Who’s Gabriele Corcos?

When you speak with Gabriele Corcos you feel like you’re in front of a being made of pure adrenalin. If you search him up on Google, a rich biography on Wikipedia appears, only in English, starting like this: "Gabriele Corcos (born October 7, 1972) is an Italian celebrity cook, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is the creator, host, and producer of Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel. He is also the author of a New York Times best-selling cookbook, Extra Virgin”. Italian celebrity, so much so he won the prestigious James Beard Award 2016 only a few days ago for his tv programme, Extra Virgin. The point is, however, that he’s hardly known in Italy. And this bothers him.

We meet him on the occasion of Seeds and Chips, the summit on food-related technological innovation that ended last Saturday in Milan. Some interviews are impossible to make with people answering in monosyllables. With Corcos it’s the opposite: there’s no way of stopping him. His story is a sort of 2.0 version of the many migrants chasing the American dream, with a background of Hollywood stars, some experience to cut his teeth and then the success. You start from the village and, at the bottom of your heart, you hope to return, but as a winner.

The village is not in fact a village, it’s Fiesole, almost 15K inhabitants but then it’s a whole with Florence. Corcos, now 43, spent his youth here with a childhood dream: to become a musician. He was a drummer and percussionist in a series of bands, without ever hitting the big time; yet music notes lead to the beginning of this story: «It was back in 2001, Madonna is going to sing in Milan. I go there also because I’m a friend of a friend of hers». There he meets the person who the following year would become his wife, also an intimate friend of the star. She’s no ordinary woman, Debi Mazar, of Jewish-Latvian origins: on top of being beautiful, she’s also a successful actress, with a very long career in contact with the stars of Hollywood. So she returns to the States bringing along this slightly penniless Italian, true, yet he seems to have what it takes to make it, in a place where it is notoriously easier to do so than in the old, sleepy Europe (let’s not speak of Fiesole).

«I tried to work as a drummer in the United States, but it was too hard: the best in the world are over there, what chances could I have, having just landed in Los Angeles? I tried to, but to no avail, besides life over there is very expensive... I was frustrated». Like a desperate houseman he started to cook (I ask: where do you learn? He answers: «I’m Italian, I lived with my mother, who doesn’t know how to cook?»). It was back in 2007, YouTube was recently born, Corcos posts a video (here’s the first part), «it was very slow, a total of about 20 minutes during which I prepared tomato sauce with my wife at home». It was the wailing of one of the first YouTube channels dedicated to Italian cuisine, Under The Tuscan Gun, a key point for his success, «We created it because we were receiving loads of emails» from a growing and increasingly devoted community of fan-food-enthusiasts. In 2010 the Cooking Channel was launched and its curators thought it natural to ask Corcos to be a part of it, transforming his home made videos («I was doing everything by myself: I created the recipes, filmed, did the editing…») into a real tv programme, Extra Virgin.

Today Corcos is a tv star and a couple of years ago he opened his The Tuscan Gun Officine Alimentari in Brooklyn, New York (a new place is to open by Christmas): not a real restaurant, but an eatery where you can find high quality Italian products and eat simple food, «the menu includes 7 panini, two soups, as many salads and 7 classic pasta dishes». The best seller is the porchetta sandwich, «it’s like the one you’d eat in the parking lot of a stadium in Italy. It kept the whole business running».

He has no thirst for fine dining, Corcos, «even though I wanted to acquire experience in some important kitchen, before arriving on television. They would tell me: what do you care, the most famous chefs in America have never worked in an important restaurant. But my answer was: I want to be credible, so I go to school». His masters were Mark Peel of Campanile Restaurant and Gino Angelini of Osteria Angelini, in Los Angeles. «At Peel’s they hired me as kitchen hand but then handed me the grill on the first day. We served 400 people and I worked perfectly, they were all surprised. But then, I was grilling as crazy since I was a child, in Tuscany, when I visited my grandmother Lola, who’s now 93... Angelini instead left me to watch for 4 months, I didn’t touch a pan».

Extra Virgin’s success is also thanks to the fact he presented a new way of showing cooking on tv, «before, every show was shot in a closed set. Instead, I wanted to show something different, a normal, family approach to food: I do my shopping, prepare the meals for my girls [Giulia and Evelina, 10 and 14] and so on». He presents the delicious normality of the best Italian tradition, «without Americanisms. I shoot a bit around the US, a bit in Italy. I present truffle from Mount Amiata, cecina from Castiglioncello, lardo from Colonnata. I’m currently working a lot with meat, so I’m often away to Tennessee and Texas, for the new Extra Virgin Americana format», launched in March. The show is broadcasted in 49 countries all around the world, from New Zealand to Russia, thanks to the International Food Network.

A nice showcase for Italian food, «I enjoy helping our producers who want to grow in the US market. I also work with some important firms, such as Lavazza. Today I can afford to choose: some time ago I was contacted by Kraft, they offered me a lot of money to advertise their sour cream. No thanks». He works as a network even with the best Italian producers in the States, «for instance the gorgeous burrata that Apulian Errore. Riferimento a collegamento ipertestuale non valido. produces in South California, under the DiStefano Cheese brand» (we already wrote about similar choices here).

He’s proud he’s done «everything by myself, or to be precise with my wife, who always believed in me and helped me when times were hard». His ambition is «creating a company that blends food and media. I’d like to do what Benigni did but with food: put our products, culture, history together. Without any silly looking back at the past: of course I urge people to go back to the countryside, but it’s fine if they use drones. I’d also like to return to Italy, to do business».

Corcos has also got a big heart, being committed in many charity projects, such as Feeding America or the Food Bank: «In New York one person out of five seeks help from them. I’ve experienced how difficult life can be, how could I now turn the other way round?».