Two broken wooden shovels in a pizzeria, in his first experience, sealed the fate of a great Italian chef. This is what happened to Giuseppe Mancino, Salerno native of Sarno, 38 years old and already gratified with two Michelin stars with his bistro restaurant "Il Piccolo Principe" in Viareggio, at the beginning of his career. To tell the truth, when he was young, Mancino didn't really think about cooking, there were no precedents in the family, his parents were employed, he cooked something on the run by himself, no one had introduced him to the world of cooking.
His passion was pizza and consequently his maximum aspiration was to work in front of a wood-burning oven churning out pizzas in large quantities. And this is how, at the age of 12, he presents himself, with his ambition, at the Osteria dei Sarrastri. And they soon put him to work in the pizzeria department. But, it will be for his youthful fury, it will be for the desire to show that he has the numbers, the young Giuseppe manages to immediately break two wooden shovels to bake the pizzas. In the pizzeria they realize that it is not for him and they decide to transfer him to the tavern where he doesn't have to… play with fire, but simply wash the dishes, clean, peel the vegetables.
To say it with Giovan Battista Vico it is really true that sometimes "they seem to be opposed are opportunities" because Mancino, having overcome the initial bitter disappointment, begin to discover the charm of the kitchen. Goodbye pizzas, a new life of creativity begins. He stands next to chef Giuseppe Fasolino, discovers the flavors of his garden, his passion for raw materials from the land but also from the sea, he follows him like a shadow, he doesn't let go for a moment. Mancino stays with him for 5 years and thus learns the secrets of the trade. In the meantime – having understood and decided that this is his path – he has enrolled at the Domenico Rea State Professional Institute for Food and Wine and Hotel Hospitality Services in Nocera Inferiore. At the end of the courses, he comes out with stronger bones and can attempt his first big step.
He moved to Florence where he was accepted, and put himself in sight, in the kitchens of the restaurants of the Grand Hotel Baglioni. Needless to say, quite a leap forward. Obviously we are only at the beginning of his adventure because if Mancino on the one hand he is appreciated for his reserved and outspoken character and proves to be a hard worker, on the other hand he is a great stickler and also a very stubborn and there's nothing stopping him if he sets his mind on achieving a goal. And what is his goal? Growing up combining his passion for local cuisine with that for travel, two concepts that permeate his gastronomic culture, opening it to the knowledge and assimilation of new horizons of international cuisine, always aiming for excellence in all fields. “Traveling for me – he likes to say – is knowing the material cultures, therefore the cuisine, of peoples”.
Here then we find him next to Davide Raschi, the great Chef who passed through the San Domenico di Imola, one of the greatest academies for cooks in the history of Italy, who set up the restaurant Il sogno di Angelo in La Spezia. From here he moved on to the kitchens of Rocco Iannone at the Il Faro di Capo d'Orso restaurant in Maiori on the Amalfi Coast, a big temper, Michelin star, passed by Mercatilli and Ducasse, two names that speak for themselves. But Mancino is still not happy, he urgently needs to know the secrets of excellence, he goes to France, goes to England with starred chefs, returns to Italy and here he is we find it at the court of Gualtiero Marchesi.
And the final touch is goes to seek by the great Alain Ducasse emperor of The Louis XV, inside the Hotel de Paris a Monaco, at the head of a group that bears his name and which, with 1400 employees, controls 20 restaurants in various countries around the world. “Ever since I was a boy – he recalls – I wanted to learn Alain Ducasse's cooking style. For me he represents the model to pursue. I adore his style which for me is Mediterranean, how he respects the ingredients, his style so defined and his aesthetically perfect dishes”.
But the journey that most intrigued him was in China: “When I was 25, when I went to China, I got to know oriental culture and their way of cooking. It was a turning point that allowed me to combine knowledge of Mediterranean flavors with oriental techniques”. By now he feels in a position to run a restaurant of his own in which to pour everything he has learned in Italy and abroad and put into practice the many ideas he has in mind.
The opportunity arrives in 2004. A financial group has taken over the property of the prestigious and historic Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte in Viareggio, a favorite residence in the 30s, for its elegance, of aristocrats, big names in finance and industry, intellectuals and artists and more recently of numerous directors who have set their films there, from Luigi Zampa to Francesco Nuti. The hotel had fallen into disrepair. Now it needs to be relaunched in a big way just as the panoramic restaurant on the top floor with a spectacular terrace overlooking the whole of Viareggio must return to its former glory.
Giuseppe Mancino with his food and wine culture and his experiences is the right man. Between the property and the Chef there is a spark that has never been extinguished in fourteen years. Mancino lays the foundations for the "Little Prince" to become a great chef on a national and not only national level. A year of hard and work and in 2005 the Little Prince starts in style. Three years later, at the age of just 27, he received the coveted first star in the Michelin Guide. All the main Italian food guides from the Espresso Guide to the Gambero Rosso praise your restaurant as one of the most interesting on the national scene. Six years later, in 2014, the second star also arrives Michelin and Mancino will keep them tight with its top-level cuisine.
In the meantime, another important spark has also struck, the one with Rosa Picarella, a beautiful girl who works at the Principe and speaks her… first language because she is from her parts. “But I didn't consider her – she confesses – because I was already engaged to another… but fate wanted us to meet outside of work to have an aperitif and love was born from there. We have been together for more than 10 years. She is a great lover of cooking: she has been very influential in my work and she has helped me get where I am and above all she has made me two beautiful daughters! “
In the kitchens of the Little Prince Mancino has therefore been writing since 2004 his personal and professional history as a great Chef, who has an indispensable creed: the seasonality linked to the curiosity for food, all seasoned with his great intuitions. Because for the Chef, a dish is the equivalent of a high fashion creation for women. There is the basic woman with her characteristics that the great tailor must study and then there is the construction of the dress that must reflect the woman's soul and must make her seductive.
Likewise his dishes start from a main ingredient that belongs to the culinary tradition and then they are "dressed" in many side dishes, creating interesting combinations of tastes and balances. It contains everything: East and West, Land, Sea, Technique, its origins, vegetables, undergrowth, haute cuisine and the trattoria. In this work of "dressing", to stay in the metaphor, Mancino does not use fashions to amaze with special effects. Research, studies and insights tend to propose a classic cuisine, profound and incisive in the perception of tastes, enhanced with technique and a studied aesthetic presentation of the dishes.
“A dish must be beautiful and good: the search for taste is important, the recipe must convey sensations – says the chef -. A proposal, to be defined as successful, at the first taste it must immediately make you want to eat another bite, and be a harmonious composition that reflects the flavors that are described in the recipe, obviously nice to see. Dishes such as ravioli with pecorino cheese, sea urchins and almond milk foam or red mullet, peas, squid ink mayonnaise, caciucco sauce and vegetable panzanella are the clearest proof of this”.
To all this Mancino also adds an eclecticism that derives from his own international experience as in his Kobe served with mushroom salad, charcoal oil, hazelnuts, fried bread and bitter herbs. Another passion of the Chef are vegetables, a reminder of his origins in the Agro Nocerino area: he has built an entire menu for us, these have many nuances and processing possibilities, offering infinite variations on the theme. A surprising example is the barbecued artichoke, black truffle, pecorino cheese and crunchy tubers.
If Totò loved to talk about himself “I am Neapolitan and part Neapolitan”, Giuseppe Mancino declares today that he feels part Salerno (by birth) and part (Viareggio) by adoption, because for him fidelity is an essential requirement and cannot be questioned. Principle also adopted for his sous Chef Alessio Bachini: “Alessio, with whom I have been working for 14 years, is more than a friend, I am more with him than with my wife! And together we have grown professionally and humanly”. And also with Marco Del Tarlo, the Sous chef of breakfasts and banquets, who arrived in 2016, there is a great understanding.
What to say? It was very fortunate that those two peels broke while she was baking his first pizzas, for him but also for the patrons of his precious Little Prince. His former countryman Vico was right.
