Fusto between Mougins and Milan

Mougins is a lovely village just above Cannes. The sea is right over there, on the horizon. Here, among the medieval alleys, the eleventh edition of an interesting culinary festival called Les Étoiles de Mougins took place: around one hundred chefs – what with cooking demos, classes and conferences. They were mostly French starting from the 2016 guest of honour, two-starred Thierry Marx of Le Mandarin Oriental in Paris.

The grand final was yesterday, on Sunday, with a nice group of representatives form Italy. Pastry-chef Gianluca Fusto, who surprised everyone with his dessert Chocolate, black olives and vanilla, had the main role at 10.45; at the end of the day, at 5.45 pm, the lights on the stage pointed instead on Enoteca Pinchiorri playing away in Provence: Annie Féolde with Riccardo Monco and Alessandro Della Tommasina. We will report on that as well.

Meanwhile, Fusto had already deserved the applauses the previous day for at least two reasons. First, for the perfect French pronunciation («He’s got a gift for languages. When he worked at Valrhona, he learnt French without the need of a course. We recently began to study Spanish together and he was immediately at ease!», we overheard his wife-manager Linda Massignan confiding this to Barbara Lovato of Atout France and noted it down).

Second reason, for Green, which is not a reference to the golf club surrounding Château de la Bégude where one event linked to Mougins took place, but the name of one of his now classic delicious repices, presented in 2011 at Identità di Libertà, in San Marino (read here): lemon and basil mousse, cream of celery, fennel salad, purée of granny smith apple and ginger, salted chocolate (marbled with the same aromatic notes and colours charactering the whole dish). A sort of hymn to modern Italian pastry making - «Lemon from Sorrento, basil from Liguria, apples from Trentino… Little fat, little sugar», he explained.

For Fusto this was a chance to speak about himself and his future projects, like the much-awaited arrival in Milan, which should be coming up. It is still not official, but it seems it’s just a question of some formalities and signatures, so much so “le meilleur pâtissier d’Italie” – this is how he was rightly presented – spoke about it in a video interview conducted by myself and Tanio Liotta, which you can view above.

If everything will go according to plans, it will be a large place around Via Tortona, where he will present a pastry-school right from the start and a shop selling sweet (yet not overly so, as in his style) delicacies. The motto: transparency, that is to say light pureness in the structure, the design. Which is also what you can find in his desserts.

Fusto deserved his applauses, here in Provence. In the audience there were enthusiasts who understand great cuisine: curious, smiling, careful, food lovers. If only we had such widespread culinary culture in Italy! This is what we still need so as to catch up with our French cousins, together with – in the words of Fusto – team spirit.

Mougins (here is the complete programme) is the perfect summary of all this. Except for Marx, perhaps one cannot find the giants – such as Passard, Robuchon, Bras, Troisgros, Ducasse, Gagnaire, that is. Or Gauthier, to name the younger generations – but there was a thick army of great professionals awarded with étoiles and with unquestionable talent for technique and flavour. This is the hidden part of the iceberg, those who form the critical mass without the international spotlights but reassessing the global prestige of French cuisine.

This year’s theme was “The five senses”, that is to say “how can we learn to eat with all five senses, with the involvement of the entire body? How do we taste, smell, observe, touch, listen to and participate in the pleasure of food?”. All this was analysed in different moments, each in a separate location: the visual approach with the relationship between food and art, the sound one with music, scents and nose, and so on.

The end is again dedicated to Fusto. In the evening, in front of a glass of champagne. The tiredness after the day leads to confidences: «You see, I’m hypercritical, especially with myself. The other day I prepared some cakes inspired by art. I put them in the fridge, as I usually do, to observe them the following day. I usually no longer like them when I wake up. This time I found them beautiful». Gianluca, Milan is waiting for you.