As I do every morning, I go into the newsagent's and as I wait, the cheerful and bright gaze of Alessandro Borghese. It is one of the recipe books in the weekly series 'Take me to the kitchen with you'. I pick it up to leaf through it and a sweet old lady knocks lightly on my shoulder and says: "He is great, I like him so much, I watch him on TV every night at 8pm!".
I put the book away smiling and think back to the first time I went to eat in his Milanese restaurant 'AB - the luxury of simplicity'. When he greeted me, I felt like I had known him forever. Because that is how he is: from the screen he enters homes, becomes a friend and involves you with his genuine vitality, putting you in a good mood. And you find that charisma when you meet him in person, as if to say that Alessandro has never stopped being simply himself.
From "Kitchen Sound' to '4 ristoranti' via 'Cuochi d'Italia'.no one can deny that he is one of the most popular chefs and TV personalities.
But why? Who is Alessandro Borghese? He tells us himself, in a chat that could not be more 'open-hearted'.
"I was born in San Francisco, grew up in Rome. I have lived and worked around the world and now my family lives in Milan. At home are the people with whom the best of me comes out. The friends from the past who today have become my trusted collaborators. My wife Wilma, without whom I would not be where I am today. My daughters Arizona and Alexandra with whom I play, hum, tell stories, draw, colour and travel a lot together. It is important for me to be able to share every free moment with my family, I hope with this I can leave common memories. My parents, in the evenings or while travelling together, used to range over an unusual repertoire to put me to sleep: from Shakespeare's comedies (including my mother's perfect recitation of one of the characters in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream') to the most famous comedy by the genius of Eduardo De Filippo, 'Natale in casa Cupiello', narrated by my father. Now it's my turn to tell fairy tales or to invent fantastic stories for my daughters, like the Cricket Panzuto: a peaceful, travelling cricket with a fearless heart. His adventures change every night; until recently I would end the story with Arizona and Alexandra asleep, now that they are both older, at the end of the story they add a remarkable assortment of details that I have to remember perfectly for the next night's tale. What else to say about me, I love the colour red, vivid, bold and full of pathos. And music is my best medicine'.
Red as charisma...
Charisma cannot be studied or invented; either it is there, or if it is lacking, you work on seriousness and commitment. There are professionals with little charisma but great talent. Or you can have all the charisma you want, but if you then lack it in the profession of cook, you offend the entire category that does it for a living, and that is not right. You don't improvise at anything....
I am an entrepreneur who wants to expose myself to the risks that every job entails. You know, my father used to say that you have to focus on the goal to be achieved and continuously improve, studying and working hard. And that's what I do.
Was your father an important person for your career choice?
Yes, the most important of all. It was my father Gigi who made me discover my passion for cooking and thanks to him it became study and planning.
Then my wife was the real luck of my life, everything changed with her. Wilma is a real force of nature, a mother who divides her time between home and office: how much she runs to get everything done! When I met her, in 2008, I had never been in a stable relationship, always touch and go as an unrepentant single! I saw her and fell in love for the first time and we haven't left each other since: we have become a family, with our daughters aged seven and three. Thanks to her, my ideas became reality. In 2009, I asked her "Will you help me create my own company?" and so we founded AB Normal srl - eatertainment Company, in a tiny Milanese attic room, and in the same year we got married. A love marriage and a flourishing working partnership. We built our lives on what we liked to do, side by side and holding hands, always with a common goal and in agreement on an intellectual level. We have the same tastes, we like food, music, art and we are both imaginative; we like to think we have finally found that half-apple from Plato's Symposium.
Speaking of love, your motto is 'Cooking is an act of love'. What is cooking for you? How much do knowledge and technique count and how much love?
The kitchen is a demanding place, it takes concentration, intuition and exercise. It is essential for those who work in this environment to satisfy the needs of their guest, it is an immense responsibility for those who perform and for those who taste. It is a daily gesture, an act of love full of desire, transport and attraction that I strongly wanted to make my job. When you enter the kitchen there is study, planning, imagination. I am in love with the art of Italian gastronomy, it is history, flavour, passion, authenticity, simplicity, a luxury that in the kitchen you can indulge in to spoil, tease and awaken your taste buds.
I love my job and have always wanted to be a chef since I was a child. I grew up helping my father in the kitchen on Sunday mornings to prepare the tasty ragù, typical of the Neapolitan tradition. Cooking has always given me that most emotional and intense touch I have ever felt, it makes me feel good. At the cooker you are hot, adrenalinic and even dirty on your tunic, but in the end you have great satisfaction. Safety lies in experience, in knowing the raw material; you go into the kitchen and create.
Inspiration is important, and it comes from an idea, a song, or a painting. I often arrive in the morning and say to my guys: "Tonight I had the inspiration for a new dish!". Together we set the outlines and then test the dishes (with the whole team). I remember that my fish sandwich and my Savarin were born after that walk in the Louvre with good rock in my ears. Art provokes and communicates to us: through colours, sensations, elements, light... it just depends on what you can see and feel.
Technique and love...
Love is that shiver that runs down my body when my wife looks at me. The feeling of well-being that my daughters give me when I come home after a day's work, they hug me and give me their smiles while shouting "Ciao Papu!".
Technology evolves through progress. Think of new kitchen tools. Synthesised materials are durable, have a low impact on nature and can be used in many areas: from macro-scale, to making bread plates or small place cards. Until a few years ago, it was unthinkable to keep low temperature cooking under control; yet today, there are chefs who cannot do without it in their preparations. A chef, worthy of this appellation, must know how to govern technique without being a slave to it; on the contrary, he must be able to use technology to improve and evolve more and more. You have to study and delve deeper; to prepare a cacio e pepe takes head and practice. You have to know the cheeses, their seasoning, know which cheese binds better with another and find the right combination with the starch in the pasta; only then will you get a great result. In short, cooking means passion and awareness: love, commitment, education and professionalism. It is a hard job, with few holidays: when everyone is celebrating you are there working! But of course if you love it, it gives you a lot of satisfaction. You never cook for the bill, you cook to make the guests happy!
Imagine having to invent a dish 'on the spur of the moment', a sudden request and little time to make it...
I would definitely choose the freshest ingredient I can find in the larder. It will be the raw material that inspires me, that tells me how to work it: a fresh sea bream asks only to be seared to leave the flavour of the sea and the softness of its meat intact, and to be served with fresh vegetables from the garden; a leg of lamb can be boned or left whole and marinated with wild herbs to tame its smell and be baked in the oven. Creativity is absolutely free, this is not something static.
You have been the promoter of cooking that has made it onto TV. Why do you think cooking today has to be so 'externalised' and not remain as it once was, for a select few who can really understand what it is all about?
I am very happy to have been a forerunner of this new trend; I had an idea of the success of cooking on television ever since it was unusual to become a testimonial for a gastronomic product.
Thanks to progress and communication, today cooking (and the world around it) generates development and new and original professions. I have always been an advocate of progress: it shortens distances and improves culture. The historical period we are living through, where the competence of many and the working immaturity, fortunately of a few, are at the service of a demanding and prepared public. It is a period in which Italy is finally in step with the rest of the world in terms of history, tradition and the recognition of its important gastronomic art.
Some people think that television and social media have 'bastardised' a noble art. What do you say to that?
It was about time there was more cooking on Italian television! Abroad they had started to communicate it long before. Food and cooking have captured the attention of television networks and the Internet, cooking is the soul of Italy, the raw materials are unique and exceptional.
Today we are fortunate to have immediate and widespread means of communication: anyone, through television, internet and the press, can follow the procedures and advice of their favourite chef. In Italy we have created a universal language about food: pasta, cappuccino, spaghetti, parmesan, espresso, pizza, mozzarella. And only now have we achieved well-deserved praise. You can be anywhere abroad, speaking in a language not your own, that the word 'pasta' remains for everyone the synonym par excellence of the Bel Paese.
Cooking on television has allowed many to get to know chefs up close and to turn a passion into a job; with the emergence of new activities then, from food bloggers to dedicated sites, it certainly fosters an important business for our country's economy.
Your 4 favourite restaurants in Italy and abroad?
Cristiano Tomei's funnel: he moved a few months ago to Palazzo Pfanner in Lucca, a building full of history not only for having been the palace of the 'Marchese Del Grillo'. Handcrafted creations with unexpected sensuality. Brutal cuisine without frills. Cristiano excites, makes the eyes widen, provokes and stimulates. Unpredictable and brilliant!
Tim Ho Wan in Hong Kong. Located in the basement of a shopping mall, it is known as the world's cheapest starred restaurant. A popular restaurant with local and traditional cuisine. The lack of attention to the presentation of the dishes, a mostly Western prerogative, is repaid by their stellar taste! Here, you have to let yourself be carried away by the unique, typical and genuine taste of the creations of Chefs Mark Kwai Pui and Leung Fai Keung, who aim for the essentials and do it in the best way: with a taste you won't forget.
Asia de Cuba in the heart of London's Covent Garden, inside the St Martin Lane Hotel. A restaurant with a design that is as extravagant as it is charming, inviting the visitor to sit down and enjoy the delicacies of its cuisine. Tasty, experimental and international combinations. An original cuisine with a philosophy that traces the old British trade routes.
Finally Red, in Amsterdam. It has a deliberately anonymous entrance in contrast to the interior that enhances the room full of colours and details to be discovered. The green walls, like Van Gogh's meadows, provide a backdrop for expressionist paintings and huge mirrors that dilate the perspective of the space. The ceiling is a backlit work of art, embellishing the restaurant with its modern style, making the ambience informal and warm. Only two food and wine courses on the menu: beef fillet or Canadian lobster. A Grande Carte that may seem reductive but with an unforgettable result. The fries are among the best I have ever tasted. A restaurant with a concept as unique as its gastronomic proposal and its hospitable, informal and warm service.
Books, music and cooking are your passions. So I ask you for three book titles to carry with you at all times.
I am a devourer of books as well as pasta! I like to wander around bookshops and read the lines of a few papers to find out who to take with me.
Every person in the world has been born in India at least once in his or her previous life: 'Shantaram' and its more than a thousand pages, to be devoured all in one breath, full of an intense, poignant life and of those who give themselves a second chance at redemption. Gregory David Roberts is commendable in this, you enter his soul by looking at what he has seen and suffered.
As a boy, I worked in Paris, early years in important kitchens, and I dreamt with the madness and genius of Henry Miller, in 'The Tropic of Cancer': his way of living in the irrational, dreamlike and absolutely forbidden environment of the Ville Lumière, without a job and a stable relationship; his constant one-night stands; his coming up with new ideas, because he never gives up to feel free and happy. And then, there is my favourite book: 'Cacio&Pepe'. In this book, there's me (I don't usually like to talk about my private life), my story, the people I love, and then it reminds me of the day of the photo shoot: it was a lot of fun to shoot with my family, including our cat Tokyo.
Three pieces of music that have marked your life?
Music is a fundamental part, it reflects me a lot: a combination of pleasure and melancholy. Sometimes I love to listen to it in 'shuffle', free to switch from a blues song to one with piano or a hard rock ballad. On my wedding day, the sun was about to set and its warm rays illuminated the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Roseto. A light sea breeze rose up to the hills, freshening the air. A violin and an electric guitar were playing the arpeggio of Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven and then I saw her, Wilma, beautiful, as if delicately carried by that breath of wind, walking up the steps towards the blessed churchyard where I waited enraptured and excited: those precise musical notes captured and stopped forever that unique moment at the end of July.
Another song with a strong evocative power is Sultans Of Swing by Dire Straits; I sing it often and it takes me back to the 1992 concert at the Oakland Coliseum in San Francisco, the city where I was born. My aunt and uncle live there, I went to the concert with them and my Californian teenage friends... it is always wonderful to come back and see each other again.
And then surely a song that has given you great satisfaction is 'Fenomeno' by Fabri Fibra: 'Even Alessandro knows, Italy is Borghese'. Hearing you sing it and knowing that there are people to whom you give beautiful smiles, is always a pleasure!
Of timeless rock in my kitchen are Cacio&Pepe, Pasta e Patate and Sunday Barbecue. The latter I love to share with family and friends, but to try the other two, well, you have to come to the restaurant!
There is a fourth passion of mine, art. I wanted to bring it into my Milanese restaurant by exhibiting works by famous and emerging artists. Art is a sun that influences and increases the tides of my choices. I am fascinated by Caravaggio's cuts of light, Van Gogh's rapid brushstrokes, De Chirico's expressive force, Frida Kahlo's will to live. I do not have a favourite artist or style, I like what gives me an emotion!
So let's 'pop in', along with music and art, to your restaurant. Alessandro Borgese - the luxury of simplicity. What do you mean by the luxury of simplicity?
The luxury of simplicity is my philosophy. Keeping it simple in the kitchen means many things: it could mean reducing a dish to its basic form or focusing on an ingredient to experiment with its essence. Or creating a rock band atmosphere, where the different parts of the kitchen move like instruments in a concert. Whatever the case, 'simple' in a kitchen rarely means 'easy'. It is a cuisine that has evolved over time, gone beyond and then back again.
Music, art, my travels, my experiences are a source of inspiration for my dishes. Music makes me feel good. It inspires me. I grew up with a mixture of influences that originated mainly from 1970s hard rock and heavy metal: Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath. Then came 1980s pop and rock, from Depeche Mode to Guns N' Roses. Later I switched to listening to jazz and singing Jamiroquai songs in a band with friends. In my Milanese restaurant we listen to music with a DJ set and some vinyl comes from my private collection.
The muse of art is always present in my work. I have learnt to appreciate it over the years and that is why I wanted to bring it into the restaurant. When you mature professionally you proceed by subtraction rather than by addition: over the years I have experimented with fashions and in the end I realised that the best products are those that are honest and sincere and that you would like to eat all week. This is my cuisine today. This is the message that the style of my restaurant and my menu conveys to those who come to visit me. A style reminiscent of the glitz of the 1930s, the sumptuous cruise ships that sailed the oceans and the luxurious hotels in the skyscrapers of New York. Style changes with time, as does cuisine, expressing the trends of a certain time in a certain place. The kitchen has to keep up with the evolution of style and taste. In one's own home, one experiments with the latest tools on the market or seen on TV, which are indispensable for kneading and useful for cooking, one makes elaborate and international dishes seen perhaps on the internet. So then you prepare traditional dishes with innovation and a greater awareness of what you are cooking. I always tell my kids that "The eyes eat first... but it is in the mouth that taste wins!" Aesthetics is fundamental in the presentation of my dishes, it must activate all the other senses to fully enjoy what you are going to eat next. My cooking is my way of communicating, my instrument of creativity, it is my whole being full of spontaneity. The mixing of incredible flavours with simple but sometimes surprising smells. My guests appreciate this philosophy. They feel welcome and enjoy my dishes without any superstructure because in my restaurant they feel at home with a chef in the kitchen.
The most embarrassing situation you had to face in your restaurant?
I am more and more convinced that I should shoot a reality show in the restaurant. Every day something happens that I could write a chapter of a book about or start a TV series! Fortunately I work with a team of professionals who know how to handle every situation with professionalism and courtesy. Some time ago, on an evening when the restaurant was in full swing, some customers were stuffing our cutlery trays into their bags and sleeves, in a rather haphazard manner.
Not having tablecloths on our tables and changing the cutlery for each course, it was easy to notice their disappearance. When I left to say goodbye to the room, a lady from that table came to ask me for a photo, only for the cutlery holder to slip from her sleeve, making noise and generating laughter from those present and above all my amazement! Photo taken, but on condition that I get the stolen goods back on the table!
What's boiling in the pot?
I am constantly evolving and with my team we are working on new projects for our clients and new events to be organised. With the Constance Hotels&Resorts group, we will take the taste and flavour of my cuisine and Italian style overseas with exclusive events and already sold out with the brand "Alessandro Borghese - the luxury of simplicity".
I like to write. When I write, often in English, I rearrange scenes, music, faces, smiles, moments; and then I sit in front of the keyboard and switch on the PC. I only regret that I have not yet managed to get beyond the fifth chapter of my erotic novel, stuck in a folder on the desktop!
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