Luigi Taglienti

Luigi Taglienti’s cooking style shakes between two poles that we would not call opposite but complementary: avant-garde and philology. On one hand there’s a scholar who runs carefully, with a magnifying glass in his hand, the historical recipes of the Maritimes Alps, a seas and mountains geo-oxymoron that defines well the bilateral path taken so far by a big boy who just turned to 30 years old. Born in Savona, Liguria, graduated in Finale Ligure town, he later crossed the region’s borders to manage the kitchen at Delle Antiche Contrade , a former mail station in the center of Cuneo, overseen by Giorgio Chiesa, a local-born wise man.

The chef was taught his fitful carefulness for food history of his native lands by glorious chef Ezio Santin hidden by the Lumbardy mists of Cassinetta di Lugagnano, where Taglienti came back working several times. But if today the boy is already stared at by in-love critics and the public, this is not because of his obedience to tradition, because he’s good-looking or because he was voted best beer chef by Identità Golose Guidebook 2011: it’s for the second of the souls who stir into him. That is, the insisting demon that asks him to redraw the lines of what is known, without disrespect (how could a philologist be disrespectful?). Not for nothing his living model is Massimo Bottura, the most exciting avant-garde hermeneutist of a territory.

Therefore Taglienti will serve his capon magro in a giant cup of Martini. And his foie gras will be Italian-style: poor at the edge of social despair, it preserves its richness in the taste of chicken and rabbit livers. Whether driven by a voice or the other, he will never forget the genitive of origin of every ingredient: the white hen "from" Saluzzo, the garlic "from" Vessalico, the leeks "from" Cervere. Because, alright with the respect for history, alright with cooking with fantasy, but all this is meaningless without the surgical hunt for the best delicacies from the surroundings. And, as the chef is looking for a new place to give his talent a home, we're still waiting too.