In a certain sense it can be said of him that he represents the unity of gastronomic Italy. A native of Porto San Giorgio, on the southern side of the Adriatic coast of the Marches dominated by two sacred monsters of Italian restaurants such as Mauro Uliassi, three Michelin stars and Moreno Cedroni, two-starred chef from Senigallia, he consolidated his bones, for five years, at the Napoleonic Fort of Portonovo, long reign of one of the great certainties of Ancona seafood cuisine, Paolo Antinori, school of Gualtiero Marhesi, which permeated his first steps instilling in him the principles of discipline and sacrifice. From there the great leap in Milan, at the Four Seasons of the great master Sergio Mei, (“my great teacher”), then to the prestigious restaurant of the hotel La villa del Quar in Verona where he took over the baton that had been Bruno Barbieri's. From Milan he went down by the Torre del Saracino, something else temple of national gastronomy in Vico Equense, on the Sorrento coast, where Gennarino Esposito reigns who just this year, in addition to having his two Michelin stars reconfirmed, has been awarded the special Chef Mentor prize by the Red Guide for having trained – this is the motivation – generations of chefs representing “a beacon for young people who want to fascinating but tough world of cooking”.
Thanks to the great Neapolitan Chef he returned to Lombardy, for an exciting experience in one of the most prestigious and exclusive restaurants in Italy, the Orangeie of the "Casta Diva Resort" in Blevio, on Lake Como. Gennaro Esposito who had a consultancy relationship with the property had identified in that young talented chef, who he had had the opportunity to see at work and plot in his kitchens in Vico Equense, and then during the Festa a Vico, the largest food and wine event Italian, the person who could one day collect his inheritance in full autonomy. And so it was. Massimiliano Mandozzi has seen himself projected into a high-level dimension as the protagonist of a gourmet restaurant where the pursuit of perfection is an obligation rather than an aspiration.
From Lombardy we find him at 43 today firmly established in Sicily, at the Gagini Social Restaurant in Palermo, where Franco Virga and Stefania Milano, the owners of the sixteenth-century restaurant, to launch an ambitious project of internationalization of Sicilian cuisine, thought well to turn to the Marche-Neapolitan-Lombard chef for a daring but certainly long-reasoned operation: to create a culinary reference point of the highest level and prestige. Which Virga explained in an interview with these words: “With this revolution we want to crown a dream and we think that the time is ripe to take a new path which, however, always speaks through the territory. We have noticed that Palermo now has an international dimension. It is the sixth largest city in Italy, the undisputed capital of the Mediterranean by now. The Unesco Arab Norman route, Manifesta and the nomination as Capital of Culture 2018, have led Palermo to establish itself on the global scene and to be considered a central destination at the crossroads of art, naturalistic and food and wine tourism. Tourists from all over the world now have a new perception of our Palermo. Foreign investors have bet on the take-off of the city. We think that now even the kitchen must give new stimuli and answers in this scenario. We don't want to be caught unprepared. We are opening a new chapter”.
A chapter that looks to international customers. If we talk about internationalization then Massimiliano Mandozzi can boast several arrows in his bow. Beyond the authoritative imprinting with the masters of Italian cuisine mentioned above, our Chef has always looked with interest abroad from a young age, curious and eager to experience different culinary cultures.
Already at 16 years old, having completed his basic training at the hotel management school in Tolentino if it was went to Switzerland in a gastronomic restaurant, the Sant'Abbondio which had two Michelin stars and two work brigades.
A nice impact for someone who was starting to take his first steps in the kitchen. Switzerland is. however, it was only the first step, then came the experiences at the starred Muller's Osteria Veneziana, in Germany and in London with Sebastiano Spriveri at the Four Seasons Hotel Canary Wharf, in the heart of the industrial area of Tower Hamlets which rivals the financial district of the City, i two and a half years spent in Dubai, at the BiCE Mare, considered, at the time, the best Italian and fish restaurant in all the Arab Emirates.
In short, he had seen the boy far away when, perhaps driven by his youthful passions, reading history and stories of archaeological discoveries, he dreamed of deepening his knowledge of new worlds. His destiny would not have led him to dig evidence of ancient lost civilizations in the earth, but to discover how to consolidate his professional and food training of gastronomic cultures beyond the borders of Italy. A journey that began at the age of twelve when his mother and aunt Alba, "who cooked in the traditional way on Sundays" made him play in the kitchen with egg pasta. Massimiliano was fascinated by the fact that tasty tagliatelle would then materialize from the fountain of flour with the eggs, which he would soon taste, with the satisfaction of seeing them then eaten by everyone in the family. And so he decided to enroll in the hotel management school in Tolentino and to burn the time of his learning, at the same time he went to work at a family-run restaurant on the outskirts of Macerata, La Filanda.
His forays abroad for some time had made him mature the conviction that Italian cuisine has expressed, thanks to the great progress made in the last twenty-thirty years, the maximum that was possible, especially now that after the experimentalisms and exoticisms of the past we are moving towards a religion of the raw material in the exaltation of its flavors and more hidden meanings. His current commitment in Sicily therefore has the meaning of a challenge for the coming years, that of a cuisine which, while referring to the richness of the territorial tradition, knows how to find innovative forms that place it in a position to speak international gastronomic languages.
Ambitious project that Mandozzi tackles with the humility and modesty that has always characterized him.
If you ask him what was the most gratifying success of his career, he imitates answering with convinced modesty "I think I've always been very lucky, but the greatest luck and success is the one I experience every day, which is working with a group of people who have been following me for many years and who have become my second family”. But be careful, even if he defines himself as a "bashful, taciturn and patient person who does not like the spotlight", at the same time those who work with him know very well that Mandozzi is someone who "does not compromise for a result" because in that case he brings out all the Teutonic rigor assimilated in his youth..
But in reality what he considers his greatest fortune, and he never tires of repeating it, was to have at his side a life and work partner who answers by the name of Elnava De Rosa, Pastry Chef, a student of none other than Heinz Beck. We are far away in this case, just to mention the slip into which Amadeus incurred by presenting Valentino's girlfriend as the one who "knows how to stay one step behind a great man". Other than a step backwards, between Elnava and Massimiliano there is a relationship of constant comparison, enrichment, mutual professional support, essential for a couple who have had to make important life choices.
On the other hand, to understand who Mandozzi's sweet and smiling workmate is, just take a look at her curriculum, which, after the classic high school sees her enrolled at the Cordon Bleu school in Rome, a business card that allows her to enter and train at Heinz Beck's Pergola. We then find it at Pierre Hermé in Paris, at Pino Lavarra at Palazzo Sasso, at Stefano Baiocco at Villa Feltrinelli, at the Comandante restaurant of the Romeo hotel with Andrea Aprea, with Oliver Glowig, who is so impressed by it that he wants it first at the Capri Palace and then at the Aldrovandi Hotel, until her professional destinies are linked to those of Mandozzi at Villa del Quar to remain inextricably linked.
And today the two face the challenge of the Gagini Social Restaurant with the spirit of two climbers (it is no coincidence that the Chef is a mountain enthusiast, with the secret dream of tackling Everest sooner or later) who want to reach the summit, with tenacity, method and sacrifice. The secret of Mandozzi's cuisine? It must be “immediately perceivable, a very traditional and concrete gourmet cuisine, from which the thought of research is born which leads to a simple complexity which is then expressed in the dish. A cuisine based on vegetables where I find bitter and acidic notes and where meat, fish or pasta becomes a complement that exalts rather than exalts itself”.
Dishes such as his Tortello cacio e pepe with sea urchin, a classic with which he has appeared in various magazines and TV broadcasts, or the rice pasta all'amatriciana, with perch, raspberry and pecorino, the first course cooked with freshwater fish to which he is particularly fond and with which, years ago, he won the contest Rice of the year of Risate and Risotti or even the back of hare in salmi with olives on the coals, cucumber and pistachio pesto and mint which reveals his love for game.
Our work – he likes to say – is made up of sacrifices, of endless days where you know when you start and never when you finish, it is made up of a continuous and obsessive search for perfection that we will never find.
A theory that seems like a calembour but which in reality hides, behind its disarming simplicity, a complex and highly articulated research and study, like an archaeologist - and here we go back to his childhood - who finds himself deciphering the ancient meanings and values of a material to make them readable not only to scholars but also to an audience of taste enthusiasts, of good taste..
