22-11-2021
The scenic dining room at Mauro Colagreco's Riviera, inside the Maybourne Riviera in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, between Menton and Monte Carlo (most photos are from Matteo Carassale)
«2020 suddenly turned off the lights. Now the lights are back on, we can no longer think of going back to what we were». We still have in mind the words that Mauro Colagreco spelled a few weeks ago in Antwerp, on the eve of the latest World’s 50Best. We've been to Menton to understand that the 45-year old chef from Abruzzo and Argentina loves to turn words into actions, even when he could easily do without. Take his flagship restaurant, Mirazur in Menton, literally two steps from the Italian border: in 2019 he had won everything, from the 3 Michelin stars to the title of best restaurant in the world. And what did the chef-entrepreneur do in the middle of the lockdown? He mixed all the cards and designed a varying menu that changes according to the moon. And is the extension of Steiner's biodynamic philosophy– already very popular in the wine world – to the universe of gastronomy. Giovanna Abrami told us about it in depth, at the time. This is not a marketing trick, but a ploy to keep the standards always high among the team, and, if possible, to heighten the reputation even more. The current menu (it's time for Roots, one of the four sub-menus with Leaves, Flowers and Fruits) doesn't tire those who taste it and not even those who make it given that, within the same week, the series changes up to 5 steps, conceived depending on what grows in the 3K square metres of the maison's vegetable gardens. It's an attempt to reconnect humans and nature, which is no longer a neglectable background or a sum of inert furnishings but a world that directs our very way of acting. A topic which Covid accelerated in the chef's mind.
The Maybourne Riviera
View over Monte Carlo
Riviera: Salad Niçoise
Riviera: Spaghetti with pesto
and Monte Carlo, and is renovating it with the goal of completing 69 rooms before the summer of 2022 – at the moment, around 10 rooms are accessible. All this, with no attention to costs: there's marble even on the service stairs. They handed the catering offer to two giants of the French restaurant industry: our Colagreco and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. While the popular chef from Alsace was handed the Pool Bar and a second restaurant not yet ready, Colagreco was given the management of bistro Riviera on the ground floor and of Ceto, the upper-floor establishment with clear starred ambitions. Whether the Michelin will come to give its stamp or not, in under two months the numbers of the two establishments are already breath-taking, just like the magnificent view you can enjoy from up here: in front of you, the sea right below, to the left the coast going to Italy, to the right, and below, Monte Carlo with its skyscrapers.
Ristorante Ceto: a detail of the dining room
Ceto
Ceto: chef Andrea Moscardino and maître Sebastián Rey
Ceto: Alaskan raspberry semifreddo flambé with Italian meringue
BORDERLESS. Mauro Colagreco, born in 1976: his family originally from Abruzzo, he was born in Argentina, and adopted by France and married to Julia (Brazilian). At this moment he runs the kitchen of 25 restaurants, of which 13 in France, one in Monaco, one in Switzerland, 2 in China, one in the United States, 4 in Argentina, one in Singapore, one in Belgium and one in Thailand
Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso
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born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt
Chef Mauro Colagreco and one of the dishes on his menu dedicated to fruit that most impressed us: Zucchini and Hermit crab
The Kulm Hotel in Sankt Moritz and chef Mauro Colagreco
Mauro Colagreco with Audrey Azoulay, Unesco's Director-General, as she awards the Italian-Argentinian chef with the title of Unesco Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity