theme of the festival: Davide Oldani, Pietro Leemann, Ugo Alciati, Enrico Bartolini, Cesare Battisti, Ernst Knam, Moreno Cedroni and Carlo Cracco. The first five of them will be the protagonists of the Festival, which has reached the fourth edition, and, as usual, sees its “food” soul, represented by Marchi, in a dialogue with the wine side (there will be 300 labels selected among those that received the Merano WineAward 2014) and represented by Helmuth Köcher, president and founder of "Merano".

There will also be Massimo Bottura, who is committed in the Expo with a noble cause too: he will lead a unique team. Inside the Teatro Greco, in the homonymous neighbourhood in the outskirts of Milan, the Refettorio Ambrosiano, a soup kitchen seating 96 people run by Caritas, will be set up throughout the month of May. Here Bottura will have some great colleagues involved, «cooking with the leftovers of the other pavilions, starting from stale bread and moving to potato skins», he explained. At the Food&Wine Festival he will thus bring his Bread for the poor, already presented at Identità New York, which evokes his childhood when he would dip bread into milk.

The Festival will have some more important moments: a step of the World mortar pesto championship, an event with the cured meats produced by Massimo and Luciano Spigaroli and with Enrico and Roberto Cerea’s dessert cart. And then another event, on Sunday, with rubitt, that is to say "Great cuisine, small dishes", with four chefs (Eugenio Roncoroni and Beniamino Nespor, Alice Delcourt and Domenico Della Salandra) presenting three menus made with as many delicious small dishes. «It will also be the chance to discover the new faces in Italian cuisine, because there are the Buffon and Zoff kind, the great classics, but there are also lots of future stars who move behind them. Italy has more than 300 stars, the well praised Scandinavia has around thirty, that is to say as many as the province of Naples or Cuneo or Alto Adige», says Marchi.

So here are Gianluca Gorini, "Surprise of the year" according to the 2015 Identità Golose guide; debuting Niccolò Rizzi, who recently succeeded to Riccardo Orfino in Milan’s LadyBù; the duo Christian Milone-Giuseppe Iannotti, who have just arrived at Milan’s Boscolo Hotel; young Antonio Borruso, a Neapolitan in Valtellina. And "starred butchers" Gian Pietro and Giorgio Damini.

Until February 7th, those who will shop at Eataly Milano and spend at least 20 euros will receive at the cash register a coupon worth a 10 euro discount on the entrance fee to the Food&Wine Festival. Info: foodwinefestival.it. Pre-sales on ticketone.it.