Massimo Bottura, owner of the exclusive Osteria Francescana, restaurant is officially the best chef in the world, a first for Italy.
Massimo Bottura
The future of Italian cuisine hides in old Modena, a place steeped in tradition, especially when it is 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.
“What we do everyday in Osteria, we compress into edible bites, my passion, our passions, filtered by contemporary mind, and with a big heritage on our back,” Bottura said.
“So what we do, we compress into edible bites our passion, means we brake our past into 1,000 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. Bottura says his dishes are conceptual messages which talk to our palates.
“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, goes like this: slow,” Bottura said.
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, restaurateurs and members of the food industry.
“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, and also contemporary and very cultured, because it unites centuries of history and high cuisine with popular tradition expressed as avant-guard,” said Eleonora Cozzella, Chairwoman of World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
