Young, passionate and anything but conventional as she likes to call herself and her all-female brigade, Tina Marcellias a child, she knew that she would be a cook. As a child, guided by her grandmother's spirit that she carries in her heart and childhood memories, she passionately leads the cuisine of the Feuerstein Nature Family Resort and the gourmet restaurant "Artifex"He proposes dishes linked to tradition but interpreted in his own way with a marked spirit of research and experimentation. Having won a green Michelin star, after years of hard work, he now pursues the goal of a red Michelin star, continuing to convey his identity in each dish he creates with the dream that, one day not too far away, it will become recognisable simply by looking at a photo, just like great works of art.
When did you first realise that cooking was your passion? And how much did it influence the fact that your dad was a chef?
When I was 8 years old, or maybe even earlier, I realised that cooking was my path thanks to my grandmother and my father who passed on the love for this profession to me. As a child, I felt that food brought people together and created that magic that only the table can do, so it was immediately clear to me that being a cook would be my destiny.
It says on the restaurant's website that you have a 'treasure room'. What is it?
Priceless treasures (laughs).....sí, we have created a room that I also like to call a vault, where we have more than 300 fermenting jars with fruit and vegetables,
syrups, fruit preserves, grappa and many other delicacies. They are the result of our experimentation and desire to have special ingredients to offer, and to preserve what the earth here gives us only at certain times of the year and with which we satisfy our guests throughout the winter. We believe in, and have focused on, sustainability and real, non-zero km, which is too blatant and often untrue.
Is tradition or innovation in the kitchen more important to you?
Both, I would say... I try to take tradition and bring it into today's dishes, combining this with a great deal of research. So, for example, we recovered a very old native cherry tree that was no longer cultivated, so much so that only the elderly remembered it, and we tried to re-plant it; today we have four trees that give us wonderful cherries, very rich in vitamin C and with much less sugar than the traditional ones, which we then fermented in our treasure room.
Tell us more about this quest of yours so far...
We try to have available even here in the mountains those products that are generally not found because they do not belong to our territory, such as truffles, for example. So starting with a turnip that in wartime was only fed to pigs, we wrapped it in a crust of bread and enriched it with the typical flavours of our area and then baked it in the oven: we then left it to ferment for a year and at the end, the result is a kind of truffle that is surprisingly similar both in taste and flavour to the original one.
Your grandmother was a source of great inspiration. What was her dish that you loved the most?
Obviously the speck dumplings, which no one could do as well as she did. What counts most in the creation of a dish: ingredients, creativity, originality...?
There is everything, and above all there is the taste, which for me is the most important part and counts much more than the appearance. So over the years, I started to take out what I thought was not needed, even if it made it more beautiful.
How many years did it take to earn a Michelin green star? What did you focus on in the kitchen to achieve this result?
The star has always been my dream and I have been working towards it. For the past five years we have worked towards it, improving year by year
and focusing more and more on detail, gradually decreasing the elements on the plate and arriving at a result that I would say is perfect now. This I believe has been our winning weapon.
What is your next goal?
The red star remained in the drawer, although I am very happy with the recognition I got with the green one...
You are in a borderland: how much does such a close encounter with similar but at the same time different cultures influence your cuisine?
I am definitely in the perfect place for my cooking: Austria, Germany and especially Bavaria have a big influence on our cuisine and then we are in Italy,
where there is the best food in the world. We mainly source in the Aurina valley and from local farmers.
I am very transparent about where the products I use come from and my guests are always informed about everything. I have no secrets about that (laughs).
What do you want your guests to remember about the Artifex experience?
My wish is to be able to convey my love of cooking in my dishes, in which my identity, my signature, is recognised. But my biggest dream is that the guest can leave thinking that he has felt pampered and spoiled as if he had been sitting at his grandmother's table and wrapped in her attentions. And then I would like that in the not too distant future, a dish of mine could be recognised simply by a photo. I work at it!
What would you recommend to a young cooking enthusiast to get started?
To always believe in dreams. Whatever you dream, you can achieve it. If there is passion you can achieve anything. Every day when I go to bed, I am so happy to be able to do this job, because it gives me so much. And when for some impediment, even health, I cannot work, I long for my kitchen.
Tell us a funny episode that happened to you over the years with a particular customer or an unusual situation... We had a German guest who wanted me to put the tartare on the grill and he was so insistent, saying that I had the wrong dish. After trying to explain to him that tartare doesn't cook, we grilled it for him and he was
overjoyed...
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