FLORENCE: Karime Lopez and her husband Takahiko Kondo, often called Champion Taka worked in sync inside Tenuta Val di Biano in Tuscany when they were asked to reinterpret a dish for a GELINAZ! event last year. At the time, they were one of the world’s top culinary couples working with the Francescana family group. Karime was executive chef of Gucci Osteria, a collaboration between world famous Italian chef Massimo Bottura and Italy’s luxury brand par excellence Gucci. Taka, her husband was one of Bottura’s right hand man. Heavily pregnant with her first child, Taka had been helping her for the previous two months at Gucci Osteria Florence, one of four restaurants to open in the past few years around the world.
Sitting in the back of a car on the way to the way to the hills of Lucca, the question I asked Karime seemed obvious. Will there come a time when you work together? That question seemed a bit intrusive given the two formed an important part of the Francescana family. But it also made sense since both are extremely talented chefs who seemed ready to take the limelight.
That is a bet that has been taken as Taka’s move to Florence became permanent earlier this year making it not only easier for them to raise a family by being closer but also preparing the next chapter in Gucci Osteria’s story.
Karime Lopez was familiar with Massimo Bottura having worked closely with him to create his recipe books but when she was entrusted with creating Gucci Osteria she was a bit confused. “When I was offered the project I realised it was not going to be easy because when you hear Massimo Bottura and Gucci at the same time you have to ask what the concept is. But with time, I just shaped it my way,” she says.
And in that regard, she has clearly nailed it because while the concept has elements of Gucci and Massimo Bottura she has still been able to give the restaurant a distinct style that is instantly recognisable.
“The idea was to start a casual bistro but after some months I realised that I could do more because of my background, because of the restaurants I had worked in and because the first Gucci restaurant in one of the most amazing squares of Florence deserved it,” she told me in one of the amazing rooms of the Gucci garden in Florence.
“Step by step we started to change the perception of those that came to eat here and what to expect. At first it was not clear. People would ask what would Gucci serve because there is a cold, formal side of a luxury brand and I clearly did not want that. I clearly do not want to be in a restaurant that is stiff and where customers are afraid to speak,” she said.
Karime defines her cooking style as one which uses great local produce and which can be transformed thanks to different techniques. “At its base it is good seasonal produce and we make simple good food. For example, In Mexico we use corn to make a tortilla which is our bread which we call tacos. In Italy, corn is used to make polenta. I wanted to create a tortilla with Italian corn. It is an Italian tortilla. In this case it is all about technique but the flavour is very recognisable for Italians. They are used to corn bread and polenta so they recognise the flavour immediately but the technique of using the ingredient is different. What we are doing is transforming corn in a different way to what Italians are used to.”
I don’t necessarily want to be a story teller but each product can be managed, transformed and eaten in so many different ways. We want people to recognise all the flavours even if it is a different way
She adds that there are many similarities in global cuisine. Taken the panzanella, a very famous tomato and bread dish from Tuscany. In Spain they have the gazpacho which has the same ingredients as the panzanella. One is blended, the other is chopped. In terms of flavours, it is the same thing. It is recognisable for Spanish and for Italians so the question is how to explain it. I don’t necessarily want to be a story teller but each product can be managed, transformed and eaten in so many different ways. We want people to recognise all the flavours in a different way. I want people who come here to want to come back. It is about good food and having fun,” she said.
Cuisine in Italy is extremely local and regional. Massimo is from Emilia Romagna and it is his playground and his playing field. Gucci’s legacy is clearly Tuscan. “I try to use more local and better but my reference for local is Italy. Italy has such wonderful produce. I can support local by paying fair prices and still buy cheese from the south or my avocados from Sicily. I never expected to find avocados grown in Sicily. You really realise how cultures are blending.”
How do you discover these avocados in Sicily I ask? “A client came to the restaurant and asked me whether I had tasted Sicilian avocados. The answer was no and she came back, gave me an avocado to try and then connected me with the grower. This bond with people and place helps you to discover and learn new things on a daily basis,” she said.
Karime has helped create a global brand. What started in Florence is today also found in Beverly Hills in the US, Tokyo in Japan and more recently Singapore. How different are all these restaurants. “We have to start with the client which is really different. In Florence we had a tongue dish which was really a success with our customers but this is not something that we can serve in the United States. We can serve tortellini with a parmiggiano reggiano cream which is always a winner here in Florence or in the US but is impossible to serve in Tokyo because it is too heavy for their palate. So we had to change it and make tortellini in brodo (broth) for Tokyo. Every restaurant has its own ‘local produce’ and their suppliers.”
We are not here to search for new techniques but we want to make our customers happy. We are noy here to discover the next thing that will change the world of gastronomy but rather to have a place that offers really good food in a casual way that you can visit over and over again
“I wish I could use the sea urchin they have in Japan here but instead I have amazing mozzarella and burrata. Our line of thinking is very clear in this regard. We must have a very good product, we must follow the season, we have to make good food. We are not here to search for new techniques but we want to make our customers happy. We are not here to discover the next thing that will change the world of gastronomy but rather to have a place that offers really good food in a casual way that you can visit over and over again. We want people to feel satisfied whenever they visit especially those that are frequent visitors,” she said.
Karime has worked in some of the world’s top restaurants from Virgilio Martinez to René Redzepi to working on Massimo Bottura’s books and recipes so I asked her to guide me to how she managed to find her way through the Gucci and Massimo Bottura collaboration while at the same time giving the restaurant a distinct signature style. “It was hard, it still is hard but less harder than before,” she tells me smiling.
“Today it is becoming more normal to connect a luxury brand to food but it was not the case when we started. Massimo is known for his standard of exceptional good cuisine. He is by far the most well-known Italian chef in the world. It was hard because the concept was not clear to anyone. People were asking why would an Italian chef choose a non-Italian chef and a woman to lead Gucci Osteria. It was hard for everyone to understand. If you went to the restaurant with just the information at hand it would have been really confusing.”
However, Karime worked hard to shape the restaurant in the way she really wanted to while at the same time respecting that she was working in a structure that was completely new to her. “I am really pleased with what we have achieved in such a short time because the project is still very young. We have only been open for three years and you need to take one out because of the pandemic,” she told me.
She knows that the whole definition of luxury is changing. “Luxury is not about eating caviar. Eating that tomato that you cannot have in another place anywhere else in the world, that is luxury. Having the cherries we have here just for two months of the year is luxury. Luxury is the food we have, it is the ambiance. We want to use the creativity that Gucci has and offer a really nice service.”
I ask whether the fact that luxury brands are now pushing into the fine dining space it will make it harder for independent fine dining places and whether these will have to change their mindset. “To be honest it has become easy. You can put a bit of caviar and of course it is very good. I also like it but I like to play with food. For me luxury is different, friendship is different. Everyone has a different concept of luxury. For me having dinner with my family is luxury, for someone else it could be dining alone. It all depends on your perspective,” Karime said.
The Mexican chef has seen her clientele change over the past years. “When we opened Gucci Osteria there were two types of clients, those who wanted to come and see the restaurant and the ones that came to Gucci to have a photo taken there. It was not frustrating but it felt a bit weird for me. Little by little we started to learn about the client and the place. The restaurant is in a very special place in Florence but the clientele was mainly 70 to 80 per cent tourists with the rest locals. That slowly changed and now I would say that half our clients are Italian. That is the best thing for us because Italians love their food and they are very proud of it. So to see local people coming over and over is the best prize we can win because these are customers who know what they want and if they don’t like it they will not return. So when they come again and again, it is because they really like it,” she said.
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