Mauro Ricciardi, the demanding legacy of Paracucchi

Collecting the legacy of Angelo Paracucchi, one of the fathers of the "new Italian cuisine", innovator of the new balances in the kitchen, in overcoming the line between sweet and savoury, in devising new textures, in the study of the biochemical structure of foods, among first 7 restaurateurs and chefs in Italy to be awarded a Michelin star at the end of the 70s, first professional of Italian cuisine to be invited to open a restaurant in France, first Italian restaurant abroad to win a Michelin star in 1990, it is something to shake the wrists.

And to collect this legacy, not virtually, but physically, precisely in the Ameglia restaurant in what was once the kingdom of Paracucchi who stirred the still waters of Italian catering from those premises, affirming among the first the concept of an offer based on high quality , something ascertained today but revolutionary at the time, sensationally opening the doors to modernity, to the point that in order to realize its Angel Inn bothered one of the great masters of Italian architecture, the great Vico Magistretti, it was an undertaking no less daring.

Not for everyone but for Mauro Ricciardi, now 67 years old, who frequented the kitchen of the Locanda dell'Angelo for a long time, learning, studying, forfeiting concepts and refining his own culinary culture with the experiences he lived alongside the great Paracucchi who had taken a liking to him seeing the sacred fury that animated him. A sacred furor that suddenly broke out because the good Ricciardi had never thought of ending up behind the stove as a young man, and even less would he have ever imagined he could even manage to conquer the prestigious Michelin star in that restaurant that instilled such awe in everyone.

But let's go in order. Mauro Ricciardi was born in Ceparana, a hamlet in the municipality of Bolano in the province of La Spezia in 1952. And from an early age he became aware of the culture of nature from his grandparents and parents who were farmers in a farmhouse in the plain of Ceparana, a beautiful farm where practically their entire lives have taken place.

The days started early in the morning and ended late in the evening. Grandma Ida had the job of waking him up and preparing him breakfast and her day began from there. That, if it had been for him, she would have spent whole in the fields with her grandparents and parents to see turned over clods, twisted earthworms, fleeing lizards, the first shoots of sowing, the growth of plants and finally the blossoming of products. A world that fascinated him.

Youth between school and passion for the countryside

But rightly his mother Maria was uncompromising on this. Like all mothers, she imagined herself as her son, the pride of the family, away from the humble and onerous work in the fields, sitting at a nice desk or engaged in a job of satisfaction and personal growth. How to blame her?

So during the school months, Mauro rarely managed in the afternoon, after homework, to allow himself a few escapes in the cultivated fields to follow his passions, then the evening after Carosello bed was a must, to be fresh the next day to face school.

However, thanks to the good offices of his grandmother, some exceptions were possible when he became a teenager: "my best - he recalls today with nostalgia - was, before going to school, seeing and helping my grandmother as she milked the cows and then drinking the still warm milk or sometimes go, at four in the morning, to the market with her, to sell the wonderful products grown on our farm, beans, potatoes, courgettes to get back at 7,30 and then rush to school”.

But, once the school year was over, things changed completely. Going to the lands cultivated by his family, he had always been fascinated by tractors and agricultural machinery and therefore he was always present, in the early morning, with the cool weather, at work in the fields maneuvering tractors. The most beautiful period was then that of the wheat harvest "a wonderful period because many other people gathered to help us and I still remember the rich meals after work".

In the family they raised various pigs: rabbits, hens, chickens, a bit of everything as well as cows and 10 calves.

And another memory of his youth is linked to the winter days "when we killed pigs, three to be precise, which my father Giorgio then artfully transformed into salami ... I still dream of the best salami of my life. A memory that I don't erase to the point that even now, when it's the period, I buy half a pig and work it with my father's tools, which I have jealously kept, and I must say that they don't turn out badly”.

Mauro, in addition to working in the fields and slaughtering animals, also cultivated another passion, fishing and almost every day he went to the banks of the River Vara, which flowed near his parents' farm, to fish for barbel, trout, chub and eels.

In short, with all these premises and with those healthy passions for the countryside, meat and fish, one imagines that the young Mauro felt attracted by the kitchen. No way! He certainly liked eating well, he watched his grandmother with curiosity and emotion, very good in the kitchen, preparing lunch or dinner for the people who worked in the fields, he liked lend a hand when it came to kneading the dough for tagliatelle or ravioli, or when kneading the bread and then waiting for it to rise by turning on the large wood-burning oven. He still remembers with emotion the smell of roasts that made him peckish, of freshly baked bread, he remembers how he liked rice and vegetable cakes made with products harvested in the fields that his mother Maria used to prepare, but being a cook he didn't think about it.

A job at ENEL then the purchase of a small hotel by the sea

When the time comes for high school which must direct him towards career horizons, the young Ricciardi "without yet having very clear ideas about my future" enrolls in a technical institute for electrical engineers, rather than by conscious choice, to make his parents happy . He gets his diploma. At this point everyone expected him to take the road to the University. And instead the boy prefers to immediately face a job as an electrical engineer. Even if, today she confesses, “I was a little confused, I didn't know what I was going to do when I grew up. Of course, I was certain, that I would not have been an electrical engineer but by now the disaster was over and I had to work”.

Start with a small company in the country. Then he was presented with the great opportunity of a secure position at ENEL.

It was what his parents Giorgio and Maria wanted, as well as his wife Bruna who initially worked in a printing house, but it was a job that did not give her satisfaction.

And it is thus that with the first earnings set aside and signing some commitments with the banks, Mauro and Bruna decide to buy a small hotel by the sea in Ameglia with a beach. Obviously there are deadlines to pay for which Mauro prudently does not leave his well-paid job at ENEL which remains a guarantee, but in his spare time he runs to lend a hand to his wife.

The hotel fortunately pays and Mauro comes up with the idea, to enrich the offer, to complete it with a small restaurant. He serves in the dining room and there is a cook in the kitchen but he realizes that you need to have a very different culture to run the place. Thus the idea dawned on him that he needed to be personally involved in the kitchen to achieve important results.

The choice that changes your life, the meeting with Angelo Paracucchi

That's why he doesn't look for easy shortcuts, he enrolled in a cooking class at Angelo Paracucchi's restaurant “La Locanda dell'Angelo”., not far from his hotel. Having the honor of seeing the great chef in the kitchen for Mauro and like going to Lourdes to pray in front of the Madonna hoping that she will make the micacolo to become a great cook. Always tight at the Locanda friendship with Gianluca Guglielmi, who already has a respectable career behind him, important restaurants, great addresses and is now sous chef at the Locanda dell'Angelo, a refined interpreter of Italian regional cuisine. Mauro has a stroke of genius: he offers him to go and work in his restaurant. And the beauty is that Guglielmi accepts, as if to say that audacity always pays off.

It is the beginning of a new, exciting adventure. Life begins again at 40. 

“In the kitchen with him – says Mauro – I really learned the basics”. The hotel restaurant begins to have a loyal clientele, in two years it is completely renovated and restructured, it takes on new staff, and receives the name "La locanda delle Tamerici" with a reverent and superstitious assonance with the Locanda dell'Angelo. The new restaurant quickly spreads around.

As happens when a passion strikes you when you grow up, Mauro Ricciardi is seized by a desire to learn, to grow, to forge ahead and make up for lost time. Paracucchi has taken a liking to him and he continues to frequent his kitchen and learn, memorizing all the great master's advice. He now he is able to take the leadership of the restaurant himself.

He doesn't limit himself to this, he also hangs out with other chefs and during the closing month and a half he goes to gain experience in various important kitchens and at the Etoile for desserts.

"What to say? – acknowledges Ricciardi – between Guglielmi and Paracucchi they marked my path which was not easy, full of pitfalls and difficulties: 16 – 18 hours a day of trying and trying again to improve, balance the flavours, perfect the cooking. But I have to say great results and satisfactions for me, and in a very special way for my wife Bruna to whom – chivalrously, ed – I would give 60% of my career”.

In short, the boat puts off with great honor but a great regret remains in Ricciardi and it is for his parents: ”from the moment I dedicated myself totally to this work I had to neglect my father Giorgio and my mother Maria. Now that they are gone I truly miss them as I feel their encouragement to carry on. They have been of great moral help, they have always supported me without excessive compliments but I felt they were a very part of my adventure".

The great gratification that certifies his entry into the world of great chefs comes in 1997 while he was taking a pastry course at the Etoile: the Michelin star "to tell the truth unexpected, so much so that when my wife communicated it to me on the phone, I didn't believe it, I thought she was making fun of me. For me it was a bomb out of the blue, from that moment my life really changed. Even if twenty years have passed, it seems like yesterday”.

In the meantime, the Locanda delle Tamerici is enriched by a new important presence. Ricciardi sets his eyes on a young maitre d' room but with very great qualities Paola Bacigalupo: “I explain everything to him, she accepts her, leaves her place in a starred restaurant and begins the brand new adventure with me. I would like to underline that to this day she still works with me and has become a colleague I could not do without ”.

La Locanda has entered the circle of great restaurants that are worth a trip. It begins to be frequented not only by gourmets but also by an important and demanding public of famous people. But among all, Ricciardi remembers Indro Montanelli with particular affection. “He spent the summer in Monte Marcello, a very small fraction of Ameglia and every day he came to the beach with us, to tell the truth, he spent more time in the garden reading than at the beach. We established a wonderful relationship with him, I was one of the few to whom he told his life story. He was very demanding about eating, he was always afraid that something would harm or poison him and for this reason he would go to the kitchen every morning to personally order his dishes".

 Finally, in 2013 the decisive turning point in the life of Mauro Ricciardi which is also an investiture of destiny. Ricciardi closes the Locanda delle Tamerici which gave him prestige and satisfaction and takes over from Paracucchi's son, who died at a young age due to a sudden illness that had kept the restaurant going since his father's disappearance. Ricciardi who already worked in the kitchens, is invested with the inheritance to continue in the footsteps of the great Angel who had paved his career and who held him in great esteem and do so with great awe but also with great determination in carrying on the teachings of the great Chef. 

With great humility, Ricciardi admits: ”I thought this new adventure at the Locanda dell'Angelo would be easy, but instead it wasn't a walk in the park. Moving in a temple of the kitchen like this having taken over the baton from a giant like Paracucchi creates a lot of problems for you to feel up to the situation. I had to start struggling again to face the new commitment involving my wife Bruna and my boys, Paola, Mimosa, Marco, with great humility, love for this wonderful job, sacrifices”.

The first two years were very hard. obviously all those who went to the Locanda to enjoy the cuisine of the great Chef thinned out. But in the end Ricciardi convinced them with his work that Paracucchi's lesson had not fallen on deaf ears but rather was now enriched with new angles and facets. The Michelin judges were the first to verify it by giving it a star, and things changed.

 If you ask him the reasons for his success he replies in a disarming way: “My merit? Work, work, work, I haven't gotten too crazy and have invested a lot in my career, always helped by the staff and in particular by my wife Bruna”.

His dishes are a mix of tradition and creativity, of different materials that come together in results that seem risky on paper and instead on the plate they fly towards harmonious results, does not disdain the modernity of the Greenstars, the Rotovapors and the Gastrovacs, but only if in function of a path that reaches the soul of the matter dealt with because for Ricciardi cooking is "talking to the soul": his goal is to succeed, with his dishes, to make the customer experience a moment of joy and bring out the essence of each ingredient without excessive manipulation. An essence that is renewed day after day in his kitchen, to the point that if the raw materials, which are also the result of an exaggerated search, do not meet his expectations, the menu is completely distorted.

“Despite the years passing by, and time flying by, every morning I wake up and come to work like 30 years ago and perhaps this is the thing that still doesn't make me think about retirement. When I start having trouble getting up in the morning and no longer feel like going to look for all the raw materials myself, from fish to vegetables, to flour, then I'll get scared and maybe it'll be time to close. For now I don't think about it, not even remotely, I still feel like I'm very young both in thought and in life".