Scampia, a symbol of all the degradation and horror of Naples, with its record of the highest unemployment rate in Italy but also of the most degraded neighborhood crime, which inspired Saviano the narrative humus of his Gomorrah, was there a stone's throw from Miano, in the northern suburb of Naples. And on the other side there was Secondigliano, another undisputed kingdom of the Camorra which here dictates the law of the territory. In Miano Franceso Apreda was born in January 1974, the year in which the clans of Scampia and Secondigliano waged open warfare. It was like being in Beirut. His father, a bank employee, hadn't felt like raising his children in that abyss of humanity that could have heavily influenced their future and, facing courage with both hands, one day he took the family and loaded it on a car. He ran away from that horror, abandoning everything and moved to the quieter and more human dimension, Formia, a seaside town in the Gulf of Gaeta, forcing himself to commute daily to Miano to keep his job. In doing so, he sealed the fate of his son Francesco, a meek boy, without crickets on his mind, educated according to sound principles, never a tone of voice over the top, always inclined to smile. In short, someone who in Miano would have lived in a perpetual condition of subjection and environmental discomfort even if in Miano he always continued to think with the affection that you still have for the city where you lived the first years of your life, as he continued to think of his friends who have always felt close, relatives who continue to live there.
The boy wasn't clear what he would have done when he grew up but Formia, known since Roman times for the mildness of its climate and the beauty of its sea, found itself immersed in a tourist context that had developed a remarkable hotel business over time – recreational. In short, between hotels and restaurants in Formia it is not difficult to find a job. Francesco at the age of 14 had his first work experience at a bakery in San Felice Circeo. Then, out of curiosity but also because he likes cooking, he enrolled at the IPSSAR school in Formia. He arrives after the course has started, but he puts to good use the work stories of his father, his uncle who is executive chef at the Excelsior in Sorrento, and also of his grandfather who had worked as a boy in the kitchen. And he recovers the distance from his schoolmates. And at the age of 17 he took the Technical Diploma for Hotel Activities, with the qualification of Chef. In those three years of school Apreda discovers a world that fascinates him and absorbs all his thoughts. The kitchen becomes for him a place of travel, first of all interior, to discover new sensations within the gastronomic traditions of his land - which has so much in abundance that it can satisfy a life of continuous discoveries - but then of real travel because the desire to discover new worlds of taste has entered his blood. At 19, he leaves Formia. He knocks on the Hassler in Rome, no small thing, a luxury hotel that has a breathtaking restaurant on one of the most spectacular terraces in Rome, overlooking the famous Spanish Steps. He wants to see, observe, learn. He asks and gets to be able to work as a Commis. He is the first step in the kitchen, he must always be at the orders of the head of the batch to clean the vegetables, prepare the sauces, beat the eggs, prepare the legumes, peel the potatoes. For a year Francesco watches and executes everything perfectly, he stands out for your desire to be useful, and is promoted to game manager, is responsible for a sector, prepares the preparations.
But after a year he had done what he had to absorb and learn and the desire to travel was great. With a good dose of courage mixed with recklessness she says goodbye, thanks and flies to London. His boldness is rewarded. Thanks to a former classmate of his, Maurizio Morelli, who made himself known in London for having obtained a Michelin star together with Stefano Cavallini at the Italian restaurant opened at the prestigious The Halkin Hotel in Belgravia, the most luxurious area of the city, he manages to be accepted by the refined Le Gavroche restaurant in Myfair led by Michel Roux, two Michelin stars. A severe school, where the rigor of the kitchen often marries originality, so severe that when he showed up for work on his first day he was sent home because his jacket wasn't well ironed. But he convinced them all by answering the question at the time of the interview: «If a cook throws a pot at you, how do you react? I get out of the way and continue to do my job ». Imagine if someone who comes from Miano could ever be frightened by a flying saucepan…
From here he climbs all the professional steps. Soon after, here it is sous chef at Ibla, and subsequently put on the Chef's hat at the Green Olive restaurant considered "Bib Gourmants" in the Michelin guide. He burned the stages and others will burn. Roberto Wirth, owner of the Hassler has never stopped following Apreda from afar in the five years in London and when he goes to London he never fails to stop in one of his restaurants where he can check how the former Commis has grown and has developed a dimension of great caliber. He is so convinced that he calls him and offers to go to Tokyo to work as Chef of his own Cicerone Italian restaurant inside the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, a late nineteenth-century hotel of the Japanese aristocracy originally built on the moats of the royal palace then expanded with other modern bodies.
Francesco doesn't think twice, the anxiety of discovering new worlds always bites. Time to talk about it with his fiancée Marilena who will later become his wife, and on the spot she replies yes to Wirth. In Japan, its traditional Italian cuisine marries the fascinating world of refined Japanese gastronomic culture, Apreda discover a new world of flavours, aromas, learn to appreciate the integrity of foods and the characteristics that distinguish them, learn new cooking techniques, understand the importance of combining raw materials by introducing harmonies of shapes and colors into the dish. It is a type of elegant cuisine that awaits him before his eyes as well as on his palate. But the most important thing is that all these principles also make him rediscover the true meanings and flavors of many traditional Italian cuisine dishes.
Meanwhile in Rome, Roberto Wirth is thinking of giving the Hassler's restaurant an international gastronomic dimension. Fifty years have passed since the opening of the first panoramic restaurant in Rome. Oscar Wirth, his father, in 1956 somewhat surprising everyone, had inaugurated the then "Roof Restaurant" on the top floor of the hotel. Bold decision because at the time all the prestigious restaurants of Roman hotels were located on the first "noble" floor. His son Roberto wants to leave his mark on both the hotel, which has hosted Kennedy, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Igor Stravinsky, Picasso, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ingrid Bergman, Princess Diana, and more recently Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Tom Cruise, Madonna and many others, but above all at the restaurant. In practice, he meditates a new inauguration after having carried out a complete restyling of the place. He gets to work himself, with Interior Designer Astrid Schiller. But calls Apreda from Japan to give his technical-gastronomic contribution, Since he will be the new Chef of the luxurious and exclusive restaurant which will be called Imàgo, as an image, as an imagination, as an evocation of distant worlds. In the kitchen of the new Apreda restaurant he will pour all his experiences, those of his Neapolitan tradition, those of English haute cuisine, those of refined Japanese cuisine and also that of colorful and spicy Indian cuisine, his latest discovery after Wirth commissioned him to also take care of two restaurants that he manages in Mumbai and New Delhi.
Wirth was right when he bet all his cards on the young Neapolitan chef, entrusting him with the kitchens of his restaurant at the age of 29. In less than no time Apreda stands out on the national scene, the The Gambero Rosso guide awards it three forks the highest recognition, then comes the consecration of Michelin guide which in 2009 gave him one star always confirmed until today, at the same time Imago is counted among the “Top 95 Restaurants” on Conde Nast Traveler's Hot List.
A thought by Andrej Tarkovskij the great Soviet director of Nostalghia reads: ”In truth, the journey through the countries of the world is a symbolic journey for man. Wherever he goes it is his own soul he is looking for. For this man must be able to travel”. It seems written to express how Apreda relates to his cuisine, that desire to wander around the world is nothing more than a continuous search for new solutions, new flavours, new combinations, the desire to enter the soul of a kitchen , which basically remains that of the Italian and Campanian tradition, which knows how to express its most hidden flavours. But at the same time to satisfy one's anxiety again, for a cuisine that, as the Guide of Italian restaurants of L'Espresso wrote, resembles no other. The recipe he proposes to First&Food comes from this constant curiosity that always animates him, from a trip to India that introduced him to a type of roasted black Himalayan cardamom that has nothing to do with the common green one. Apreda were amazed by a completely different flavor compared to the others known up to that moment. Back home, he wanted to try it, he had some yellow tomatoes ready, a provolone from a Formia affineur, he especially remembered a risotto that his mother made when he was little in Miano, a white risotto with a 'mix' of tomato on top, and from that travel memory and from that memory of family history a dish was born in which East and West are combined in a mix of extraordinary flavours. It's really true, as the Swedish writer Jan Myrdal says: "Traveling is like falling in love: the world becomes new..."
