Chef Colagreco and his staff spent a few days in our city as they are unusually “student”, guests of the prestigious Pastry Concept training center. The center, born five years ago in Conegliano from the thirty-year experience of the Master Pastry Chef world champion Leonardo Di Carlo and his wife Michela, is a reference point for the great professionals and companies in the gastronomic sector. A convivial but at the same time rigorous environment in which chefs, pastry chefs and managers of research and development of food companies from all over the world meet to learn the techniques and the revolutionary methods of the Master and sharing experiences and knowledge. What better opportunity for the starred Chef?

A Chef without borders

Mauro Colagreco defines himself as a chef without borders, both territorial and of taste. He sure has one uncommon quantity of flags to display boasting Argentine origins, three Italian grandparents and one Basque, a Brazilian wife and several restaurants around the world including the one declared the best in the world in France. After graduating as a chef at the Collegio de Gastronomia Gato Dumas of Buenos Aires chooses the court of the great of France to perfect his art. Many the illustrious names that head in his curriculum including that of Alain Ducasse, Bernard Loisau ed Alain Passard. At the latter’s three-Michelin-star Arpége restaurant he learns the importance of how vegetarian cuisine can become a high and experimental cuisine. A revolution immediately embraced by Chef Mauro Colagreco. In 2006 he opened his first restaurant in Menton, on the Cote d’Azur, the Mirazur. Hence a series of uninterrupted and deserved successes that it have lead to obtaining the first Michelin star in 2007, to be elected Chef of the Year for guide Gault & Millau in 2009, to the second star in 2012 and to the three Michelin stars in 2019. In  the same year the Mirazur was recognized as the best restaurant in the world.

Seasonality, territoriality, contrasts

His is a cuisine made of seasonality, territoriality and contrasts. His genius derives from the experience and tireless research of contamination of flavors. “Food is an emotion without border ”, we read in one of his many interviews, and this is precisely the identity imprint of his kitchen, a hymn to sharing, an open kitchen, made of contrasts and combinations of techniques and flavors that draw a harmonious picture in which the place of honor is reserved for vegetables grown with extreme care in his garden. A free and sustainable cuisine where the sea meets the mountain on the menu often devoid of strategies with the sole aim of creating balance and enhancing the maximum flavor and naturalness of the ingredients. A culinary journey made of homages to many lands visited, those that welcomed him or those that simply moved him.

Moral of the story

The moral of the story is simple. Commitment and perseverance always reward. A story a happy ending studded with tragic events, second thoughts, discouragement but also successes, goals and lots of love. And it is a teaching in which we believe a lot. It was exciting to welcome him Chef and his staff together with Maestro Di Carlo, with whom we have had a happy collaboration and to which we are bound by deep esteem. A break from the intense rhythm of the training course of two Masters during which we had the pleasure of visiting our cellar, illustrating the our work and discuss the importance of the commitment that each of us puts into every day give prestige to one’s work and to the territory that hosts us, that of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore in our case, preserving its integrity and glory. The moral of the story is that for those few hours that we had the pleasure of dealing with two people, even before two personalities, they have shown us with their way of being to the world of how humility is the background of professionalism and of how much the two things are inseparable and indispensable to achieve ever higher goals.
Finally the Chef gave us some very beautiful words that they recite
“It is a great pleasure to be able to discover your world, an expression of the passion and love for territory”.
It was a pleasure to have welcomed Chef Colagreco with the best wishes and to be able to see us again.