Reserved, indefatigable, great at choosing employees. The Tuscan cook, on tiptoe, has come to be the best in Italy as a number of stars. Past, present and future of a master (little visionary and very concrete) of the kitchen
Milan and Milan. It can make one smile that Enrico Bartolini, the eleventh winner of the Italian Michelin Guide, mentions this combination in each interview. He is Tuscan from Castelmartini (a small town in the province of Pistoia), 40 years old in a boy's body. Milan because it has become his city. "Explosive, it has incredible energy. I didn't find myself in Cavenago, otherwise they wouldn't have rewarded me with the double Michelin star. However, every time I moved, obviously problems arose and therefore I felt stuck. With the Mudec a world has opened up, success has led to new premises and these to other initiatives ". Milan because in homage to his median past and to the football faith (for years he cooked in a lounge during the big matches at San Siro and was a guest several times at Milanello) he called himself the "Pirlo dei fornelli": it seemed like a act of presumption, instead Bartolini is showing the genius of the Rossoneri champion. With the extra star for the Mudec and the one added to the Venetian Glam, the Bartolini network has reached eight "macarons". "If they had predicted this when we moved out of the Devero, I would have laughed. It is an incentive to continue to do well, but also to find more and more courage to put into practice the ideas we have in our head .
From the trattoria to the Mudec
Bartolini is a pure talent, with the spirit of steel. A person who started holding pots in his uncle's Pistoia trattoria – practically an adolescent – and then wandered around Europe to learn, and above all suffering. He "turned" in a three-year period spent among the Alajmo locals, one of the great families of Italian cuisine: from that day on he became an adult and walked with his own legs. «It was the chef who gave me the most emotions in the kitchen. Massimiliano was a little older than me, but he already had three Michelin stars. The only regret is that I wasn't able to steal even more, I was too young . First star in Oltrepò Pavese, land without real champions: it was 2009, after four years at Le Robinie di Montescano. Then two years later he went into the "bomboniera" inside the (terrible) Devero Hotel in Cavenago, the autogrill – it was said – more greedy in the world, given that it was overlooking the Milan-Bergamo. Still, Bartolini gets the second Michelin star in 2013. The New Milan could not leave him there and then the Mudec opportunity arrived, in via Tortona: bistro on the ground floor and elegant restaurant on the third, staged in a few months, exactly as it had happened Silk at the Mandarin Oriental.
A network between Italy and the world
It's the beginning of a new story. Of a series of rooms that ring one star after another. Starting with the Venetian Glam, led by the talented Donato Ascani, who won the second star. The others belong to Casual Ristorante di Bergamo, Trattoria Enrico Bartolini in Castiglione della Pescaia (where the satisfaction of taking the place of Alain Ducasse, with better results) was taken, at Tenuta La Badiola which hosts the exclusive L'Andana resort and at the Locanda del Sant'Uffizio in Cioccaro di Penango, in the Monferrato area. In addition, he manages Poggio Rosso in Borgo San Felice in Tuscany and three premises abroad: the splendid Spiga in Hong Kong and the two bistros Roberto's in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. "We must offer foreigners what they expect from us and nothing else . Respect the ingredients, prepare the dishes in a delicious and traditional way. The foreigner barely accepts creativity in Italy, figured at home. It makes no sense for me to revisit amatriciana in Asia or the Emirates: it is already a problem to find the right raw material to cook it. I have nothing against them, but I get as much "stuff" as possible from Italy, "he explains.
Not innovative, but contemporary
Bartolini is not considered an innovator par excellence. «I am a chef who looks at traditional recipes with a technical and contemporary eye, if I am allowed this definition. I don't like to deconstruct or change by force, but to improve and lighten yes: in many historical dishes, by now, you can avoid the heavy part and find the squaring of the flavors. I always mention as an example our Rock anchovies in the meeting of saor and carpione that seem another thing, but they are "that" ancient dish ". Al Mudec – a minimal and suggestive place, inside the Via Tortona museum, and with a crazy cellar – he found the squaring of the circle proposing two tastings: the Be Contemporary – very seasonal and full of ideas – and the Return to my Origins with signature dishes. Some are part of the history of Nuova Cucina Italiana: Buttons of oil and lime with a sauce of cacciucco and roast octopus, risotto with beetroot and gorgonzola sauce Evolution, Oxtail with Royale, Gold and Chocolate.
The role of Capitaneo
Equipped with an Anglo-Saxon humor (but only a few), gentle but not obsessed with communication, Bartolini is part of the circuit because he has been at the top for years, but he lives in a detached way, also because he does not have much free time. His public outings are very rare, almost impossible to find shots where he is in the company of colleagues in formal and informal events. He is obviously esteemed, but he does not receive immediate sympathy also because in his growth strategy he has often fished talent in other top-level kitchens. But choosing who enters the team is part of the game and in this it probably has no rival in Italy. And it does not belong to any of the great families of Italian cuisine: that of the Campanians, Romitians, Botturians, Marchesi boys. His family, ultimately, is the one that animates the various premises and who blindly believes in his captain; his exemplary right-hand man is Remo Capitaneo – three years younger, Puglia from Foggia – who for ten years, besides leading the Mudec when Bartolini is absent, monitors the empire and chooses his collaborators.
The next stars …
With the new recognition, Bartolini can inflate his chest for another aspect. Curiously it was he who brought the three stars back to Milan that had evaporated in 1993 when Gualtiero Marchesi moved them to Franciacorta. "It is an honor of course, I never met the Master, but like all Italian cooks I can only owe him something and consider it an extraordinary example for our profession," he said yesterday. Satisfied? Absolutely not. «At 40 I can start my real career. It's a refrain that they tell young chefs, but all in all, now that I think about it, it's not entirely wrong. If I look for example at the Alajmo or at the Cerea, I still have a lot to do . For example, that ninth star that many are predicting for the last venue they have managed: Poggio Rosso. Appointment to 2020.
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