As a young man he wanted to be a doctor, certainly not for convenience because medicine was familiar to him – his father practiced as a doctor and he gave him a hand in the studio – far from it. He saw in medicine more than a profession, a real mission, a life philosophy of affirmation of the good life, healthy living, natural principles,
Unknowingly, his was a Taoist conception applied to nature and man, the affirmation of the principle that life must tend to conform to natural laws, so that that harmonious balance may arise which involves all organs and which is able to guarantee the state of health of the human person by helping them to face daily life better through diet, breathing and medical gymnastics.
And this naturalistic imprinting never let go of him even when, growing up, he became passionate about cooking things to the point of overflowing from the main road, which seemed strongly marked in his youth.
On the other hand, from someone who at the age of twelve, without having any cook or cook in his family DNA, delights in preparing a spaghetti soufflé ("for the time it seemed to me to be successful") what could one expect? Certainly being born in Cuneo where there is a deep-rooted local gastronomic tradition (a popular saying like "veul pieme 'l casul" or wants to take my ladle, is worth a treatise on sociology on the importance of good food in these parts ) was not indifferent to the young man who has his own curiosity for ancient flavours.
Farewell to the family's white coat for the culinary adventure
And this is how Cesare Grandi, after classical high school, decided to abandon the white coat for the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo, and then to graduate in Agriculture at the University of Turin. And at the age of 24 of venturing into the opening of "La Limonaia" which, despite its somewhat secluded position, on the road towards Grugliasco and Collegno, earned him a rank Chef degree and today attracts gourmet appetites from everywhere,
An apparent abandonment because Cesare Grandi, now 32 years old, has those principles in his blood, and he surprisingly manages to apply them in a high level and quality cuisine that has attracted acclaim not only from the public but from gastronomic critics for which it is easy to predict a future with an illuminated firmament for the young doctor-chef. It is no coincidence that Gennaro Esposito invited him to Festa a Vico to take part in the exclusive lunch “A bet is a bet” reserved for emerging young people, an auspicious lunch from which several starred chefs have emerged over time.
What is surprising about him is that everything stems from the inner need to exalt what the sky and nature give spontaneously. He didn't attend great schools, except for a brief passage to the stove of Walter Eynard, the everlasting chef what nohe eighties gave life to the Flipot of Torre Pellice, a gastronomic emblem of the traditional Waldensian valleys perched in western Piedmont, a champion of the reworking of poor foods which for years was gratified by two Michelin stars and the author of a book - which makes you understand the concept of his culinary philosophy – Mme Mouston's “Cahier de Cuisine” manuscript dated 1809 a journey to discover unusual recipes written in nineteenth-century French spoken in the Waldensian valleys.
Feuerbach's lesson, man is what he eats
If from Eynard he inherited the culture of recovery and enhancement of the local tradition, his Chef of reference is however the great Fulvio Pierangelini, Food Director of the prestigious Hotel de Russie restaurant in Rome, and of other large hotels in the Rocco Forte chain in Italy and abroad. To speak of Pierangelini is to speak of his legendary restaurant "Il Gambero Rosso" (two Michelin stars) overlooking the sea of San Vincenzo (Livorno) with an eclectic talent of provocative and intuitive recipes, which with the skill of a magician knows how to bring out the component "magic" from the simplest ingredients. In an interview some time ago he described his cooking as follows: “I prefer to get food to the table through a series of easily identifiable operations, which are expressed in all their transparency. This does not mean making a kitchen without research, but having made simplicity the primary purpose of research itself".
Golden words for the young Cesare Grandi who with this creed threw himself headlong into the Limonaia adventure and has always remained faithful to this creed over time.
Respect for nature and natural flavours, but Cesare Grandi goes further with his restaurant. The moral legacy of family doctors, immunologists, phytotherapy and nutrition experts prompted him to study the relationship between food and well-being.
The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach had already supported this in a famous book of 1862 "The mystery of sacrifice or man is what he eats” in which Feuerbach, standard bearer of a radical and anti-idealistic materialism maintained that we coincide precisely with what we ingest: “Food theory is of great ethical and political importance. Foods are transformed into blood, blood into heart and brain; in matters of thoughts and feelings. Human food is the foundation of culture and sentiment. If you want to improve the people, instead of declamations against sin, give them better food. Man is what he eats".
And so Grandi's kitchen becomes a permanent laboratory for a new conception of cooking, satisfaction of the senses, of all the senses, but also personal care and prevention of the harmful effects that unnatural, adulterated or sophisticatedly processed food can determined on the human organism.
The obligatory step is the small size, which alone can guarantee effective control of the entire gastronomic chain of its cuisine. And Grandi, despite the success and notoriety he won, adhered to this principle. “I have chosen to be "small", autonomous, he recently declared, in order to guarantee artisanal food by distancing myself from the catering of large numbers, large spaces, famous brands and more industrial foods. I choose my suppliers, producers, breeders in order to differentiate the culinary offer and promote those who protect the territory, those who use natural methods”.
It is the exaltation of biodiversity to the strictest levels. And this philosophy takes shape in his restaurant in dishes that offer an original, reasoned, tasty and healthy flavor such as 'Purple prawn, yuzu, (Japanese citrus fruit with great properties) furikake (condiment invented by a Japanese pharmacist)' or 'Anchovies fried with orange mayonnaise' (“I love anchovies because they always party after all”) or the 'Sarda, heart, Bernese, garum', to begin with, to then continue with 'Ravioli d'oca in porchetta, pomegranate and black truffle' or 'Linguine, bread, onion, ventresca, Campari'. And, moving on to the second courses: 'Sheep, cabbage, horseradish', 'Ox, tomino di Melle, aiolì', or even “Monkfish, lapsang souchong (a Chinese smoked black tea with beneficial properties for cholesterol and bone strengthening) and black garlic”, to close with his famous 'The broken egg, the frozen cream and the colors of the flowers'. A menu where you can breathe the ancient and clean air of the territory, the land and the sea, and flavors inherent in the most ancient nature of man.
But it is also worth mentioning an original experience that can be had in La Limonaia: an experience that comes from a cuisine that the Chef himself likes to define as “Artistic and crazy at the same time, precisely because it lives in its most artisanal dimension . Because there is no art without madness in a tradition that gives meaning to life, maintaining the dimension of reality”.
The thirteen active ingredients of phytotherapeutic preparations
And here, the result of healthy madness, are the thirteen active ingredients (borrowed from the phytotherapeutic preparations of Etnopharma, his family's food supplement company) that Grandi imports into the kitchen of La Limonaia in a project that manifests itself as a lens condenses and reformulates an ancient knowledge, the art of healing through the kitchen. Cultured food, never banal in the emotional search for the purity of raw materials, the first act of self-recognition, of one's identity.
"Thirteen - explains the Chef - is a sensory experience that wants to lead a little further than the perceptive limit of taste, smell and sight: it is the construction of a space within oneself where we will help the senses to merge to reach an uncharted plateau.
It manifests itself when the senses ignited and tuned sublimate to become one great experience. By smelling, tasting, admiring, the mosaic of one's own history is recreated in each one: this is the meaning of Thirteen, to take us back to where we started from”.
In the winter garden of the Cabanon, the old laboratory, a large specially created social table welcomes guests who will find themselves sharing the table and the journey. The completion of the synergy between laboratory and kitchen is therefore achieved in the expansion of perfumes that seduce the imaginary and the unconscious.
“For each course – explains the Chef – we have studied a particular perfume that is diffused with special lamps or enclosed in the consistency of a concrète massaged on the wrists to accompany each bite.
In short, those who sit at his table have the sensation of being at the center of an initiatory journey which, starting from the food, from the sensations of taste, reaches up to his underwear to discover new captivating sensations and feel the realization of an external and internal well-being.
We like to close with one of his statements that could appear on the sign of his beautiful restaurant, located outside the center in an anonymous neighborhood but rich in human warmth: "We don't want to appear, we try to always be ourselves in spite of everything, even against our most immediate interests, out of a vital need". It takes courage and a pinch of madness. Precisely.
