The 2023 Identità Golose Guide: the presentation at Teatro Manzoni in Milan

Number 16: the  Identità Golose Guide to Restaurants with its 2023 edition arrives to cross an important milestone, in the year in which the Congress ideally came of age, with the 18th edition that ended just a few weeks ago. Identità Golose, with its founders Claudio Ceroni and Paolo Marchi, and the entire team that animates it, never stops and today officially presented the great work of almost 100 collaborators, coordinated as always by Gabriele Zanatta.

1196 entries (as illustrated in this article, with all the numbers of the Guide), 22 Young Stars (here is the complete list), 244 new entries among the restaurants reviewed, 174 in Italy and 70 abroad (here is the summary of new entries for 2023).

This year Teatro Manzoni in Milan hosted the presentation of the Guide, with an audience packed to capacity. Federico Quaranta, radio and television host and author, an old friend of Identità, had the task of setting the pace and guiding the day, surprising and exciting the audience, and in particular the large Identità Golose family, with his introduction.

Quaranta began by recalling the importance of the true meaning of the word 'Thank you', which is forcibly repeated many times during an awards ceremony: grace is the gift that people receive from God to fulfil their dreams and desires, and when we say thank you we acknowledge and return a gift that we have received. The host thanked Paolo Marchi, Claudio Ceroni and all of Identità Golose 'for your work. Perhaps you are unaware of the important role of the identity and cultural bulwark you represent. Today, restaurants are places of great importance, because in their kitchens, where there are masters who teach and pass on their principles to their students, you can find the model of the Renaissance workshops, so fundamental for the development of our culture'.

The cultural value of food and wine was reiterated immediately afterwards by Milan’s Councillor for Culture, Tommaso Sacchi, who smilingly asked: 'What is the Councillor for Culture doing at the presentation a food and wine guide? I am thrilled to be here, I am also grateful to Identità Golose, a project that I have come to know better and better over the last few months, because I am convinced that we must return to affirming, without rhetoric, an important concept. What chefs, restaurateurs, journalists, the many people who work in the world of food and wine do, is to take care of the culture of our country. They are, and we are here today together, to bear witness to this once again'.

Identità Golose never stops, we were saying, so before kicking off the roundup of awards to the Young Stars, Ceroni and Marchi reminded the audience of the following appointments our team is already working on. Starting with the 28^th of April, when we will celebrate the first Day of Catering  for the culture of Italian hospitality, an initiative conceived by the Federation of  Italian  Public  Establishments in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Tourism, aimed at enhancing and strengthening the values and role of Italian catering.

On the 7^th of June there will be the presentation of the second edition of the Guida alle Bollicine del Mondo the guide dedicated to Italian and international finest sparkling wines again in the form of a web app. A project conceived by Cinzia Benzi with Paolo Marchi, which, a novelty this year, will also be published in English to reach a much wider audience.

On the 24^th of October the next edition of TheFork Awards by Identità Golose will be held at Palazzo della Borsa in Milan, a significant place for Identità since it was in those very rooms that the very first editions of the Congress were held. This year we will be returning there for the fifth edition of the project with which the most illustrious top Italian chefs indicate the new openings that are most interesting to them each year, thus enhancing the young enterprises in the catering world.

Finally, the last dates to mark on your calendar are those of the 19th edition of the Identità Milano Congress, as always hosted at MiCo in via Gattamelata: from the 9th to 11th of March 2024, with the greatest interpreters of Italian and international fine dining who will share ideas, perspectives and projects.

Among the many award ceremonies that brought to the stage the 22 excellences selected this year by the editors of Identità Golose, the moment that brought together the authors of the Storie di Gola of this 16th edition of the Guide was joyous and significant. Coordinator Gabriele Zanatta presented the themes chosen for 2023, which will lead readers to discover the delicious, and often lesser-known, locations of cities such as Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Rome, Copenhagen, Paris, Sao Paulo, London, and Milan itself... there are ten Storie di Gola and you will find them all linked on the homepage of the 2023 Guide.

We recommend that you visit this page often, because in the coming months too, as has been the case since the Guide went from paper to digital, there will be many new features that will continue to enrich the already substantial number of almost 1,200 reviews.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso