31-05-2019
Matteo Baronetto, 42, chef at Del Cambio in Torino, one Michelin star. The last two dinners at Identità Golose Milano, tonight and tomorrow, Saturday 1st June: 75 euros including wines, online reservations (photo Onstage Studio)
Since last Wednesday, Matteo Baronetto, chef at Del Cambio in Torino for the past 5 years, is directing the kitchen at the Hub of Identità Golose in Milan. He’ll stay until Saturday, the last of 4 dinners. Lucky we, clients, who moved from the intelligent theory of the menu – specifically designed for Via Romagnosi – to its delicious consumption. But it also gave us journalists a rare opportunity as the very busy cook (and entrepreneur) made himself available for half an hour. The result is this interview. It’s the first time you’re back in Milan to cook, after the 13 years spent with Carlo Cracco (2001-2014). How does it feel? As I arrived by plane from Paris, I must admit I was a little anxious. It wasn’t performance anxiety, however. Milan is in my heart: this city trained me, it gave me a way to express myself. It was my launching pad. Being back to work for more than one night is strange and it’s thrilling. The years in Via Victor Hugo were formidable years. An unrepeatable restaurant, because of the ferment moving it. Those were the years of Ferran Adrià. I applied his lesson with freedom and personality. We listened to the provocations and stimuli arriving from elBulli in a very personal way. It was a message of freedom: copying it would have meant betraying it. Adrià told us that, once elBulli closed, there had been no more innovation in the kichen. Ferran is for sure the latest great innovator, the Steve Jobs of dining, a real genius, a word too often abused, but not in his case. However, I only agree to a certain extent: there’s still ferment, what has changed is the conditions in which we innovate. Fifteen years ago, the scene of the avantgarde cuisine was like the artistic one in Milan in the 1960s: Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, Gaber and Jannacci… It seemed like there was no going beyond that, but then some equally great artists arrived.
Nighiri, lard, saffron and Italian sauce
Egg, squid and basil, tomatoes and kiwi
Raviolo with prosciutto in gelatine, olives, black cherries and horseradish
Mullet, veal head, potato with hazelnuts and parsley
Crème caramel and raspberry sorbet
At work with Alessandro Rinaldi, resident chef at Identità Golose Milano (to the right), and Charles Pearce, chef de partie in Via Romagnosi
How can we escape this impasse? We need a project on food education that starts from simple things. For instance, we could teach kids to recognise primary flavours. But this has to be founded on a deeper story, with no prima-donna behaviours. Does this task belong to cooks? No, it doesn’t, because today we’re often asked to be entrepreneurs, managers, psychologists. We don’t even have the necessary tools to build a story on ourselves. We need an impartial point of view on the work of the professionals who have been doing avantgarde for 30 years now. Someone who can trace the road and guide us, explaining what we can convey. Someone who can describe the usefulness that we have today in the world.
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
Tales and photos from the first International Hub of Gastronomy in Via Romagnosi, 3 in Milan
by
born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt