Welcome to the border kitchen that knows no borders. Welcome to Mirazur di Mauro Colagreco, the restaurant on the hill of Menton, 200 meters from the Italian border, closed between the sea of the Côte d'Azur and the peaks of the Alpe Marittime which in 2019 achieved the two most coveted goals in the world of taste: in January the third Michelin star, followed a few months ago by the title of best restaurant in the world, assigned by The World's 50 Best Restaurants, the industry bible. Of course, contributing to this historic success was the exit from the competition of Massimo Bottura, the chef of Osteria Francescana in Modena and Can Roca in Girona, the winners of the latest editions promoted by authority to the Hall of Fame.
But this does not detract from the spectacular ascent of Colagreco, Argentine from Mar de la Plata, 43 years old completed last October 5, the son of immigrants from Abruzzo, raised in the school of the great French chefs but who leads a staff of fifty collaborators from 12 countries where the Italian component excels. His cuisine, the result of a spectacular terroir in which Mediterranean scrub and mountain flavors are mixed, undoubtedly has the Mediterranean flavor that "comes from the meeting of great schools, the Italian and the French but revisited - he points out - with the eye of one who comes from outside. The fact that I am neither Italian nor French has guaranteed me a certain creative freedom”.
“It's a very vegetable cuisine – explains the Argentine chef – where there are also both the sea and the mountains. I started working with a completely virgin soul, without having any knowledge of the places, products or local people, which allowed me to break with certain traditions or clichés. This is why it is a constantly evolving cuisine, something I hold dear: my restaurant is not a museum".
Other than a museum, if anything a garden of Eden, given that the restaurant is surrounded by vegetable gardens and gardens that Colagreco (“For my sister, I'm better as a farmer than as a cook”) personal care as well as enriching the pantry with herbs and vegetables found along the hills on both sides of the border. His dishes, as befits a pupil of Alain Ducasse, the unforgettable chef of the Café de Paris in Montecarlo, are fresh and floral, much more colorful and Mediterranean than classic and French. Without exception, the menu is dictated by the seasons declined in three variants: Mer, Jardin and Montagne.
The dishes? Difficult to keep up with so much creativity also because Colagreco churns out dozens of inventions every year. Any examples? Garden salt crusted beets with caviar cream; Poultry eggs with smoked eel and hazelnuts; Potato brioche with melted egg and white truffle; Domestic pigeon, spelled and wild strawberries. Or a dish of sublime simplicity, such as the salad of crunchy green beans (30 seconds of cooking) flavored with the scent of hazelnut with thin flakes of trumpets in an emulsion of olive oil and pistachios rather than the flavor of lemon, citrus prince of Menton, which also bathes the delicate prawn carpaccio, an irresistible temptation to step into the bread soaked in ginger served with a poem by Pablo Neruda.
A real life lesson more than a lunch, to which it is worth dedicating at least two hours (or even more) and suffering a justified small drain on the wallet: the tasting menu, at the end of the summer, was offered at 260 euros, but the average expenditure amounted to 340-350 euros.
In July the chef also opened a pizzeria, "The Black Sheep" on the Sablettes beach in Menton. Here, in addition to some classics (the Margherita for 12 euros, an original Cacio e Pepe for 14 euros), the chef offers the idea of the day for between 20 and 25 euros: octopus on a bed of courgette flowers and fior di latte mozzarella.
It is not difficult to foresee that the prices of the Mirazur, given the worldwide fame of the chef (50 registrations of followers in less than 24 hours after his appointment as Best Restaurant), are destined to rise. As well as the waiting list of reservations to access the room flooded by the Mediterranean sun during the day, a breathtaking view on the bay looking towards Roquebrune. The venue's website announces that the venue is sold out until nearly the end of 2020.
“Gone are the times – recalls the chef – the times when in winter we had zero reservations on winter evenings. In reality – he specifies – since the opening in 2006 we have never really lost any money”. Merit of the owner of the building, an elderly gentleman moved by the enthusiasm of that young man who was so enthusiastic that he reopened the building which had been closed for some time, settling for a modest rent, but even more than the suppliers who agreed to be paid at 4-5 but also at six months. “People to whom we are still faithful today”, explains Colagreco despite the many advances. “But if I tried to get over my head – he adds – Julia would take care of putting me back in line”.
Julia is his Brazilian wife, the true mind of Mirazur, by now a company that boasts a well-established staff who mostly speak Italian. Key figures are the co-chef Antonio Buono, from Naples (“He's so good – explains a supplier – that he alone is worth a Michelin star“), the saucier Davide Garavaglia, from Milan, and the Roman Roberta Gesualdo, the head pastry chef.
This is the extended family of a chef who, in his father's plans, was destined, like his parent, for a quiet career as an accountant. But the convict's call to cook was so strong that he convinced his parents and grandparents (three Italians and a Basque) not to hinder his vocation and to allow Mauro to enroll in the Colegio de gastronomy of Gato Dumas, the Argentinian Gualtiero Marchesi. From there, after a apprenticeship in the Argentine capital, the leap to Europe, at the court of none other than Bernard Loiseau, the magnetic chef from Chamalières who committed suicide in 2003, the tragedy later described by Rudolph Chelminsky's "Perfectionist".
From here Colagreco moved to the prestigious court of Alain Passard at Arpege: two and a half years that would forever mark his career: “From Passard – he recalls – I learned to make a completely different type of cuisine from what I had always done. An approach to vegetables never seen before: twice a week, in the middle of Paris, we received very fresh vegetables from our own gardens. He was a 3-star Michelin with a very strong human drive ”.
At the age of thirty, in 2006, after the last passage to the Ducasse school, Colagrecco believes that the time has come to set up on his own. He was convinced by the discovery of the ideal place, on the hills of Menton, a charming locality that did not have particular gastronomic records, moreover hidden by the very strong competition from Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes. “It was a place that had been closed for 4 years, an immense structure far from the town centre, on the French Riviera where there is a lot of competition and people only come in the summer. There were three of us in the kitchen and two in the dining room. But above all – he confesses – I only had 25 euros in my pocket, without the possibility of applying for bank credit, as I am a foreigner. I thought I'd hold out for three years and go back to Argentina."
But sovereignism, at least in the kitchen, has not passed. Defeated by the certain régard of a "mestizo" who knows how to do justice to clichés at the table, overwhelming the geographical and cultural fences recognizing only the authority of the territory, that triumph of colors and flavours, which, on these blessed hills, represents a veritable hymn to the virtues of diversity. And yet, just a few kilometers away, on the heights of Menton, quite a few dramas of clandestine immigration have taken place and are taking place.
”I am well aware – says the chef – of how lucky I was to be born in a privileged context. But I am also aware that if we all do something, the world can change for the better. With the kitchen, with the work of the land rather than reducing plastic consumption or hiring people from all over the world. Without forgetting the winemakers or farmers who work for me rather than the last fishing family of Menton who live thanks to the guarantee of our purchases. This restaurant is a crossroads, an open door”.
