In 2011, Alfio Ghezzi has blown 40 candles on his birthday cake, but his plans have been more than clear since he was just 13. In fact, when aged 15, he put in his pocket a two-year course’ certificate as a ‘provincial chef’. All this happened in Tione di Trento, the native village. «The love for cooking», he recalls, «came as I was watching some family friends running the restaurant of a nearby hotel». A snowflake ready to become an avalanche, fueled by a string of stages as a commis de cuisine and chef de partie he had into several grand hotels, in the period 1985-1997, «because large organizations were once the only place to develop great Italian cuisine». Among the other, he went working at Miramonti & Majestic in Cortina, St.Hubertus in Madonna di Campiglio, Regina in Salsomaggiore Terme and Villa Cortine Palace in Sirmione.
In the meantime, he was given the opportunity to get away with another affair: as soon as he finished studying at the hotel management school in Bardolino in 1993, he started studying Italian Literature at the Faculty of Trento. But the race between Romanic philology, an impromptu passion, and philology of the edible territory saw the latter prevailed. Thus for six years, 1997-2003, he went teaching cuisine and pastry at Enaip Institute in Riva del Garda. But restaurant kitchens still caused in him the irresistible attraction of a Tolkien ring. Therefore it’s time Ghezzi to go to VillaSerbelloni , on the Como lake, where he was not so much interested into the innovative experiments by Ettore Bocchia («I saw it as a possibility, not a certainty») but by his deep investigation on products. A meticulous approach he would increasingly strengthen entering the Gualtiero Marchesi Group, into Hosteria dell’Orso in Rome and Casino Les Princes in Cannes. Here he was memorizing the concepts of simplicity, formal rigor, essence and balance.
When the 3 years period was over, he entered another triennium beside a Gualtiero’s pupil, Andrea Berton, chef at Trussardi alla Scala in Milano. «Here», he reveals today, «I learned the mania for details, not only those related to the content of a dish». On March 2010, Lunelli family called him back to his roots: they had to set up their Locanda Margon. Ghezzi's response was a scream: territory, territory, territory. The echo reached Pero town, the stronghold of Michelin Italy , which soon responded with the Star. A record of precocity, that is definitely the stigma of our chef. Alfio Ghezzi leaves the Locanda Margon in the summer of 2019.