Jessica Rosval

Jessica Rosval was born in 1985 in Canada: this is where her career began in 2001, but she arrived in Italy a few years later, with her boyfriend of the time, and the first time she visited Massimo Bottura's Osteria Francescana it was as a client. Charmed by the culinary experience she had just had, the next day she wrote to the chef from Modena announcing she was willing to cover any role in the kitchen, as long as she could be part of his brigade. 

Since then, she's never left the team of Bottura, working as chef de partie, then as manager of external events, and since May 2019 as resident chef in Massimo and his wife Lara Gilmore's latest creation, the art resort Casa Maria Luigia. «Casa Maria Luigia - Rosval says now – is a sort of time capsule, capable of telling the story of Massimo and Lara, of their family, but also of Osteria Francescana. You can find all that inspired Francescana, that's why this place is so special and why it has such an extraordinary potential. I still can't believe how lucky I am to work there. Every day I arrive and there's something new that strikes me».

There is however another lesson she learnt from Massimo Bottura: the importance of working for the community too, for others: Jessica is indeed the manager of a project called Association for the Integration of Women, an association that was born in Modena with the goal of training groups of migrant women between 25 and 35, and to do so both with four-month cooking courses, and with other courses that foster cultural integration.