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.

Paolo Marchi and Claudio Ceroni, the two souls of Identità Golose
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).

Edition number 14, and 14 participations: Corrado Assenza is the only speaker who never missed an event
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