Mauro Uliassi says he hardly feels a maestro: «It’s not up to me to say what Italian cuisine needs: I have no right to give directions. We must all find our road». However, Mauro Uliassi says that you need to find some northern star: «Authenticity, simplicity, and a full restaurant». This is how he works in his restaurant on Senigallia’s promenade. At the end of a great dinner (see the photo gallery, with photos from Tanio Liotta) we sit together, with a bottle of mineral water on the table. It’s time for the story, which we sum up in the following pearls of wisdom.
GROWING - «Growth is something inside you. It means always looking at what’s behind the hedge. You must study, make changes but always connected with what surrounds you. We’re in this stage: we want to grow, we’re focused on looking for perfection. In order to get three stars? That too, I can’t deny it. We’re competing, perhaps we will never make it, but we’re happy nonetheless».
THE VISION - «I believe there are two moments. The first, is the one in which we are now, as I said earlier: we’re worried of the present, in order to build a future. We’re working hard to improve. If this were enough for us, if we thought we had reached our goal, we could think of broadening our vision, start new projects. But we’re not satisfied with what we are, so we’re working to perfect ourselves». The tool is group
brain-sailing, «five people, for a month before opening in the spring, sail with their mind, discussing what we’ll do» and give birth to the
Lab, the creative menu, while five other people are at work maintaining the restaurant. A sort of yearly rebirth, a vivifying moment.
NIKO ROMITO - «Then there’s a second stage, for those who take a further step. Take Niko Romito, for instance: in just a few years he reached an extraordinary success, moving very quickly. He invested 3 million euros at a difficult time, during the recession, and this way he placed himself above, in the next stage I was mentioning. The same we can search for when we have finished dealing with the present. When we will be accomplished. Niko created the foundations that allow him to take care of other projects too. He can have a broader look at things. We cannot do this, not yet».
NORTHERN STARS - «I think Italian cuisine should never forget two essential parametres. First of all, authenticity: you must always keep to your context. Dishes must include the local, the truth, no showing off but a strong nucleus expressing the passion moving the chef. Then simplicity: we must present something that can always be recognised, that considers food cost and the availability of raw materials. These are the tracks on which we move».
COOKING STARTS FROM THE BOTTOM - «Cooking has a popular soul. This should be the starting point for all the 20-year-olds who want to take on this career. They must cook for local people. Learn to make excellent tagliatelle with ragù: people will crowd the restaurant, and this is the premise for everything. For emancipation. Travelling will come later, and with travelling, new experiences, including perhaps finding out how they make tagliatelle in Japan. This is a later step, you need time to take it».
Uliassi with Massimo Bottura
- «Is an icon. He’s a great chef and an excellent communicator. But he’s impossible to imitate, he’s unique. Those who try to follow the same road, risk affectation. Because they don’t have
Lara [
Gilmore, his wife] beside hem, and because they haven’t spent half their life between Modena and New York, they don’t speak English as well as he does. Sometimes we meet at events with international journalists, we mumble a few foreign words, with the help of an interpreter; he’s fluent, a narrator, he creates empathy. Journalists start to talk with him and for us, it’s over».
Identità 2006: Cedroni, Scabin, Bottura, Uliassi, Marchi, Cracco and Leemann
- «There’s this famous picture, at
Identità Milano 2006. There’s me,
Cedroni, Scabin, Bottura, Cracco and
Leemann, on top of
Paolo Marchi.
Alajmo had just left. See, I’m the older chef in that generation, I was born in he Fifties, the decade of the followers of
Marchesi who were stars at the end of the century -
Corelli, Pierangelini, Vissani – followed by the next wave. Yet I’m not an intruder in that picture, because I happened to share the establishment of that group reunited at
Identità: I started later, I still needed to grow, but I caught up. Today a new generation is approaching: like
Enrico Bartolini, Piergiorgio Parini…»
GENIUS LOCI – «Senigallia is a place full of energy. Especially this very place where we are now: river Misa next-door, the
spiaggia di velluto [velvet beach] in front of us, the pier, the port, the town: different elements interact with the sea and always give new scents, they change with sun or fog, with summer or winter. Plus Senigallia is geographically perfect: it’s in the middle, a 40 minute drive from five different regions. It’s very likely you’ll pass here».
Uliassi with Moreno Cedroni
«This happy position allowed Senigallia to handle two high standard restaurants, mine and
Moreno Cedroni’s. The other element that made us grow, is a useful competition between us.
Moreno started first, he was a point of reference for us. I remember the days when I’d have a half-empty restaurant: I would send a boy on a bicycle to spy on what was happening at
Madonnina del Pescatore: if they also had few guests, I felt better. Otherwise, I would wonder what I was doing wrong. I already know that when we’ll stop working in the kitchen,
Moreno and I will end up eating somewhere together. Like good friends».
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
