Fabio Baldassarre

Shortly after opening Unico in Milan, a vertiginous restaurant (due to the height of the tower block that houses it) in the heart of the “Fiera” area of Milanocity, Fabio Baldassarre was awarded a Michelin star in 2012. This is a great achievement for him, a son of Seventies Rome and interpreter of cuisine as solid as his CV.

Everything began in the family, his parents being chefs from Abruzzo; but restaurant catering is a passion as opposed to a destiny. After finishing catering school, Fabio set out on the long journey towards success as a travelling chef, with a first stop at the German embassy in Rome, followed by experiences in Germany and Salzburg. The northern experience continued in a domestic key alongside Heinz Beck, for whom he worked as sous-chef for 4 years. This phase came to an end when he decided to return to his beloved Nordic mists, first with Heinz Winkler and then with British chef Raymond Blanc.

Regardless of the latitudes mentioned, the cuisine of Altro Mastai, his latest restaurant, in Rome, was a blaze of Mediterranean goodness and freshness, qualities that soon lit up a Michelin star. Fabio was still doing his shopping at the Campo dei Fiori market, the same fruit and the vegetables from the same greengrocer every day. The menu always featured tripe (served in the form of a praline, surrounded by a soft Pecorino cheese mousse, with that vital balsamic touch of local mint), pig’s head served in an unthinkable variety of ways, and chocolate (the very popular Cioccolatomania). Among the techniques used, he has a weakness for soapstone and cooking in ashes, an incredible variety of ashes. Cuisine characterised more by a sentiment for time and archaeological habit than by dogmas or ingredients: and may no one stop his experiments, apart from the laws of taste of course.