In the second part of our interview with Enrico Crippa, we fire some quick questions and get spontaneous responses from one of Italy's most talented chefs. Read on to discover what the chef of one of the most acclaimed restaurants in Italy, Piazza Duomo has to say about innovation, tradition, upcoming Italian chefs and his best meal ever among others. What is the best dish you have ever created? The salad. When someone tastes it, they become really enthusiastic. The most curious thing is that this is a dish created by a chef but there is no cooking involved. What do you like to eat at home? Pasta or rice because can be done very quickly, gives me energy, I can eat it before I do sport. Do you cook at home? Yes from time to time. I cook as much as I go out to eat. What is something that is in a professional kitchen and which should be in a domestic home? I would say it is a chiller. It is a piece of equipment that brings down the temperature very quickly and … [Read more...]
Enrico Crippa: “I am no longer afraid of the moments when I am not creative”
It is not unusual for chefs today to be inspired by art. At the highest levels, food can also be considered as the highest expression of art and Enrico Crippa, the Italian chef of Alba based restaurant Piazza Duomo takes it to the next level. While his primary focus has always been the quality of the produce he uses, the visual aspect is also something he attaches a lot of importance to. He even goes as far as to say that food could be even more artistic than a work of art. “I can make a dish which you can see, turn, touch but once you taste it and eat it, it is gone for ever and only a memory remains. The experience ends once you have eaten it. It is actually more complete than any other form of art. When you look at a sculpture or a painting it is physically there so you can see it, return back to it after a day or two and experience it again maybe seeing something different. But even a simple plate of spaghetti may look the same but when you eat it, it will be different. So a … [Read more...]
Vilhjalmur Sigurdarson: The Icelandic brutalist chef in Belgium
When Vilhjalmur Sigurdarson left Iceland on a one way ticket to Belgium little did he imagine that he would be settling in the small city or village of Ypres, known more for the battle field that was World War 1 than for a dining destination. But as a young chef, you cannot say he was not determined. After an experience at Texture in London, he had returned to his home country, Iceland, thinking he would settle there but after three weeks he realised that he needed to leave the island. “In London, I came to experience exceptional produce. It was everywhere and the quality was like nothing I had seen before,” the young Icelandic chef told Food and Wine Gazette. “I realised that this was not possible in Iceland. I wanted to leave as soon as possible.” He had a list of restaurants in mind that he wanted to work in to gain experience, What he was looking for was not the what or the how the restaurant worked but rather the why. That has remained his philosophy till this day. He … [Read more...]
A perfect meal: Enrico Crippa reflects on collaboration dinner with Zaiyu Hasegawa
Enrico Crippa is a perfectionist who loves to set the bar extremely high. Before the four hands dinner with Zaiyu Hasegawa, he comes to show us the dishes that will be prepared for the dinner. That will allow the photographers attending the event to enjoy the dinner without the stress of having to take photos during the dinner. In passing he tells Andrea Petrini, of GELINAZ! fame that he is extremely pleased with the menu and how the dishes that Zaiyu and he had prepared have blended well. “Coming from you, that is something,” Andrea tells him. Reflecting on the first four hands dinner that he ever hosted at Piazza Duomo in Alba, Enrico Crippa tells me he felt a sense of liberation when the dinner finished because he felt it had gone very well. “When I arrived home, I started thinking how simple it ended up being, how easy it was to work with Zaiyu and how easy it was to blend the two cuisines together.” Enrico says that seeing the menu together and looking at the dishes as … [Read more...]
Bo Bech: The Bride of the Fox and the excitement of that first kiss
Change is something that most of us human beings are not used to but that is not the case of chef Bo Bech. Since last year he spends most of his time in New York, having left the kitchen of his own restaurant Geist since he considered himself to have become the bottleneck. He went to the United States and precisely New York with the intention of opening a restaurant but then thought that he would be running away from himself. “I seriously thought about opening a restaurant in New York when I left Copenhagen,” Bo said. “But I realised that if I was going to open a restaurant I would be copying myself. It was like I was running away from myself, like I was chasing my own tail.” Since then he has organised 16 special events called The Bride of the Fox. These events only exist once. They are organised in different venues like the stage of a theatre or the kitchen of the World’s Best restaurant Eleven Madison Park. When he arrived in New York, he reflected about what he was … [Read more...]
San Degeimbre and perma-management: Learning to manage people by finding inspiration from nature
“It is essential to understand nature before you can start to understand your kitchen,” says San Degeimbre, chef of Belgian restaurant L' Air du Temps. “A plant will give you lots of hints about what you can do in the kitchen. Observing plants and nature not only inspires you but also communicates with you. Through observation you can notice that a plant or vegetable needs water. But when we speak with humans, observation is all the more essential because communication alone is not sufficient. Someone can tell you that they are very well when it might mean exactly the opposite. Understanding and observing are therefore essential," he said. Drawing inspiration from perma-culture he spoke about what he called perma management or taking inspiration from nature to find ways to solve problems and find ways to manage people. He was speaking at the first W Food Festival event organised the Generation W, the collective of chefs from the French speaking Belgian region of Wallonia which he … [Read more...]
Zaiyu Hasegawa: “Doing things differently makes me happy”
Zaiyu Hasegawa, the 37-year-old chef of Jimbocho Den in Tokyo took an interest in food and cooking at early age. The son of a geisha, he recalls his mother bringing delicious leftover food from the traditional restaurant she worked in home and he would eat it in the morning and be marvelled at how good it was. That is where he attributes his interest in food. But there was another reason why he took to cooking. "I did not speak English very well but I thought that with my food I could communicate. And cooking is something that you can do anywhere in the world." That is something that Zaiyu has been doing a lot recently. He is frequently on the road and able to adapt to the location he find himself in. Travelling is something the Japanese chef attaches a lot of importance to. At the end of June, he was in Alba to cook a four hands dinner with Italian three Michelin star chef Enrico Crippa. Cooking with Mr Crippa or Crippa San as he calls him is a dream come true for Zaiyu. He … [Read more...]
Bo Bech: On opening Geist and learning the art of delegating
It is not often that people let go when they are the leader at the top or they own a business. But for Danish chef Bo Bech, who is renowned in Copenhagen for his cooking, his bread-baking and his charisma, that seemed to be the only option. Having decided to close his Michelin star restaurant because he did not like the direction that the fine dining scene was taking, he decided to open the restaurant Geist in Copenhagen in 2011 to replace Paustian. Last year, he again made a drastic change, this time walking away from the restaurant and deciding to manage it from a distance. Here is someone who is not afraid of change. Today Bo lives in New York and travels frequently and has delegated the management of the restaurant to his team though he is of course still very much informed of what is going on in the restaurant. When he decided to let go he realised that he had become the bottleneck. "People would call to ask me if I was going to be at the restaurant. They wanted me to be … [Read more...]
Inside the magical world of Enrico Crippa’s garden is the secret to his legendary salad
For a food lover or chef, visiting Enrico Crippa’s garden just a few kilometres outside of the town of Alba is a bit like visiting the magical world of Roald Dahl's chocolate factory. To understand the Italian chef of Piazza Duomo in Alba, one of the best restaurants in the world, you need to understand this garden. Ideally, you need to wake up early and visit it with him. Because it is here that you will discover the secret to his success, to his flavours and to his story. His ‘Insalata’ or salad as it is known is the stuff of legend. A lot has been written about it, photos taken and he describes it as the best dish he has ever made. “But there is no cooking or preparation,” he smiles. You may have come with preconceived ideas about the dish but nothing prepares you for the experience. A table of eight people including Zaiyu Hasegawa, the Japanese chef of Tokyo restaurant Den, Andrea Petrini, one of the co-curators of The Gelinaz! and host Roberta Ceretto representing the … [Read more...]
Interview with Poul Andrias Ziska: The young chef who has put the Faroe Islands on the world culinary map
For some people food has become the first thing that they look out for in a destination. Countries that have ignored this are now realising that they can attract a certain type of gastronomic traveller if they can up their game. For those chefs or destinations that are looking for inspiration as to how it can be done, they should look no further than Poul Andrias Ziska, a 26-year-old chef from the Faroe Islands whose restaurant KOKS has won its first Michelin star. This young talented chef has shown what can be done with passion, with fresh food and with what nature can provide you in one of the most remote islands in Europe. Other than for its football team which competes in the European championship, its sheep and its reputation for amazing seafood, few would have heard to these islands at least from a gastronomic map until Poul put them on the map. In the tiny hamlet of Kirkjubour, on the Faroe Islands, Poul was already a household name among foodies serving a 17-course … [Read more...]