Riccardo Camanini: 'My disobedience is in constant evolution'. A discussion on the theme of Identità Milano2024

The 2024 Identità Milano Congress is getting closer and closer. It will be back at MiCo in Milan from Saturday 9th to Monday 11th March, and among the anticipations we would like to offer you in the weeks that separate us from the three-day-event, there are some reflections on the theme chosen by Paolo Marchi for this 19th edition: There is no innovation without disobedience - Revolution today, which you will find in this presentation.

After the thoughts of chef Niko Romito of Reale Casadonna, another always significant presence in the Identità Milano programme is Riccardo Camanini, chef and owner, with his brother Giancarlo, of Lido 84 in Gardone Riviera (Brescia). Year after year, Camanini's lectures have been eloquent examples of the depth of his gastronomic and cultural thinking: those very characteristics that have made him an international point of reference for Italian fine dining.

While Niko Romito told us, without hesitation, 'My professional life has been all about disobedience', for Riccardo Camanini the view of the relationship between innovation and disobedience is certainly different.

'It is always a delicate exercise to interpret words in the right way,' he explained, 'because we can perceive them differently depending on the context in which we use them. If I think of the term 'disobedience', I don't see it as fitting for my everyday life: I am not a cook who disobeys the line of execution of a rather canonical recipe, because he feels a spirit inside that urges him to transgress in order to find something new. I’m not like that. In my case, I would rather speak of a daily evolution, of small adaptations that I try to put into practice in my work, because each day offers different variables. In this context, in these different and new choices, I glimpse what could be called disobedience. But I don't feel it inside as an emotional drive that characterises me'.

Cooking, and perhaps in particular fine dining, is based on established rules: in the course of your evolution as a chef, what relationship have you had with these rules?
They are rules that have come from the experience of those before us. I believe that when approaching any new activity, at the beginning you may find that some constraints are excessive. Then with habit you make them your own, they become more easily absorbed. The same happens to cooks who start their career: they face rules, stakes, standards of execution they must follow to achieve the quality they seek. Those rules are nothing but the fruit of the experience of many other cooks before us, who have codified them. The important thing, which I believe applies to all of us, is that you abide by those rules as long as you realise that they are effective: sometimes, by chance or intuition, you find yourself changing something on that path, enacting a sort of conscious change of direction, to which we can give an improving, evolutionary meaning.

So let's talk about innovation: how important has this concept been for you in your professional history?
I believe that at the basis of everything is the luck of having a daily activity that gives you the pleasure of doing, the pleasure of intellect. This for me is important, it is from that pleasure that the desire to learn develops, the desire to interpret new tastes and therefore also to look for new ways to prepare a recipe. I would call it evolution: in my work it is simply the inner need to understand better and better what you like to do. It becomes an almost swirling need, which creates many other good things. Because you nourish yourself, you nourish your work and clearly you nourish those around you. I find this evolution or innovation in everyday activities, in nourishing this passion, because passions must be nourished by what I would call a constant attraction. In this job we work with extremely good things, which have incredible aromas and flavours, so we are emotionally involved, because the opposite would be impossible. This is the aspect of innovation that I feel closest to me, which I live every day in a very natural way.

One of the aspects of your work to which you devote the most attention and care is the training of those who work with you: you have said this many times and we have heard it from those who have worked in your kitchen. What direction do you try to give to the young chefs you come into contact with, with respect to the theme of innovation and disobedience?
I don't think there is an age at which we can afford to judge the innovations of others, even when they are put into practice by someone younger than us. We often meet talents who, in spite of their age, come up with amazing cuisines. It’s a question of maturity, which doesn’t depend on age. It is the moment when an intuition is born that counts, hence chance plays its part too. I always look with interest at the work of my colleagues, because comparison is essential for human beings, who are social beings. On the other hand, talking about the relationship I have with the guys who work with us, there is a continuous confrontation on the evolution of cooking. We talk about everything we see, we hear. There is a constant conversation. I try to do with them what others have done before me, trying to give them my version of this job, of the path one can follow to arrive at the solidity with which you can become truly creative. There is an open dialogue: I try never pass my vision as exact, because that exactness does not exist.

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Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso