Improbable overalls under the classic chef jacket, sneakers on his feet, sly and inquisitive eyes hiding behind thick glasses, his big face framed by Rasta-style dreads.
What to say? Everything is written on his virtual business card: his somewhat crazy character, his love for provocation, the almost exaggerated concept of the sense of freedom, the pleasure of irony, and the taste for meeting up again, the sense of the memory.
All this can also be found in the even more improbable name that he gave to his restaurant Magorabin which, in the Turin tradition, is the bad man, the boogeyman who scares children in fairy tales, the terror of naughty people who combined too much big and who immediately fell into line when their mothers or grandmothers threatened to invoke the Magorabin.
The black man in question responds to the name of Marcello Trentini, 49 years old, a somewhat golden and somewhat reckless childhood, between karate, skiing, tennis, horse riding, swimming, ice hockey, (and the list could go on ) son of a petty bourgeoisie who made his way in the boom years, and this allowed him to dream in his youth of becoming an emulator of Niki Lauda "I loved formula 1 and speed in general then in my high school years I didn't really I had very clear ideas…”
In reality, if on the one hand he saw himself as an admired champion, signing autographs and being photographed with stunning models, on the other, ours also enjoyed living with pleasure the moment of cooking in the family "the moment of preparing meals was like a game to play all together and it was a shared experience. I also spent a lot of time with my grandmother and I remember her always very busy at her stove while I wandered around asking her a thousand questions ”.
The age of adolescence arrives and the young Marcello puts the Encyclopedia of cooking among his favorite readings, and it is not just a passive reading. The boy enjoys trying his hand at reproducing at home what he sees photographed in books. But we are still at the entertainment of a young man who always loves to try new experiences.
Until ... until during his civil service he ends up in a cultural circle where there was also a kitchen and there he asks, on the strength of his home experiences, (among which are counted - by his admission - some disastrous gnocchi al pesto, prepared at 12 o 13 years old, due to cooking potatoes too quickly "but I remember the pesto excellent...") asks to be able to lend a hand to the cook.
“There I discovered that I have a natural propensity for a sense of organization which is the real difference between a good amateur cook and an embryonic professional”.
But his studies had directed him to the art school. So nothing to do with his profession.
True to his character - which has not changed over time - the man in black does not attend courses of any kind. And he says it proudly: I can say that I am totally self-taught and that I have followed the classic path of the "shop boy", starting from the role of the kitchen boy and climbing the positions as my apprenticeship progressed. From 18 to 31 I always worked in subsistence kitchens, no famous chefs or stellar internships, I lived alone around the world, cooking was my way of being free".
He didn't do internships but he could afford to travel the world by studying the kitchens of great chefs in their premises sitting at the table with the inquisitive eye of a diamond cutter who knows how to analyze the raw material and understand how this can be enhanced and take shape in a thousand facets.
From which it follows that his cuisine is very personal and is not influenced by his permanence in a high-level brigade following a grand master.
Certainly Trentini has developed a strong sense of a local cuisine that wants to tell a constantly evolving territory, with its feet rooted in the market and its gaze towards the horizon that sweeps over different worlds following its intuition, or the fascinations it suffers currently from a culinary culture.
And here all this takes shape in Lingua/prawns/mandarin because his first “authorial” dish with which “I traced the furrow of my idea of a contemporary territory”, or in Spaghetti bread, butter and anchovies because “it was and is still the comfort food by definition as well as my gourmet version of the taste of memory”.
And his Tagliatelle al tartufo should still be mentioned, a basic truffle dish, created and awarded in the JRE competition, in practice an overcooked and blended tagliatelle with potatoes, seasoned with truffle butter and rolled in the crunchy black truffle base, for look like a truffle. Or the dish he called 10.000 Km with local pigeon, white asparagus from Chile and cherries from Madagascar.
Trentini admits that he has a multi-faceted character and personality, however he hastens to clarify "but I think my most relevant characteristics in the context of life as a restaurateur are an incredible stubbornness and great generosity".
He has given great demonstration of the first during his career, where he has always held high the flag of freedom without limitations, ranging from classic to free style.
And he admits that he had to fight to affirm this philosophy of life in his environment, in being able to be accepted in the brigades "for my professional qualities and my spirit of sacrifice rather than for my bohemian appearance or sui generis training". His cuisine, she loves to repeat, is an “accomplice” cuisine, made up of head, heart and belly. A thoughtful cuisine, but with gluttony as a common denominator.'
Magorabin is all of this, it is the permanent laboratory of an eclectic and anarchic artist-chef, the territory with its traditions as religion, the stroke of inventiveness, the flash of ingenuity outside the conventions as transgression.
This aspect was understood well by the judges of the red guide who, by assigning him the prestigious star, underlined the originality of this "chef-patron with long dreadlocks, a lover of travel and of Indian Rastafarian philosophies, who studied cinema and fine arts and is ended up in the kitchen almost by accident. But chance does not exist and once his passion and vocation were identified, it was a continuous growth, discovery and becoming. In his dishes there are echoes of the regional tradition with local and international ingredients, a great symphony of flavors and a rare combination of audacity, sensitivity, gastronomic culture and superfine techniques".
A self-taught person who cannot be homogenized to fashions who however managed to be awarded an authoritative starred opinion in the field, beyond the Michelin star, by the surprise of seeing himself seated at the tables of his Magorabin, none other than the great Michel Roux, Legion of Honor, the chef of the legendary Le Gravoche, the first three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Great Britain, and of The Waterside Inn, which was the first restaurant outside France to hold three stars over a period of 25 years, which inspired the kitchens of Gordon Ramsay, Marco Pierre White, and Pierre Koffman, and who at the end of the dinner had himself portrayed in a souvenir photo with an excited Trentini, signing his order with three stars. An auspicious investiture.
Attention to detail, care and comfort, "a delightful approach to the table", are today the keys to Magorabin, an elegant and rigorous restaurant that reflects the chef's cosmopolitan nature in every element, starting from the lounge that welcomes guests and following in the two halls, with design references that wink at New York and at the same time details such as lights and walls to celebrate Italian craftsmanship.
For guests who want an even more exclusive experience, the Social Table has been created: a convivial table that can seat up to 8 diners right in front of the kitchen, thus allowing direct interaction with the cooks who serve the dishes at the table.
The dream he has placed in his drawer is to be able to open a bistro-wine shop in New York. Will he make it? Bets accepted.
Success hasn't changed his life too much: “I learned to praise slowness and to take more time for myself and I no longer intend to give up a better quality of life”.
And then: Adelante, Pedro, con juicio, si puedes….
