Technically, at the time of my solo visit to Osteria Francescana, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant, it was ranked number two on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list; however, not long after it was deservedly bumped up to the golden spot: number one. Osteria Francescana, you see, is a magical place—and chef Massimo Bottura is its star. In Italy for the World Expo 2015 in Milan, I knew the two-hour train ride to Osteria Francescana was a must and made sure to secure a lunch reservation for one. Upon arrival, I was seated in a quaint dining room with three other tables, each occupied by a couple. RELATED Eat Like You're in France Without Leaving New York City » Chef Bottura is a culinary hero with a dynamic presence and personality that matches his top-notch cuisine. He is known for reinterpreting traditional Italian dishes with artistry and sensibility, and the 12-plus courses of seasonal, experimental food I experienced were each more stunning than the last.
All dishes arrive not just with clever ingredients but with clever names as well: Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano in Different Textures and Temperatures; The Crunchy Part of Lasagna; Foie Gras Ice Cream Bar with Traditional Balsamic Vinegar from Modena; and one of Massimo’s most famous dishes, Oops! I Dropped the Lemon Tart Vignola. The food was art, so creative and exquisite. Autumn in New York As I savored each bite, I glanced around the room and found many other content faces, each one nodding and smiling with approval. We all knew we were lucky to be there. Bottura entered the dining room toward the end of lunch, warmly greeting each table individually—the pinnacle moment of the meal. I was the last table he approached, and after introducing myself he invited me for a tour of the kitchen. Before departing the restaurant, Bottura kindly gave me a rare gift: a large piece of his own 30-month-aged Parmigiano-Reggiano. I was in heaven. His warmth and generosity, however, go far beyond a gorgeous chunk of cheese.
He is a culinary leader focused on doing good around the world, most recently, leading Refettorio Gastromotiva, a campaign against food waste that helped feed the homeless at the Rio Olympics. He also created a similar project at Expo 2015 Milano called Refettorio Ambrosiano, and is noble efforts outside the kitchen show why he earns respect around the world. Once again, I am reminded why dining solo has its advantages. Being in the moment and savoring a personal experience can lead to connections and memories that will last a lifetime. Shari Bayer is the founder/president of Bayer Public Relations and the host/producer of All in the Industry on Heritage Radio Network, a weekly Internet-based radio show/podcast dedicated to behind-the-scenes talents in the hospitality industry. She is a fearless solo diner and traveler. Find her on Twitter and Instagram, @sharibayer.If you can put Boomers and Millennials together in the same place and with the right setting and conditions, it’s amazing how they spark each other.
The artistry on show at Osteria Francescana. Picture: World’s 50 Best.A restaurant in Modena, Italy, was this morning named at the top of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, an event often described as the Oscars of the food world.Osteria Francescana, a restaurant run by 53-year-old chef Massimo Bottura, and famous for a dish called “Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano,” this year shrugged off its bridesmaid status after years hovering around the elite.It’s the first time the premier position has been held by an Italian restaurant in the 14-year history of the contentious awards.“It’s been so hard, our job is all about hard work,” Bottura said during his acceptance speech. “The most important ingredient for the future is culture.”Bottura challenged the attending chefs to come to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to help him open a soup kitchen.The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards were announced in New York. Yet again, only one Australian restaurant — Melbourne’s Attica — made the list, compiled from the votes of 27 juries around the world, each with about 30 members.
Attica was ranked 33rd (down from 32nd last year).MORE: Scouring New York for its secret culinary delightsTourism Australia yesterday announced the 2017 Worlds 50 Best Restaurants awards would be held in Melbourne. It will bring a significant body of influencers to this country next year;in New York this morning, representatives of 47 of the 50 restaurants on the list attended the NY event today. Taxpayers will foot the bill for some of the event.The other four in the top five in today’s announcement are El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain; 11 Madison Park, New York City; Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark.The highest climber award went to Maido, in Lima, Peru, which went from 44th to 13th.Newcastle-raised Australian chef Brett Graham, who is the chef and partner at London’s The Ledbury, made a significant jump from 20th to 14th.While Australian restaurants were not prominent, The Ledbury in London, run by Aussie Brett Graham, jumped from 20th to 14th.Nahm, in Bangkok, where the kitchen is under the command of Australian David Thompson, slipped from 22nd to 37th.
Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, in London, dropped radically from seventh to 45th.The highest new entry was The Clove Club, which jumped in at 26th. The Clove is run by Isaac McHale, who has worked with many Australia-based chefs in London, including Brett Graham at The Ledbury.Gaggan, in Bangkok, which has topped the Asia’s 50 Best list for the past two years, slipped from 10th to 23rd, highlighting inconsistencies between the two parallel awards.The Best Restaurant in Asia award went to Narisawa, ranked eighth, in Tokyo.San Franciscan Dominique Crenn, of Atelier Crenn, was named the World’s Best Female Chef.When the folks at Google or Nike want to know how to inject more creativity into their business decisions, who do they turn to? Or when Ferrari needs advice about how it can make cars that respect history, but also embrace the future, who’s top of their list? They beat a path to Modena, a regional Italian city about the size of Geelong, to glean the wisdom of the owner of a small 25-seat restaurant in Modena’s Old City.
Osteria Francescana, established and run by Massimo Bottura since 1995, may be pocket-sized (often there is more kitchen staff than diners), but it is also without doubt one the best restaurants in the world. It has placed in the top five in the S. Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurants every year since 2010. This year it was number three. Visiting Melbourne recently to promote his new book, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef, the 52-year-old Bottura says unashamedly that his approach to cooking, with art and creativity at its centre, can be applied far beyond the culinary world. “What I said to Ferrari is you can’t defeat the past,” says Bottura. “They know that you have to start from the past because the past is so important but you have to look at the past in a critical way, not a nostalgic way.” “There are three things that cannot be tampered with in Italy: football, the Pope and your grandmother’s recipes,” Bottura writes in the book. “Nevertheless, in the kitchens of Osteria Francescana we pry, poke and question the authority of our culinary traditions.”
This approach has produced dishes at Osteria Francescana, all documented in the book, such as a ‘meatless’ Osso Bucco (instead it’s just two reductions complemented by pure white Japanese Sakamai rice) and Bottura’s equally minimalist take on the lasagna (called ‘The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna’), with alternating triangles of crispy pasta and Parmigiano crackers each sitting on top of dollops of béchamel foam. These two dishes, and 48 others from Bottura’s time at Osteria Francescana, are sumptuously detailed in the new book, a painstaking English-language collaboration between Bottura and his American wife, Lara Gilmour. The offering is not so much a cookbook but rather a series of written and photographic portraits of each dish. If you’re curious about the recipes, they’re tucked away at the back. But be warned: almost everything is way outside the range of even a very good home cook. For Bottura the complexity of the food is a direct result of an approach that elevates two things above all else: ideas and taste.
“Food has to be good, not just interesting,” says Bottura. “But at the same time, cooking is an intellectual act. Your brain is the main ingredient.” This drive to put ideas on the plate has lead Bottura not just to the offices of footwear companies and car manufacturers but it has also inspired efforts to create social change where food is the main ingredient. When Modena was hit by an earthquake in 2012, Bottura spearheaded a push to rescue 360,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese that were damaged in the quake, putting businesses and hundreds of jobs at risk. Bottura responded by creating new Parmigiano recipes that he distributed to stoke demand for the damaged cheese, which he arranged to be repackaged and sold at special collection points around the city, with the help of the cheesemakers and other restauranteurs. Within six months, all the damaged cheese had been sold. “This is recipe as social justice,” says Bottura. “No one lost their jobs.
Not a single company closed down.” Now Bottura’s seemingly never-ending energy is being applied to a new project as part of Milan’s hosting of the World Expo next year. Bottura is setting up a mess hall, or refectory, in a disused theatre that will feed the homeless and students using food rescued from the Expo’s pavilions. He’s already got the endorsement of Pope Francis, who has thrown resources behind the project. A who’s who of world gastronomic superstars, such as French-born luminary and Bottura mentor Alain Ducasse, Brazilian wunderkind Alex Atala and even Melbourne’s own Ben Shewry (Bottura dined at Shewry’s Attica during his visit), have agreed to do stints in the kitchen. “We are giving life to a building that is dead, as we give life to the food that is almost dead,” said Bottura. He’s already been approached by groups in Peru and Argentina that want to replicate the rescued-food-refectory concept. He says he would love to bring the idea to Melbourne.