It is nice to facilitate the meeting of people. To create occasions from which ideas and projects are born. It is also for this reason that at Identità Golose we welcome, with pleasure, the news of the launch of the Italian version of magazine Four, in a special version, called Cracco by Four, entirely dedicated to the most famous chef in Italy.
Antioco Piras, Four’s publisher together with Jakob Siegeris, tells us how this idea was born, on the occasion of the official presentation of the magazine at Milan’s Magna Pars Suites: «Everything began in April, last year, in London, at Harrods, at Identità London. This is where we met Carlo Cracco and we began to speak about this first issue. Then, in February, at Identità Milano, we made the conclusions of what we had begun to consider a few months earlier».
A photo taken during the presentation of Cracco by Four, at Milan’s Magna Pars Suites, left to right: Carlo Cracco, publisher Antioco Piras, the Italian edition’s editor in chief Manuela Xillovich, the other publisher Jakob Siegeris
The magazine, with a rolling subtitle, “The world's best food magazine”, has only been alive for the past four years but over this short time it has conquered the interest of many enthusiasts in this sector, thanks to a widespread international distribution. The format is simple and finely illustrated by the heading: in each issue four chefs are presented, chosen, of course, among the most important in the world. They share their techniques and latest recipes with the readers.
Besides the international version there’s also the British one, the German one, the US one and the Asian one. And now the Italian one. The latter, however, has a different structure from the others. «It appeared to us that for Italy’s editorial market –
Antioco Piras explains – choosing four chefs per issue would not be the best way of launching our magazine. We wanted to focus on one person alone, someone who had the necessary visibility and calibre to fill a whole issue».
It was almost Hobson’s choice. «Who else, if not me?» is what the chef from Vicenza seems to ask, with his assertive look, from the cover of the magazine. The photos by
Francesca Brambilla and
Serena Serrani are certainly among the first things to stand out, when flipping through the pages. And then there’s
Cracco, with his stories. They range from the
historic restaurant named after him, to his new adventure with
Carlo e Camilla in Segheria; from the young pastry chef
Luca Sacchi, to the also young chef to whom the kitchen at the
Segheria was assigned, namely
Emanuele Pollini.
And then there are many recipes, by
Cracco, but also by
Sacchi and
Pollini. Don’t expect to read these in the magazine itself, where one can only find the beautiful photographs of the dishes. To learn the secrets of the preparation of the
Creamed rice with miso, mullets and green tea or of the
Kidney cooked in salt with red cinchona readers need to get a smartphone and a
QR Code reader, in order to download the texts from the magazine’s website.
The future of the Italian edition of
Four seems tied once again to the same chef: «Our idea is to dedicate even the second issue to
Carlo – says the other manager of the magazine,
Jakob Siegeris – with a completely different format from this first issue. Don’t ask me to unveil the ideas on which we are working: what I can say today is that among the over three hundred chefs with whom we have collaborated during these years,
Cracco was possibly the most helpful and pleasant of them all».
And what is going to happen after that?
Antioco Piras smiles, he thinks about it a while before answering: «We still don’t know it, we’ll wait and see how these first two issues will do. Who knows what will happen later. Perhaps
Cannavacciuolo?»
