Massimo Bottura ambassador of Italy for ENIT: the ten ideal pairings of food and culture
PRESS RELEASE
MASSIMO BOTTURA AMBASSADOR OF ITALY FOR ENIT: THE TEN IDEAL PAIRINGS OF FOOD AND CULTURE
NATIONAL TOURIST BOARD LAUNCHES FOOD AND WINE CAMPAIGNS
Massimo Bottura, one of the world's most influential chefs, is an ambassador of ENIT and of global tourism in Italy. ENIT is giving ample space to food and wine tourism, with dedicated digital and print campaigns both on the portal ITALIA.IT and with mega-posters in strategic locations around the world, such as airports and international squares. It is now Massimo Bottura's turn to succeed Roberto Bolle in America and in the agora par excellence, Times Square, but also in Belgium, Germany, France, the UK and Austria. The current food and wine advertising campaigns focus on two themes: The Italian lunch break and Italian shopping. The branded content campaign, on the other hand, is much broader, with food and wine themes also touched upon indirectly in articles and campaigns appearing in Belgium, Germany, UK, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Austria, Switzerland and Spain. In order to relaunch Italy in the world, Massimo Bottura also dispenses valuable advice on destinations exclusively on the official Italy website, extolling the strengths of the Bel Paese at the crossroads where food meets art and culture. “In almost every city and town in Italy there are stunning monuments and sites,” he says. “In every museum you find a masterpiece that moves you and teaches you something.” Thus he recommends pairings, such as the one that associates Osteria Gucci with the Uffizi in Florence to exalt the unusual and discover the beauty of the unexpected, seen as a futuristic apparition that reveals itself when “unexpectedly, to quote a small and stupendous embroidery by Alighiero Boetti, one stumbles upon the Italian wonder.”
“The day after Gucci Osteria opened in Florence,” he recalls, “I found myself walking alone through the city, and there was no one at the entrance to the Uffizi. I asked if it was closed, but they said ‘no, it’s just early.’ Past the grand staircase, I found myself in a corridor with large windows, bathed in a magical light. I was passing the Hall of the 13th century, when suddenly I doubled back and saw it: in front of me was the Madonna of All Saints, shining with pure gold and orange mouldings. It took my breath away. Never mind Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey, that Madonna is a fragment of the future, a spaceship (even in form) arriving from the past to transport us into the future, to reclaim new and infinite galaxies of culture.” The revitalising discoveries of Italy lead next to Piscinas and Monte Catria. That’s where the chef catches his breath. "The places to discover that I don't know anything about yet, the ones that you have to conquer somehow: like the beach of Piscinas, in Sardinia, where to get there you have to cross a dirt road and a small river among the sand dunes; or the hermitage of Monte Catria, in the highlands of Marche, a truly spiritual destination, even mentioned by Dante in the Divine Comedy.” Memories of his most memorable trips to Italy are linked to the route that takes him home, between Modena and Manhattan. A return to be “savoured” with a tortellino at Tortellante di Modena, but also with the emotion of an “aperitif on Mount Etna, suspended between Paradise and Inferno,” he declares. The flavours of childhood also lead him to other destinations, including Samboseto, Parma. It was 30 September 1970, his eighth birthday, when his parents took him on a culinary pilgrimage to a restaurant that was already legendary in those days: Peppino and Mirella Cantarelli's trattoria. “I can still taste the savarin, a rice timbale in a tongue crust, and guinea fowl in clay.” At Casa Maria Luigia in Modena, the plains hidden in the fog are something “that guards and protects a treasure: when you look at it, without seeing anything, you can dream of anything At the end of this journey of the imagination, you can explore the quiet and peaceful corners of the centuries-old park of Casa Maria Luigia, the residence-guest house I opened in the countryside near Modena. You can stop and sleep there, surrounded by tranquillity.”
Because Italy is, after all, a dream already inside us, and it's a dream that's expanding and pervading everywhere. “Inspiration always starts in our heads. We can see the ocean or the mountains in the parking lot of a truck stop, because we can imagine them. The pleasure of a journey is all in waiting to reach a destination.”
Francesca Cicatelli
ENIT Press Office
Phone: (+39) 392.9225216
e-mail: francesca.cicatelli@enit.it