QUALITALY_136

September/October 2023 VI MAGAZINE arrived in November 2019. We achieved the owners’ goal in just one year. WERE YOU RELUCTANT TO LEAVE FRANCE? In France I was happy. I was working in one of the best restaurants in the world and had a leading position. If the proposal at Parker’s had not been ambitious, I would never have returned. AND WAS IT? Yes. I was convinced by the courage of the owners to bet on a young person to get a star and not on a celebrity chef. WHAT DID FRANCE TEACH YOU? A lot. It taught me technique, discipline, method and the ability to organise a fine dining restaurant down to the smallest detail. And it taught me how to manage a brigade with order, rules, precision and the exact division of tasks. Teamwork is important but you need organisation. A group of people sharing a common goal can achieve the impossible. FRENCH CUISINE, WHICH TEACHES ITALIAN CUISINE A LOT... It is an orderly and precise cuisine, of rigorous classical techniques that remain fundamental for me to express a well- defined personality in the kitchen. In terms of creativity, however, we Italians are superior and that is why we are given leadership positions in many French restaurants. TO WHOM DO YOU OWE YOUR CAREER? I owe it to my mother. I never wanted to be a cook as a boy. We lived in a working-class neighbourhood and my mother was worried that I would go down a bad path. I was a very restless boy. To ensure that I had a decent future, she enrolled me in the Hotel Management School. She told me: ‘look, when you leave school, you will find a job sooner or later. People have to eat’. I had to overcome the preconception that cooking was a predominantly female occupation and that only those who went to high school in life do anything good. If today I am executive chef at the George, it is also thanks to her. HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE YOUR CUISINE? A contemporary cuisine that experiments a lot while being strongly rooted in the Neapolitan and Campanian tradition. There are French influences in the cooking techniques, in the preparation and application of sauces, in the use of butter. After all, I’m a Neapolitan who has worked with masters who trained extensively in France and where I have worked a lot. However, I never forget my Campanian origins and the local regional products. I believe in the seasonality of ingredients and express cooking. In spring, menus are rich in vegetables and fish. In autumn, game is king with no lack of mushrooms. Truffles have their own seasons. I particularly love autumn, its colours, patterns, atmospheres. CONTEMPORARY COOKING EVEN WHILE PREPARING GREAT CLASSICS? Yes, and modernity lies in the search for absolute quality ingredients and combinations with unexpected ingredients. SO DO YOU REVISIT THE CLASSIC RECIPES BEFORE BRINGING THEM INTO THE GEORGE’S MENU? I want to discover new flavours. Foie gras, for example, is paired with hazelnut gentile or Vesuvius cherry. Oyster, which is French, is paired with friggitello or kiwi. A CUISINE THAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS FRANCO- MEDITERRANEAN... There are products from Campania along with our traditional dishes: rabbit, salt cod, spaghetti, but also there is no shortage of oysters, butter, sauces, game that are French. NEAPOLITAN CUISINE, AFTER ALL, THRIVES ON THE INTEGRATION OF NEAPOLITAN AND FRENCH TRADITIONS. The two cuisines are very closely related. I find correlations in the meats, in the bases, in thick sauces with long cooking times and strong flavours. We must not forget that with Maria Carolina of Austria, high- ranking French chefs arrived in Naples at the Bourbon court who integrated the tastes and pleasures of the Neapolitan table with an entirely transalpine base. Think of the Monzu tradition. YET YOUR COOKING TAKES ON A BROADER SCOPE THAT WE OWE TO YOUR INTEREST IN CULTURALLY DISTANT WORLDS, ASIA AND JAPAN IN PARTICULAR, AND YOUR DESIRE TO BRING TOGETHER INGREDIENTS AND TECHNIQUES FROM SUCH DIFFERENT COUNTRIES IN THE SAME DISH. Mine is a cuisine of encounters in which I experiment with new ingredients and combinations. Someone once said that I ‘mix menus and latitudes’, that I approach the traditions of Campania and Italy to get further and further away from them. CONTAMINAZIONE CULTURALE (CONTAMINATION CULTURE) IS A DISH THAT COMBINES THE FLAVOURS OF ITALY WITH JAPANESE TRADITION. It is an amberjack from our sea made