Pier Giorgio e Luca Parini

Observed from the dry land of cosy rooms, behind the crystal dam of the dining halls, the upheaval that's upsetting Italian cuisine resembles, somehow, Okusai's wave. Such is the mobility of the breakers that behind the tsunami wave of the always explosive great forty year olds, prepare to get crashed on the academies, both new and old. It's a proper nouvelle vaguer, rising without excessively disturbing the meteorologists of taste.

Among these are, above all, Paolo Lopriore and Piergiorgio Parini, interpreters of a kitchen that I've happened to define neogalenic because of the unfathomable depths that stir it. Their kitchen is wide ranging, without violating specificity, it is exquisitely Italian, in its way of placing taste research before contaminations, and emotions over technique. It is original and proud, because an idea without stylistic features is deaf-mute. Perhaps it's due to the Hegelian cul-de-sac in which Ferran Adrià fell, the “death of kitchen” made of constraints to novelty and metalanguage, but the Italian phoenix has risen again from the stoves, and in great shape, and it runs around free under the Scorticata of Torriana food festival, in Stefania and Fausto Fratti's inn.

Ever since Piergiorgio arrived here, right after his weaning at the Calandre, the landslide success has not compromised the harvest of his creativity. Robust intuitions often gem in the crop of his father, Pasquale, and his brother, Luca. The footprints he follows, again and again, with his load of seasonal vegetables and fruits, tread the ground of San Mauro Pascoli, 3 hectares consecrated to a “conscious agriculture”, passionate and respectful, 15 km away from the restaurant.

«When I was a kid, I used to avoid the work in the farm, it seemed heavy, but now I'm going back. Apart from the wild ingredients, I use almost only home grown vegetables. The ones that are ugly but good, and those that I ask to be planted only for me, and won't get to the market. It's like a self service: when I need something, I take the scissors and cut what I prefer». Many dishes were born like this, because vegetables vivify, like a climbing plant, new and old fantasies, reconquering even ruins of romantic memory. «What I enjoy the most is dignifying vegetables. Treating the most humble of these as if they were meat and fish, applying even classical techniques such as roasting and stocks». It's a way of deconstructing and reconstructing tradition into new shapes, like playing with lego bricks.

In December 2017 he opens restaurant Benso in Forlì.