(27 Jun 2016) LEAD IN
The man who’s turned traditional parmigiano and lasagna into contemporary art on a plate is now officially the best chef in the world.
Meet Massimo Bottura, owner of the exclusive Osteria Francescana restaurant.
STORY-LINE
The future of Italian cuisine hides in old Modena, a place steeped in tradition especially when it’s about food.
For centuries globally renowned vinegars, cheeses and ham have been made here.
Osteria Francescana is this year’s champion of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list – an absolute first for Italy.
At the helm is Massimo Bottura, pioneer of a new wave of Italian chefs who are turning nonna’s kitchen upside down.
“What we do everyday in Osteria, we compress into edible bites, my passion, our passion, filtered by contemporary mind, and with a big heritage on our back,” says Bottura. “So what we do -we compress into edible bites our passion- means we brake the… our past into one thousand pieces and we rebuild it with, through a contemporary mind, through a contemporary point of view,” .
Osteria Francescana is a temple of multi-sensorial explorations.
The restaurant boasts three Michelin stars and a three-month wait list.
Works of contemporary art greet customers at the door, in the dining hall and eventually, resonate on the plate.
Massimo Bottura says his dishes are conceptual messages which talk to our palates.
Like the hyper-slow-cooked Bollito not Boiled.
It’s all the flavors of a traditional meat broth without the broth. Bottura cooks the cutlets in an airtight plastic bag at low temperatures.
The French technique is called sous vide, a way of preserving all of the vitamins, protein and organoleptic properties.
A flamboyant leader in his own kitchen, Bottura says a chef’s ego should always be second to the personality of the ingredients.
In one of his most celebrated creations, he honours aged Parmigiano cheese.
He calls the dish “Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano”.
Bottura says: “When we create five different ages of Parmigiano-Reggiano, in five different textures and temperatures, I had in mind…to explain to the world with artist eyes the slow passing of time in Emilia Romagna, in the aging process; 24, 30, 36, 40, 50 you feel it goes like this. (gesticulates) Slow.”
Last week, Bottura snatched the title of Best Restaurant in the World from the Spanish restaurant Cellar De Can Roca in Girona.
The winner is chosen by a panel of 972 experts, among them food writers, chefs, sommeliers, restaurateurs and members of the food industry.
They vote for their favourite restaurants across twenty-seven gastronomic regions in the world.
Eleonora Cozzella, food editor for the Italian magazine L’Espresso, is chairwoman for the “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” in Italy.
“It seems like one comes to Italy just to try the great dishes of traditional trattorias, but in reality, this victory of Osteria Francescana and Massimo Bottura, shows that Italian cuisine can be international for all intents and purposes,” said Cozzella, “and also contemporary and very cultured, because it unites centuries of history and high cuisine with popular tradition expressed as avant-guard,” she says.
The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna strips the traditional lasagna down to a mere sketch of the original.
Bottura tested fresh pasta to the limit, by drying it, smoking it and burning it with a blowtorch.
He calls it an emotional dish made of memories from his youth.
In Bottura’s kitchen, nothing happens by accident. Not even accidents.
Bottura rebuilt it in perfect disarray. Now Oops! is a Francescana favourite.
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