The culinary poet

Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura doesnrsquot see food in isolation For the chef patron of Osteria Francescana the threestar Michelin restaurant in Modena food is also poetry And rightly so It does take some conviction to not only serve a broken lemon tart but to also make it one of their signature dishes wittily named Oops I dropped the lemon tart ldquoTo me the poetry of what we do is the most important thing having that space where you can imagine and serve a broken lemon tart in the best restaurant in the world is unbelievable and pricelessrdquo says the 59yearold celebrated chef who came to Mumbai last week to host two exclusive dinners at The St Regis Mumbai priced at an eyepopping Rs 35000 per personBrought to the city by culinary platforms Masters of Marriott Bonvoy and Culinary Culture Bottura along with his team presented some of his signature dishes including his childhood favourite The Crunchy Part of the Lasagne and Beautiful Psychedelic Beet Not Flamed Grilled a dish created as a tribute to English artist Damien Hirstrsquos spinpainted canvasesWe met him the day he had just arrived and though jetlagged he didnrsquot allow it to come in the way of his storytelling References of art philosophy music and his fascination with fast cars drop in every now and then ldquoMy cuisine is deeply Italian filtered by the contemporary mind But if you ask me what I do I would say I compress poetry and passion art and music into gastronomic experiencesrdquo says Bottura who credits his mother for fuelling his culinary passionEdited excerpts from the interviewDid you find any similarities between Indian and Italian cuisineTo me there are two cuisines that are relatable to Italian food The first is Indian which is not one cuisine but many cuisines some of which are in contrast with another like North and South Indian fare Back home while North Italy is greatly influenced by Europe and France the South of Italy draws from Africa The second one is Japan Both Italy and Japan are obsessed with the quality of ingredients and we both use techniques to sublimate the ingredients and not to sublimate the ego of the chefsChef Massimo Bottura says that the secret to his success is loving what he does ldquobetween waking up and retiring at nightrdquo PicGetty ImagesHow did your early years influence your life choicesI grew up under the kitchen table where my mother and grandmother were preparing food to feed our very large family Irsquod be there hiding from my older brothershellip Growing up like that with them was a very emotional exercise I always saw that table as my safest place in the world Soon I started joining my brothers on their gastronomical tours and my brain started evolving as it did while going to a museum to see exhibitions or while listening to good music Be it food music or art they all are the same in a way that it is either good or bad I started obsessing about the quality and thatrsquos why I started travelling getting exposed to many techniques ingredients and cultures Over the course of this journey my reflections became much more complicated and sophisticated and thatrsquos how I got into gastronomy in such a deep mannerYou hail from Modena which is also the centre of your culinary practiceModena is a small town of 200000 people with five theatres all of which are always booked so people are super stimulated The opera here runs for 360 days a year Another important point to note is that Modena isnrsquot just the heart of the food valley but is also the land of fast cars which is another passion I have People here are very competitive For us the best day is San Giovanni a competition where the town fights for best balsamic vinegar and winning the gold medal was one of the most important things ever People have always been pointing fingers at me saying that I am ruining their traditional culinary culture For me to win the gold medal for balsamic vinegar means that I am taking care of my tradition more than the othersYou were pursuing law What led to your entry into the culinary worldIt was my mother who made the invisible visible and pursued my father saying that ldquoMassimo is a guy with too much energy and if he does something that he doesnrsquot like we will lose himrdquo She convinced my father to let me go and at that point I was open to persuasion Thanks to my brother I found a very small restaurant in the middle of the country and a week later I was there confronting real life I gave up everything else to pursue my passion my father didnrsquot talk to me for two yearshellip And when he did start speaking again our relationship never recovered He died in 2014You havenrsquot been to a culinary school and yet your restaurant has been on the list of The Worldrsquos 50 Best Restaurants for several yearsI grew up in a family where my mother is an amazing cook not chef She cooks because she wants to and thatrsquos the secret to successmdashdoing what you do between waking up and retiring at night Besides I had to fight this one because my mother took the responsibility for me quitting law So I had to put all of myself in doing what I do I was somebody who was hungry to learnHow has the pandemic impacted you on a professional and personal levelA lot of people donrsquot know the meaning of chef Chef means chief you are responsible for everything It is not just chef of cuisine but chef of everything I always work thinking about my team first and not myself In the last two years we have created four menus we probably reached the pinnacle of everything be it maturity or creativity because we had precious time to put to use After the first wave we came out with a menu titled With A Little Help From My Friends inspired from The Beatlesrsquo album In a world where people canrsquot travel we made them travel through flavours We created a unique menu for summer and autumn and it won best tasting menu But when the second wave hit us we slipped into depression the mood changed drastically However on January 7 2021 I took my team back to the kitchen to do what we do bestmdashcooking We started going back to the recipes from the 1950s and rsquo60s Then out of the blue I closed the book and we created a menu filtered by the culture and diversity of the team we have people from across the world We dedicated it to the Italian contemporary history of cuisine So spaghetti is now going to be served as a dessert and babagrave a dessert is going to be served as a welcome dish We broke all the rulesWas it challenging to create a tasting menu for India which also has a significant vegetarian populationAt Osteria Francescana a vegetarian menu is more interesting than a regular menu because we put a lot of energy ideas and vision connecting the mental palette to transform the ingredients and bring together a dish For instance I made a controfiletto using eggplant I knew if I could change the texture of eggplant it would be like white meat so I created a tenderloin of eggplants and then I started lacquering to change its texture When you taste it it feels like chewing meat For pancetta I used the skin of the eggplant burnt it added some powder to it and then lacquered it again It tasted like veal or eggplants but you have the same or even stronger flavours on the paletteOsteria Francescana also got a Michelin green star for sustainabilitySustainability is a part of my life You are sustainable in your mind action and ideas If you arenrsquot paying fairly to your fisherman cheesemaker and farmers or if you throw away the different preparations for dishes which may not be needed for the final dish because you donrsquot care then thatrsquos not sustainable