GUALTIERO MARCHESI - A world full of flavours, music and colours

Date: 01-01-2020

GUALTIERO MARCHESI - A world full of flavours, music and colours


GUALTIERO MARCHESI - A world full of flavours, music and colours

The cultural section of the BPS (SUISSE) Annual Report for 2020, the year in which the Bank celebrated its 25th anniversary, is dedicated to Gualtiero Marchesi, one of Italy’s most famous chefs with an international reputation.
 
Marchesi was born in Milan on 19 March 1930 into a family of hoteliers and restaurateurs. From 1948 to 1950, he attended the Hospitality School in Lucerne, where he further improved his culinary expertise.
 
On his return to Italy, he started working at the family hotel and immediately discovered a fascination for exploring and experimenting with food and a passion for music. He took piano lessons and fell in love with his teacher, Antonietta Cassisa, whom he married in 1962. They had two daughters, Simona and Paola, both successful musicians. He then moved to Paris to broaden his horizons and gain experience, including a stint at Roanne, run by the Troisgros brothers who invented nouvelle cuisine.
 
In 1977, he opened his first restaurant on Via Bonvestin della Riva in Milan, wasting no time earning a Michelin star. He was almost fanatical in his attention to detail - everything from the lighting and the tables to the glasses and the colour of the plates - nothing was left to chance. So much so that, during his long career, he designed some ‘inventive’ ranges of crockery, cutlery and glassware because, as he himself once said, the "quest for beauty" must permeate every aspect of cookery.
 
There was a fascination for rediscovering the culture of food in Milan and the city was enthralled with Marchesi's style. His dishes were held up as veritable works of art, often inspired by the works of artists like Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana, who later became his friends.
 
In the 1980s, he introduced his iconic risotto dish ‘riso, oro e zafferano’, his open ravioli which has been greatly copied, and his seppie al nero  cuttlefish cooked in its own ink. In 1985, his restaurant was the first in Italy to be awarded three Michelin stars.
 
He left Via Bonvesin della Riva in 1992 and moved to Erbusco in the Franciacorte district of Brescia, where he opened another restaurant, L’Albereta. In the meantime, his students were developing their own careers and gradually rising to prominence: Andrea Berton, Carlo Cracco and Andrea Leeman from Locarno in Switzerland. and Marchesi himself earned the title of ‘maestro’.
 
In 2004, he was invited to head up the ALMA institute, a major new International School of Italian Cuisine located in the magnificent Ducal Palace of Colorno in Parma, and handed back his Michelin stars in a dramatic coup de theatre because he disagreed with the way points were awarded.
 
2008 was the year he returned to Milan, where he opened his restaurant, Il Marchesino, in the space formerly occupied by Biffi Scala. Two years later on 19 March 2010, to mark his 80th birthday, the Gualtiero Marchesi Foundation was established to commemorate and reconstruct the work of the maestro and to propagate "the refined and the beautiful" in all art forms.
 
Marchesi was the first chef to get involved in and present TV cookery shows ("Che fai, mangi?" on Rai 2 and "Il pranzo di domenica" on Canale 5). He has also written books and won prizes and awards in many parts of the world for the exceptional quality of his work.
 
He died on 26 December 2017 in his home town of Milan.



GUALTIERO MARCHESI - A world full of flavours, music and colours .pdf
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