Milan and its chefs from around the world

There’s no doubt that Milan does draw inside (or right beyond) its Spanish walls the richest concentrate of international cuisine in Italy. It is a free port welcoming, with good chances of success, the aspirations of chefs who come from all five continents to draw their roots here, where they are inevitably enriched by urban-Italian filaments.

This is the concept that throughout next week will liven up “La cucina internazionale a Milano” [International cuisine in Milan] a series of 10 events conceived by Expo2015 and Identità Golose and which will be hosted inside Expo Gate’s Sala Sforza, in front of the main entrance to the Sforza Castle. This will be an important subsection of “Milano Multiculturale”, a programme which during all of January will illustrate the flash of Milan’s cosmopolitism also through art-house films, documentaries and performance art.

The series of international cuisine meetings (the word “ethnic” is forbidden as it is debasing since it is associated to folklore or bizarre) includes two sessions every day, one at lunchtime (1-2 pm) and one right before supper (6.30-7.30 pm), each with a different protagonist. Tastings will not be provided because the place doesn’t allow the distribution of food but the stories people will be able to listen to will compensate for the fasting, each time with a different ingredient, emblematic of the speaker’s tradition.

We will smell all the scents of Africa, which will be in the spotlight thanks to Thora Keita’s Balafon from Mali, also a very rapid coast-to-coast between specialties from Eritrea, Senegal, Guinea and Egypt. That same night, we will walk down the epic of Mohammed Mabrouk, sous chef at Taglio, directly from Tunisia. The same name, with a different family name, belongs to Egyptian Alì, chef at Il Pasto Giusto, another protagonist (once a boxer, a past that can be read in his name).

On Friday, one of the most interesting stories in this programme will be on stage, that of Victoire Goulubi of restaurant Victoire, which opened less than one year ago between Abbazia di Casoretto and Città Studi. The lovely chef from Brazaville arrived in Italy in the late Nineties, when the Republic of Congo was devastated by civil war. In the span of a few years she worked at Sadler, at Al Porticciolo in Lecco, at Acanto inside the Principe di Savoia hotel and at Assassino, important establishments that will season her story while she will prepare a Rolled turbot with tapioca and chives on a cream of broccoli and steamed plantain.

Catherine Blanchet’s parents, instead, fled from the communist regime of Hanoi. For years the French-Vietnamese chef with a degree in Contemporary History from Sorbonne in Paris, has been livening up Vietnamonamour (in Piola neighborhood) with passion, together with her husband Dario, from Piedmont. Their story will have the aroma of rice, the main ingredient in Pho, the ubiquitous soup in Vietnamese tradition.

Asia will be again on stage with the most famous trio in the Milanese Italian-Japanese restaurant scene: Haruo Ichikawa and Lorenzo Lavezzari will tell about their very fresh rise to a Michelin star, the first in the history of our country for a Japanese establishment, with Wa-Gyu cubes from Kobe and fresh wasabi. With the blessing of Claudio Liu, the tireless patron at Iyo, with Chinese origins and accent from Emilia. The far east will again be on stage with Cold chicken in hot sauce, a dish from the Sichuan tradition presented by Guoqing Zhang of Bon Wei, in the Sempione neighbourhood, an interesting address because he knows well (as he also explains during the themed cooking sessions he organises) that there is no such thing as “Chinese cuisine”. If any, there are Cantonese cuisine, that from Guangdong, from Xinjang…

The Asian picture is closed by Roberto Okabe of Finger’s e Finger’s Garden, Japan coloured also with the tones of Brazil and Sao Paulo which introduce us to the Latin American part of this series, which will end with the entirely Peruvian epic of Manuel Garcia and Sara Torres, the guys from La Peña de Pocho, ready on the starting grid with Tamal, a traditional warm starter made with pork and corn on a banana leaf.

Last but certainly not in terms of appearance in Milan or of interest, there’s the saga of Singh Jarnail and Lal Chand of the Taj Mahal, “Indian” cuisine but only for those who can’t tell the difference between a specialty from Punjab and one from Tamil Nadu. They come from the former, the troubled area on the border with Pakistan which becomes peaceful every Friday thanks to the aroma chicken curry.

International cuisine in Milan

Monday 12th January
1-2 pm: Thora Keita, Balafon (Mali)
6.30-7.30 pm: Mohammed Mabrouk, Taglio (Tunisia)

Tuesday 13th January
1-2pm: Mohammed Ali, Il Pasto Giusto (Egypt)
6.30-7.30 pm: Haruo Ichikawa, Lorenzo Lavezzari, Claudio Liu, Iyo (Japan)

Wednesday 14th January
1-2 pm: Roberto Okabe, Finger’s Garden (Japan-Brazil)
6.30-7.30 pm: Manuel Garcia e Sara Torres, La Peña del Pocho (Peru)

Thursday 15th January
1-2pm: Guoqing Zhang, Bon Wei (China)
6.30-7.30 pm: Catherine Blanchet, Vietnamonamour (Vietnam)

Friday 16th January
1-2pm: Victoire Goulubi, Victoire (Congo)
6.30-7.30 pm: Singh Jarnail e Lal Chand, Taj Mahal (India)

Free entrance