Federica Scolta

Born in Abruzzo in 1984, from the heart of Italy in the space of a few years she has travelled all across the country, from Calabria to the Alps, always showing an interest for vegetables. So now that she signs the cuisine of the first vegetarian hotel in the Dolomites - Paradiso Pure Living in Castelrotto, Bolzano - Federica Scolta can fully dominate the ecosystems of natural cuisine and distil from the pure ingredients the essence of a flavour that will keep at bay any carnivore nostalgia.

Purity and essence, after all, is something she's experienced from the first step she took in the kitchen, when she attended the Alta formazione school of chef Niko Romito, who later hired her at Reale and taught her the ultimate lesson, «the formidable force of simplicity». And after the experience in the family restaurant of her famous classmate, Caterina Ceraudo, who handed her the vegetarian line at Dattilo, the career of Federica could only direct her arrow to a very precise target. It was then Simone Salvini at Ops! in Rome who finally consecrated her as a vegetarian chef, and by keeping her by his side he continued not only to convey his knowledge and techniques but most of all helped her refine her instinct for searching for a more and more elegant combination of nature, beauty, ecology and health.

An experience that prepared her to change the setting from which to draw ingredients and inspiration, and end up in the Alps in Siusi, where she's convincing multitudes of skiers and hikers to eat only what the mountains can offer in terms of food.