Read about Chef Massimo Bottura’s ventures and find out more about the hosted experience in Emilia-Romagna through the eyes of Massimo Bottura.
Light isn’t just a feature of Chef Massimo Bottura’s restaurants, it is an essential element in all his projects, from his avant-garde culinary art to his fight against food waste and his work to uncover the invisible potential of others.
When Massimo Bottura launched his most recent Refettorio (refectory) in Rio de Janeiro, his experience was grueling.
“When you shine a light, bad people don’t like it. We had a couple of times where they came and put guns to our heads and stole computers and telephones, so we knew we were in the right place, but we were open every night.”
It is typical of Bottura’s personal philosophy to link culture, food, and human gesture and it has led to a remarkable style of cuisine: one where intense personal experiences are related to meaningful global movements.
Chef Bottura’s take on the Refettorio concept as a communal dining space that brings people together for group meals and gatherings is a perfect, although not always harmonious, blend of these three elements.
Bottura’s team brought light and beauty, music and food to communities, and slowly the negative people and behaviors disappeared.
Through his “Food For Soul” non-profit organization, Bottura brought many Refettorios to various places around the world, 11 and counting with each as a center of good food, sharing, and culture, always targeting a place in need of rejuvenation and restoration.
Massimo Bottura is a major ingredient of this success. His commitment to the power of culture to transform blighted spaces is like a spotlight – it illuminates the problem and focuses on the solution.
It is a clear-headed understanding of the need to build community at the human level, one individual gesture at a time. That’s why Massimo cooks.
Whether he is at a Massimo Bottura restaurant, working with a team that outnumbers the diners two to one, or at one of his Refettorios, cooking with other volunteer chefs for hundreds of people… He brings the same acute attention to the quality of the food, the experience of dining, and the role of culture in teaching, uniting, and sharing.
The idea started in Expo 2015 in Milan, to make a unique kind of gesture about Italy’s greatest export: its hospitality.
The plan was to create a kitchen in which some of the world’s greatest chefs would be invited to cook alongside him for the city’s homeless, using food deemed unsuitable for sale in supermarkets, making a statement about waste, and taste.
That’s how his first came to be — Refettorio Ambrosiano — based in Greco, one of Milan’s poorest districts, serving food to the homeless, disadvantaged, and refugees.
“It hasn’t been easy at the beginning”, Bottura says. “The first Refettorio was unpopular with many local residents. Protesters even marched against the idea.” But slowly Bottura won them over.
He began by creating utility and beauty in the form of 14 refectory tables, each created by a leading Italian designer. At first, his unimpressed customers ate fast and left faster, but the transcendent nature of sharing began to lighten their fears.
Within months they were staying longer, laughing more, and even commenting on the quality of food being served to them, requesting less soup and more pasta!
This is Bottura’s vision in action – social gestures that create a collective spirit. This is the vision that drives him to play football with refugee teens outside the Refettorio or create recipes for his local cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano.
It causes him to invest in modern art that he hopes will help his diners decode the messages contained in the unique Massimo Bottura recipes, many of which dissect the essential features of famous dishes and reconstruct them in exciting new ways that Bottura describes as “we break things, we rebuild things”.
It might be a dish, a blank space on a wall, or an empty building in a ghetto, but regardless, Bottura shines a light on what was, what is, and invites us to join him in what could be – something better than the past, built on the experience of the present.
Find out more about the Hosted Experience with Massimo Bottura by Satopia Travel, which specializes in unique experiences led by world-class hosts.
This virtual event is part of the Dare to Dream series of virtual experiences, free and open to the public events organized by Satopia Travel, with world thought-leaders as they talk about how travel helps to make a difference in the world and they remind us why we all must keep traveling and continue to dream.
MasterClass with Massimo Bottura
Massimo Bottura, the chef of the three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana, teaches you his take on traditional Italian cooking—from risotto to tortellini—and shares techniques for reimagining your own recipes. He treats his world-renowned restaurant as a laboratory of ideas.
In his MasterClass, Massimo Bottura shares how he transforms classic, regional Italian recipes into exciting modern dishes. You’ll learn how to make rich, flavorful tagliatelle al ragù, pumpkin risotto, and a MasterClass-exclusive Emilia Burger recipe. Develop your palate and embark on a culinary adventure.
