Paolo Lopriore
Credits Brambilla-Serrani
Many people thinks he’s the bravest Italian chef, with his tousled hair, his sweat forehead and his apron sketched like a Pollock A WIKI painting. And when you see him wandering around the pious little streets of Certosa di Maggiano, you picture in your mind his somewhat mystical calling: art, dissipation, the demon of avant-garde…
Born in Como in 1973 from a low class family, his mum Rosa, an amateur chef, touched him with the decisive cooking imprinting. After studying at the hotel management school, he soon came across a karmic encounter: in via Bonvesin de la Riva, his first stage, Gualtiero Marchesi lied in wait. Tears and blood, sure, but also the exciting rite of an initiation, a contagion that would take him straight to the gotha of international cuisine. He stopped in Milan between 1990 and 1992, then he went to the army and to work for a short period at Enoteca Pinchiorri, before meeting again his maestro between 1993 and 1995 at Erbusco’s new retiro. He went then to France, chez Ledoyen and then Troisgros with Michel Porthos in the very dense two-year period between 1995 and 97. Later came the aurora chapter: until 1999 he stopped by Oslo’s Bagatelle, in what he today defines his funniest period («white nights were a party for chefs: when we got out the restaurant we used to go to parks or discotheques»).
His way was then smoothed to an original cuisine, curious towards boatos that started rising from Spain, obstinately Italian in her ‘quotational’ heritages and tasty horizons, playful and naïf over a complex substratum. He couldn’t have found a better scenario in his rentrée to Albereta, where he had a very positive co-ruling experience with Enrico Crippa , putting the Menu Oggi right, a dialogue soil with the maestro himself.
Has participated in
Identità London, Identità Milano
Umbra di Perugia con residenza a Bologna, è giornalista e scrittrice di cucina. Tra i numeri volumi tradotti e curati, spicca "6, autoritratto della Cucina Italiana d’Avanguardia" per Cucina & Vini