Gualtiero Marchesi is, without question, the godfather of Italian food. Even at eighty-seven years old, he’s a picture of that youthful Mediterranean exuberance that supposedly comes with a diet of olive oil, pasta and fresh tomatoes. Though he is no longer behind the stove – he announced his retirement in 2017 – his restaurant Il Marchesino in his hometown of Milan remains one of Italy’s very best, serving Milanese food with Gualtiero’s typical avant-garde flair.
Most agree it was Gualtiero that inspired a new era of Italian food. His marriage of art and cuisine and his openness to take inspiration from music, culture, the landscape and far away food cultures blazed a trail for chefs like Massimo Bottura to eventually flex their creative muscles. Along the course of his career, he inspired a whole new generation of Italian chefs, including current Michelin-starred chefs like Andrea Berton, Riccardo Camanini, Viviana Varese and Luigi Sartini, who all credit him as an important mentor.
When Gualtiero started cooking in the kitchen of his parents’ hotel restaurant, Italian food was still staunchly traditional, entrenched in the past. It wasn’t until Gualtiero headed to France – at the time in the midst of a golden age of haute cuisine – that he found his first ‘moment of enlightenment’, as he calls it. Gualtiero apprenticed at the legendary Ledoyen in Paris, as well as Le Chapeau Rouge in Dijon and with Jean and Pierre Troisgros at their eponymous restaurant in Rouanne. He even befriended the illustrious Paul Bocuse. ‘It was at Troisgros that I first realized that simplification was the way forward,’ he says. ‘They taught me so much about having respect for ingredients, and the importance of great technique.’
