Identità Milano 2018: a preview

Less than 72 days (we’ll start at 10.45 on Saturday 3rd March) until the 14th edition of Identità Milano, same place – for years now we’ve been at MiCo in Via Gattamalata, after “making do” with the smaller Palazzo Mezzanotte in Piazza degli Affari in the early days. The programme is spectacular and created as usual by Paolo Marchi. Here is a preview (for a more general view, though not final and complete, click here, where you can also find details on how to participate). We start by saying that Identità Milano 2018 has Grana Padano, Acqua Panna and S. Pellegrino, Birra Moretti, Lavazza, Petra - Molino Quaglia, Cantine Ferrari and Berto’s Cucine as main sponsors: without them, there would be no congress, so our thanks go to them.

The theme, the Human Factor, was disclosed days ago, and explained by Marchi himself (see: Identità Milano 2018: the Human Factor) and we’ve also published the interpretation given by Massimo Bottura (The Human Factor and the dignity of people), Matias Perdomo (Enhancing the complexity of the Human Factor), Corrado Assenza (The Human Factor in all my speeches at Identità), Mateu Casañas, Eduard Xatruch and Oriol Castro (Disfrutar: the success of a restaurant starts from the Human Factor), Riccardo Camanini (Il Fattore Umano è alla base della storia del Lido 84). Others will follow until March. We’ve also disclosed the dates, from Saturday 3rd to Monday 5th of March.

Of course the spotlights are pointing first of all on the Auditorium hall, where we’ll develop the theme on Sunday and Monday. Great speakers: from abroad, names like Slovenian Ana Roš, Northern Irish (working in London) Clare Smyth, French Yannick Alléno, Peruvian Virgilio Martinez, Spanish Oriol Castro, Mateu Casañas e Eduard Xatruch, while the names of more international super-guests are being finalised. Plus Italian giants Massimo Bottura, Niko Romito, Carlo Cracco, Enrico Crippa, Massimiliano and Raffaele Alajmo, Norbert Niederkofler, Riccardo Camanini, Antonia Klugmann, Davide Oldani, Enrico Bartolini, Moreno Cedroni with Paolo Brunelli.

The congress, however, will start on Saturday, with Calabria. The guest region is growing in the wine and food scene. The participation of Luca Abbruzzino, Caterina Ceraudo and Anthony Genovese rediscovering their origins is already confirmed: the latter will have the prestigious task of opening the Identità Milano 2018 congress.

There will be important speakers from all over the world in the other sections too. Paco Torreblanca from Alicante and Pierre Hermé from Paris in Dossier Dessert, Chris Fischer from Boston and Maria Solivellas from Mallorca for Identità Naturali, Sarah Grueneberg from Chicago and again Alléno for Identità di Pasta, Will Guidara from Eleven Madison Park (number one in the World’s 50Best) and the great Josep Roca from Gerona for Identità di Sala, Papoula Ribeiro from Sao Paulo in Brazil for Identità di Pane e Pizza…

The other sections will also have an international touch: on Saturday Dossier Dessert, Identità di Formaggio in collaboration with Grana Padano, Identità di Gelato, Identità Naturali, as well as Identità di Champagne – Atelier Des Grandes Dames signed by  Veuve Clicquot – the latter event will be repeated the following days, always with female chefs. On Sunday Identità di Pasta and Identità di Sala in collaboration with Cantine Ferrari. Monday Pasticceria Italiana Contemporanea, in collaboration with Petra - Molino Quaglia and Valrhona, and then Identità di Pane e Pizza, also in collaboration with Petra – Molino Quaglia (see also: Pizza as the emblem dish at Identità 2018, by Paolo Marchi).

For the latter event, we’ll have some well-known faces at Identità (Simone Padoan, Lello Ravagnan, Renato Bosco and Franco Pepe) plus some debuts too: Matteo and Ivan Piffer from Trento, Giuseppe Oliva from Baest in Copenhagen, Luigi Acciaio and Jessica Tomaini from Moncalieri. Again on Monday, in Sala Blu 1, there’s Pasticceria Italiana Contemporanea as told by Corrado Assenza (the only to participate in all 14 editions of the congress!), Massimo Pica, Rolando and Francesca Morandin, Lucca Cantarin, Simone Finazzi, Carmen Vecchione, Gian Luca Forino and Andrea Tortora.

And going back to Saturday, always on the sweet side, Dossier Dessert in the Auditorium will be personified by the above mentioned Torreblanca and Hermé, as well as Luca Sacchi, Andrea and Giacomo Besuschio and Gianluca Fusto; on the same occasion there will also award to the Italian finalist of the C3 Valrhona competition.

Also in the Auditorium hall, but in the morning, we’ll have Calabria, while more or less at the same time, Cristina Bowerman, Andrea Aprea and Franco Pepe will get on the stage of Identità di Formaggio. Meanwhile Daniela Cicioni, again Assenza, and Fischer, Floriano Pellegrino and Isabella Potì, Alessandro Gilmozzi, Solivellas with Viviana Varese, Simone Salvini, as well as Matias Perdomo and Simon Press will participate in Identità Naturali.

Works will end in the afternoon, with Identità di Gelato (with Stefano Guizzetti, Paolo Brunelli, Osvaldo Palermo, Giovanna Musumeci and Gianfrancesco Cutelli, Dario Rossi and Moreno Cedroni) while Identità di Champagne will present Varese, Klugmann and Aurora Mazzucchelli, followed by Bowerman, Rosanna Marziale and Ceraudo (on Sunday), and Martina Caruso, Marianna Vitale and Gaia Giordano (on Monday), in the same section.

Identità di Pasta, on Sunday, will see the participation of Cracco and Bottura. With them, Cristoforo Trapani, the above mentioned Grueneberg and Alléno, and Antonello Colonna. A final note for Identità di Sala: on top of Guidara and Josep Roca’s speeches, works will be divided into various debates: Hotellerie: five star service, with Francesco Apreda, Marco Amato, Andrea Migliaccio and Ermanno Zanini; Dining room and kitchen, a family success, with Enrico, Roberto and Francesco Cerea, Livia, Alfonso and Mario Iaccarino; Large numbers, high quality, with Michele Marcucci, Francesco and Salvatore Salvo, Luca Zaccheroni with Tomas Buda and Omar Casali; finally Hospitality, the importance of training, with Andrea Grignaffini and Andrea Sinigaglia (respectively member of the scientific committee and executive manager at Alma), Antonello Maietta (Ais president), Matteo Zappile (director at Noi di Sala) and Hervé Fleury (executive vice-president at Institut Paul Bocuse).

Finally, we would like to point out that Identità Milano 2018 is supported by many prestigious companies: we’ve already mentioned the main sponsors, but there will be many more businesses involved. We’ll return on that. For now, we’d like to thank them already.

"The 14th edition of the Identità Golose congress in Milan will have the Human Factor as its leitmotiv. “We want to focus on human relations, on chefs as humans and on all those who surround their work, from kitchen to dining room, to the relationship with clients and before that with artisans and suppliers. It’s time to move the attention to the dining occasion, to what happens around the table, the meeting point of different worlds, without neglecting the emotions offered by food itself. If there’s something we can be sure of, it’s that even in ten years’ time we will not be able to buy conviviality online, never. Restaurants will remain one of the most important development centres for human relations.”
Paolo Marchi
Creator and curator at Identità Golose

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso