Riccardo Gaspari

One-hundred per cent from Cortina, born in 1985, Riccardo Gaspari is a guy who lives on passions. Humble, concrete and perfectionist, when he decides to take on a road, he does so with his heart but also with utter decisiveness and commitment. And as it is often the case, work and sacrifice lead to a reward, especially if there’s also talent. The same goes for skiing, his first love, in which he managed to compete in the speed skiing European Cup. The usual knee-pain led him to abandon competitions at 19, while he was finishing his studies as carpenter in Cortina’s school of sculpture and carving.

Instead, he continued to help his parents in the family farm: he was a teenager when he began to milk cows and tend goats and pigs. The turning point came at 22, when a new collaborator, Ludovica Rubbini, arrived at El Brite de Larieto. Today she’s his wife and his precious supporter in everything, including running Piccolo Brite, the dairy farm they opened two years ago. «In order to be with her, I went to work in the kitchen», the chef candidly confesses. And he went there in his own way, that is to say with determination and a strong desire to do well. The second meeting that changed his life was with Massimo Bottura. 4 years ago, when dining at Osteria Francescana he was struck by what he saw and tasted, by the brilliant capacity of the chef from Modena to play with textures and pairings, creating artistic compositions with local products.

The fondness was mutual, so Riccardo managed to get inside the court of his illustrious master and attend his kitchen as an apprentice. Hence the idea of making the recipes of Cortina lighter and of narrating tradition in a new way, while preserving its flavours and identity. All this while enhancing the goodness of his land, starting from those produced in the family farm, underneath the pinnacles of Mount Cristallo where his father Flavio breeds cows and calves, goats and pigs, guaranteeing a superb source for meat, cured meat and cheese.