Life is a journey of discovery and growth. We are in constant transformation, driven by a kaleidoscope of experiences and reflections that continually shape our perception of the world and ourselves. Each new day brings with it the opportunity to learn, to overcome challenges and embrace new perspectives, and each step we take brings us closer to a deeper understanding of who we are and what we can become. Our existence, in short, is inevitably, and wonderfully, linked to our conscious evolution, a path that is always in flux.
Simone Cipriani, who has been living in theelegant gastronomic loft in Florence, Essential, he has already shown himself to be a determined young man; while in fact the gastronomic world tended to add, he decided to aim straight for the goal of removing, in search of the essence of taste. Today there is more. Today it is time to add: new challenges and new perspectives on the wave of that consciousness that is like a blooming flower, with petals opening to new ideas, knowledge and connections. And so, Undergroundwhich not by chance recalls independent cultural or artistic expressions and experimentation, is planting the seed of the desire to make people understand how catering can be a vehicle for social and environmental change. Because after all, as history teaches us, evolution is formed on the non-passive acceptance of principles and dogmas, on criticism, on the awareness that life is liberated and expands into new territories.
But to retrace Simone's journey from the kitchens of the Holy Grail to Essential and then to the revolutionary look to the future, it is necessary to start from the beginning.
Simone, let's start with the choice of name for your restaurant project. What does Essential mean?
Essential is a nomen omen and is the answer we give to all the things we do inside the restaurant. When I left the Santo Graal kitchens, I had a strong desire to create a different restaurant project, to create a new way of understanding cuisine, service and ambience. Together with my partners, we started to ask ourselves many questions, such as whether it was right to propose the service as we had always been told and imposed on us: is it essential to do it that way or are there things that are more important and therefore more essential? So, at Essenziale the tables have drawers where each customer finds their cutlery, there is no need to redo the mise en place and times are shortened. The pass to the dining room, where the cooks have a way of experiencing the guests, and vice versa. We tried to understand what was essential for us, and also for our guests, to make catering more human-friendly.
In your cooking philosophy, what does it mean to take away in order to focus on the essence of taste?
It means not making useless parings for example. Preparing dishes for a mere aesthetic exercise, in my opinion, no longer makes sense. Dishes must be made for the sake of real taste.
Often in kitchens, even those that claim to be waste-conscious, the focus ends up being distorted by a cut of meat, fish or vegetables with numerous parings that produce a lot of waste: unnecessarily wasted raw material, thrown away. Here the starting question is: what is superfluous nowadays? Parings are superfluous, all the dogmas imposed by fine dining are superfluous, such as super-formal service, and imposed roles. I think we should stop for a moment and start again, utopically, to think people before roles. Creativity is certainly important, I myself am a creative person, one who needs innovation, but today more than ever I seek simplicity in the creation of dishes. This means precisely stepping out of roles; it means that the predominant element in creating a dish is not the creative part, the part that proves how good I am, but the search for taste, trying to get it expressed as best as possible.
I call it creative simplicity, and it is one of the values of Essential.
The other values are empathy, social contribution, individual performance, team spirit, honesty, assertiveness. But there is also aggression, understood as 'aggressive goals sometimes bigger than ourselves that require finding motivation in oneself to be achieved and taking one step at a time'. Is that what got you this far?
I believe this is a value that we all need more and more. We live in an age where everything seems within reach but in truth is ephemeral and we are surrounded by distractions. We definitely need to set clear and firm goals and try to reach them aggressively. Aggressiveness is a term that usually has a negative connotation; in this case, it means being realistic and having the courage and strength to succeed in achieving our goals and dreams. It is absolutely my own value, but also, and above all, a value shared by the entire team and which we try to spread as a training restaurant.
In your opinion, what are the really aggressive ingredients for a successful restaurant project today?
I have been asking myself this for some time. There is no vaccine for the economic and social crisis we are experiencing. The middle class is almost disappearing... In our own small way what we are doing is fortifying and renewing our values, the ones we have always believed in. And today the two values I believe in most are creating a social network and doing good to people by trying to make them aware that their food choices matter. We founded a new project called Underground.
We wanted to bring people to see what the words used in a restaurant when describing a dish cannot tell them, and so we planned a series of events on the farms and farms from which we have always sourced. People can see the real gestures of harvesting a product and we cook the same ingredients, freshly picked, in real time. It is the evolution of a product sourcing choice we have always made. Because today being successful is no longer about making the dish of the year; today people are looking for truth and consistency. Now more than ever it is essential to be consistent and maintain credibility and parity for a healthy and lasting relationship with the
customers.
So the producers have to stand next to the cook?
No, before the cook. The rock stars of the future are not the cooks, but the producers. Because everyone is good at talking about sustainability, but the future of this world are those who do truly sustainable agriculture, which means regenerative, caring above all for people and consequently for the planet.
Is Underground a way to touch consciences then?
The first agricultural act we have is the ingestion of food. If we choose to eat healthy food, that choice makes the farmer who produces healthy food more economically viable and can therefore continue to produce it. Food choices create a virtuous circle: they are good for people and good for the planet. We talked about creative simplicity, food choices, the essence of taste, credibility and consistency
What do you think people look for when they enter a restaurant?
I think everyone has become more aware. Before Covid, many people were obsessed with chefs, everyone wanted to be a chef; after Covid, people realised that working in the kitchen is no picnic and the craze of wanting to do this job has waned. Customers have also changed in recent years. Before, they were looking for the playful, the fun, the creative at all costs. Today, however, they are looking for the real, and that is a right involution. It doesn't matter whether you do tradition or whether you are creative, the important thing is that there is something real at the centre. And we come back to the issue of consistency and credibility.
Do you only offer Tuscan cuisine?
Absolutely not. My palate speaks Tuscan, but I have travelled a lot and I love to contaminate my cuisine with many things. I don't believe that dishes must necessarily have a language; on the contrary, I think they should be, in respect of the values we spoke about earlier, contaminated as much as possible by techniques and ingredients from the rest of the world. So my basic dishes certainly speak Tuscan, but then there are the influences of countries that have left their mark on me, such as Japan... A bit of contamination is also necessary to combat boredom!
Simone back to aggression. What is your next aggressive goal?
My next aggressive goal is precisely Underground, which will not, at least for now, be a new restaurant project. It is the evolution of the Essential concept. For 23 years I have been
in the kitchen and after so many years in which you have been in this business just to give a service and to gratify an ego, at some point you have to shift focus. The focus of Underground, and mine, is to do good for people, the planet, to get a message across, potentially influencing the market in a positive way.
I want to shift my values to more real and important things, trying to leave my mark, making sure that people, after eating what I cook, can take home not only the experience, but also a thought. Yes, my very aggressive and very utopian goal is to be able to do something, with Underground, that can be an example for the next generations of chefs, that can inspire customers, people, to try to make them more attentive to the way they eat.
Underground is the evolution of the search for the essential, but also the evolution of Simone Cipriani then?
Yes, I think it is. Underground is a life project.
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