Daniel Facen

Anteprima

via Fratelli Kennedy, 12
Chiuduno (Bg)
+39.035.8361030

Do your remember the querelle des anciens et des modernes? Marc Fumaroli decided to investigate a 5 centuries' old contrast in aesthetics. Drawing from Jonathan Swift's metaphor, he divided everyone into two groups, namely bees and spiders, that is those who, from what exists, can distillate a golden nectar, and those, on the other hand, who become architects of their own fluids transforming them into tireless geometries. At first glance, Daniel Facen, chef at the Anteprima in Chiuduno, should be placed among the latter, thanks to his capacity of assertively creating compositions ex nihilo, from scratch; however, upon closer inspection, he concentrates a long history in his distillers. A touch of ancien in an avant-gardist paradigm.

As usual, the reason can be read in the palm of the hand. Daniel's life line springs in the Swiss mountains, from émigré worker parents. After leaving the tick of watch-making to once again cross the border, he discovered a passion for medicine. As he wasn't able to afford this route however, his cuisine, after finishing the hotel and restaurant management studies, would always have a strong technological element. The castle, however, does not stand on the sand. During the Eighties he creates solid foundations based on classical cuisine, the “bad” and impeccable, while in 1987 the library shelf welcomes the first book on food chemistry and the meeting with Penati clears his creativity.

In 2006 the Anteprima finally goes on stage, a Michelin star since 2009 (though the collaboration with the Tallarini family starts in 1998). «I had always researched and when the avant-garde arrived, it was beautiful, because I felt a movement all around me. I was on the right track, in terms of cooking technique, taste extraction, vision of the kitchen inside another world». Thirteen years have gone by, without any repetition. Whether this means high-tech instruments (such as the sonicator that makes cells implode), taste provocations (like boiled earth or water glorification), texture investigations (the crunchy sauce, similar to a meringue) or the contaminations with visual arts (the translation of the Russian futurism), now and again a piece of the world and of history ends up in the blender of his imagination.
 

Has participated in

Identità Milano


by

Alessandra Meldolesi

Umbra di Perugia con residenza a Bologna, è giornalista e scrittrice di cucina. Tra i numeri volumi tradotti e curati, spicca "6, autoritratto della Cucina Italiana d’Avanguardia" per Cucina & Vini