Carlo Cracco - chef and TV presenter

Former MasterChef Italia judge has won six Michelin stars

Carlo Cracco learned his craft under
renowned chef Gualtiero Marchesi

The chef and television presenter Carlo Cracco, who has restaurants in Milan, the jet-set resort of Portofino and is shortly to open his first venture in London, was born on this day in Creazzo, a town just outside the city of Vicenza.

During his career as a chef, which began in earnest when he began working for the renowned Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan in 1986, Cracco has been awarded a total of six Michelin stars.

He has also enjoyed a successful career in television. Between 2011 and 2017 he was a judge on MasterChef Italia and he fronted Hell’s Kitchen Italia from 2014 to 2018. Among other shows in which he participated was Cracco Confidential, a 2018 documentary about a year in his life.

The son of a railway worker, Cracco obtained a diploma in hospitality from the Pellegrino Artusi hotel institute in Recoaro Terme, while working at the Da Remo restaurant in Vicenza.

From there he joined the kitchen of Gualtiero Marchesi at his eponymous restaurant in Via Bonvesin de la Riva in Milan.

The experience was a real baptism of fire. Marchesi is regarded as the Godfather of modern Italian cuisine and his restaurant in the Porta Venezia district of central Milan was the first in Italy to be awarded three Michelin stars.

To expand his knowledge, Cracco spent some time in France, working with leading chefs Alain Ducasse at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, and Alain Senderins at the Lucas Carlton in Paris.

Cracco's flagship restaurant can be
found in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Returning to Italy in 1991, Cracco became head chef at L’Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, winning his first two Michelin stars, before reuniting with his mentor Marchesi at L’Albereta, in the town of Erbusco, near Brescia.

From there, he decided to go it alone. After his first venture, Le Clivie at Piobesi d'Alba, southwest of Asti in Piedmont, had earned him another Michelin star, he returned to Milan, where he agreed a deal with the owners of Peck, the luxury food emporium, to open a restaurant called Peck-Cracco.

It was awarded two Michelin stars, soon becoming known simply as ‘Cracco’. He would remain there for 17 years before relocating to new premises within the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the glass-domed 19th century shopping arcade that links Piazza del Duomo with Piazza della Scala. 

Also in Milan, Cracco opened Carlo e Camilla in Segheria, a bistro that takes its name from a disused sawmill, in the Navigli area. In November 2016 he opened his first restaurant outside Italy, OVO by Carlo Cracco, located in Moscow inside the Hotel Lotte.

His Portofino restaurant, Cracco Portofino, opened in 2021 in what was previously the Ristorante Il Pitosforo, directly opposite the harbour. His first London venture - Terra Cracco - within the Eataly food store in Bishopsgate, London is due to open in October, 2024.

From 2014 to 2018, Cracco fronted the
reality TV show Hell's Kitchen Italia

Cracco’s inventive creations include twists on traditional dishes such as Cotoletta alla Milanese and Insalata Russa. His version of the Milanese veal cutlet is a slice of pounded raw Piedmont veal on a rectangle of breadcrumbs, with slivers of lemon peel on the side. 

His Russian Salad, meanwhile, comes caramelised, a crisp nugget of peas, carrot and beans with a creamy mayonnaise centre within its sugar shell. 

Another of Cracco’s signature creations is his marinated egg yolk in salt and sugar, which can be rolled out into pasta without the addition of flour or water.

Not all of his inventions have met with universal approval. His 'healthy' pizza with a grain base was mocked by traditionalists, particularly in Naples, while the town of Amatrice in Lazio disapproved of his addition of garlic to their trademark amatriciana pasta sauce, which is made simply with guanciale (pig’s cheek), tomatoes, pecorino cheese and black pepper.

However, Cracco successfully sued a newspaper in Verona over comments made by its editor following a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the city’s annual wine festival, where 400 guests were served with a meal cooked by the chef and his team. 

The Villa Masiero-Pegoraro-Monti is one of a 
several elegant villas in the hills around Creazzo

Travel tip:

Creazzo, where Carlo Cracco was born, has been inhabited since Rome times and perhaps earlier. Situated about 7km (4 miles) west of the city of Vicenza, it has a historical significance because of the Battle of Creazzo in 1513, which was part of the larger conflict between the Republic of Venice and the combined forces of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, which highlighted the town’s strategic importance. The town came under Venetian rule and the influence of Venetian architecture and culture can still be seen in the town’s buildings and traditions. In an area of fertile land, Creazzo is known for the production of figs, cheese and a variety of broccoli called Broccoli fiolaro di Creazzo. As well as an elegant centre, the hills around Creazzo are also distinguished by a series of elegant villas including the 18th-century Villa Fadinelli-Suppiej, or Villa dei Veneziani; the Villa Legrenzi, also known as Villa del Sole; and the Villa Masiero-Pegoraro-Monti.

The Navigli district is one of the most popular
areas of Milan for restaurants and night life

Travel tip:

The Navigli district, where Cracco opened the Carlo e Camilla in Segheria bistro, is an area to the southwest of central Milan that originally consisted of five canals used for commercial transport in the city that date back to the Middle Ages. Their importance declined in the last century and only two - Naviglio Grande and Naviglio Pavese - still exist.  Once a poor neighbourhood, the Navigli is now very popular for the restaurants and bars that line the two waterways and is often thronged with young Milanese in the evenings. What is reputed to be Milan’s best flea and antiques market is held on the last Sunday of the month, with almost two kilometres (one and a quarter miles) of stalls lining the Naviglio Grande. The area still has some examples of palazzi di ringhiera - tenement buildings with shared balconies - which were once typical of the city. 

Also on this day:

1551: The birth of composer Giulio Caccini

1881: The birth of Mona Lisa thief Vincenzo Perrugia

1957: The birth of footballer Antonio Cabrini

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Massimiliano Alajmo – Michelin-starred chef

Innovative cook is carrying on a family tradition 

Massimiliano Alajmo has been
working at Le Calandre since 1993

Massimiliano “Max” Alajmo, who at 28 years old became the youngest chef in history to be awarded a Michelin star, was born on this day in 1974 in Padua.

Along with his brother, Raffaele, and his sister, Laura, Alajmo is part of the fifth generation of his family to become a chefs and restaurateurs and he now helps them run a group of 14 restaurants, mainly situated in the Veneto region of Italy, as well as in Paris and Marrakech.

Alajmo is renowned for a culinary philosophy that emphasizes lightness and depth of flavour, often illustrated in innovative takes on Italian classics. Some of the more distinctive dishes on his menu include: crispy buffalo’s milk ricotta and mozzarella cannelloni with tomato sauce, saffron risotto with liquorice powder, and hand-chopped Piemontese beef with black truffle. One of his most famous dishes is risotto with capers and espresso.

After attending a hotel management school, Alajmo furthered his culinary education in the kitchens of Alfredo Chiocchetti of Ja Navalge in the comune - municipality - of Moena, which is in the heart of the Dolomites in Trentino Alto Adige.

He then moved on to work with Marc Veyrat and Michel Guerard at restaurants in Veyrier du Lac d'Annecy and Eugénie les Bains in France. . 

In 1993 he began working at Le Calandre in Sarmeola di Rubano in Padua with his mother, the chef Rita Chimetto, who had earned the restaurant its first Michelin star.  Rubano has always been the family’s base.

Saffron risotto sprinkled with powdered liquorice
is one of the signature dishes on Alajmo menus

Alajmo was later appointed executive chef of Le Calandre. The restaurant was awarded a second Michelin star in 1997 and in 2002 it received its third, thanks to Massimiliano.

In 2006, Alajmo and his family self-published their first cookbook, In.gredienti. It won Best Cookbook of the Year at the 2007 Gourmand International World Cookbook Awards.

After remodelling the dining room of Le Calandre in 2010, the family launched Alajmo Design, a line of glassware, tableware, and cutlery produced by Italian craftsmen.

In 2011, the Alajmo family then took on the management of Quadri, the famous café in St Mark’s Square in Venice. Unlike its rival, Caffè Florian, Quadri has its own restaurant, the only one on the square. 

Since 2013, Alajmo has been on the board of directors of Master della Cucina Italiana, a culinary school developed to shape a new generation of Italian chefs.

Alajmo is also involved with Il Gusto della Ricerca, a non-profit organisation founded in 2004 to raise funds to support research into childhood illnesses.

Le Calandre, the headquarters of the Alajmo Group, was originally opened in 1981 by Erminio Alajmo and Rita Chimetto. When the restaurant earned its third Michelin star in 2003, it made Massimiliano, at the age of 28, the youngest chef in the world to have received this recognition. 

The restaurant has also remained on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for more than ten years.

Le Calandre is the Alajmo family's original base
and main restaurant in Sarmeola di Rubano

Travel tip:

Rubano, home of the Alajmo family’s flagship restaurant, Le Calandre, is a municipality of 16,631 inhabitants about 5km (three miles) west of the city centre of Padua in the Veneto. It consists of three villages: Bosco di Rubano, Sarmeola and Villaguattera.  Padua itself is one of the most important centres for art in Italy and home to the country’s second oldest university. It has become acknowledged as the birthplace of modern art because of the Scrovegni Chapel, the inside of which is covered with frescoes by Giotto, an artistic genius who was the first to paint people with realistic facial expressions showing emotion. His scenes depicting the lives of Mary and Joseph, painted between 1303 and 1305, are considered his greatest achievement and one of the world’s most important works of art. At Palazzo Bo, where Padua’s university was founded in 1222, you can still see the original lectern used by Galileo and the world’s first anatomy theatre, where dissections were secretly carried out from 1594.

The town of Moena nestles in Val di Fossa
in the Trentino region of northern Italy

Travel tip:

Moena, where Alajmo worked in the kitchens of Alfredo Chiocchetti of Ja Navalge, is sometimes known as the “Fairy of the Dolomites”, a charming town in Val di Fassa celebrated for the enchanting pink light that bathes the mountain tops at sunrise and sunset, offering breathtaking views. A major ski resort during the winter, when visitors can enjoy a network of ski lifts and slopes suitable for all levels, during the summer months, the town offers picturesque walks in the countryside, mountain hiking and cycling. Its local cuisine includes Puzzone di Moena DOP cheese, while among its cultural highlights are the church of San Vigilio, which has a Gothic bell tower and 18th-century paintings by Valentino Rovisi, and the ancient church of San Volfango, featuring 15th-century frescoes and a Baroque ceiling.  The area is notable for its high number of residents who speak the Ladin dialect, based on an ancient language derived from Latin.

Also on this day:

1527: Rome sacked by soldiers of Holy Roman Empire

1895: The birth of silent movie star Rudolph Valentino

1905: The birth of architect and polymath Carlo Mollino

1963: The birth of ballerina Alessandra Ferri

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Ettore Boiardi - entrepreneur

Emilian immigrant who founded canned pasta brand

Boiardi wowed diners with
his signature pasta sauce

Ettore Boiardi, the former New York chef whose name lives on in the Chef Boyardee canned pasta products brand, was born on this day in 1897 in Piacenza, now part of the Emilia-Romagna region.

Boiardi, whose culinary skills first gained popularity when he was working in the kitchens of the iconic Plaza Hotel in New York, hit upon the idea of selling cook-at-home Italian food after opening his first restaurant while still in his 20s.

He and his brother, Paolo, built a company that employed 5,000 staff and filled 250,000 cans per day at its peak, making the Chef Boyardee brand a familiar sight in grocery stores across America. 

They eventually sold the business for $6 million dollars in 1948 but the Chef Boyardee brand never went away. Today, Chef Boyardee products, which still carry Ettore Boiardi’s image on their packaging, are made and marketed by Chicago-based Conagra Brands.

Ettore and Paolo grew up in Piacenza.  Their parents, Giuseppe and Maria, inspired them to be interested in food from an early age and Ettore was working in a local restaurant, La Croce Bianca, by the time he was 11. Although his tasks were limited to peeling potatoes, emptying waste bins and other menial duties, he performed them while observing how the head chef created dishes to serve to his customers.

Like many young Italians of his time, Ettore believed he would need to go abroad if he was to make something of his life. As a teenager, he made his way to Paris and London, taking work where he could to gain experience. 

Ettore (centre) with brothers Mario (left) and
Paolo pictured at their factory in Milton

Paolo, meanwhile, had emigrated to New York, his waiting skills enabling him to climb quickly to the role of Maître d’hôtel at the Plaza. Ettore managed to join him there in 1914 after crossing the Atlantic on a French-registered ship, La Lorraine, and with his brother’s help became a sous chef in the hotel’s kitchen. Allowed to cook some of the Emilian recipes he knew from home, Ettore quickly acquired a following among the hotel’s well-heeled clients.

Indeed, such was his popularity that word quickly spread about his culinary talents and he enjoyed a meteoric rise. Within a year of disembarking at Ellis Island, he had been hired as head chef by the Barbetta restaurant on 46th Street and was soon also headhunted by the exclusive Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

It was there, at the age of just 17, that Boiardi is said to have been put in charge of catering at the wedding reception of the US President, Woodrow Wilson, and his second wife, Edith. Wilson was so impressed he asked Boiardi to supervise a homecoming meal for 2,000 soldiers returning from service in World War One.

An offer to be head of the kitchen at the prestigious Hotel Winton took him next to Cleveland, Ohio, where he met and married his wife, Helen, who encouraged him to open his own restaurant, the Giardino d’Italia, in 1926.  It was something of a gamble. While Italian restaurants were rapidly gaining popularity in the cities of the east and west coasts, there were still comparatively few inland.

Ettore's image still figures on the packaging
labels of Chef Boyardee products today

Yet the rarity factor worked in Boiardi’s favour. Word soon spread among Cleveland diners that the young chef’s signature sauce, served with spaghetti and sprinkled with grated hard cheese, was something special. Not only did the Giardino d’Italia frequently have queues of people waiting for a table, its customers, once they had tried the sauce, began asking for an extra portion to take home. 

Boiardi obliged by filling sterilised milk bottles with the sauce. This was noticed by two of his regular customers, Maurice and Eva Weiner, who were the owners of a nationwide chain of grocery stores. They suggested he should consider canning the sauce, which they could sell in their shops.

So it was that Helen and Ettore - now known by his anglicised name of Hector - were joined by Paolo and another brother, Mario, in launching the Chef Boiardi Food Company, in 1928, selling the sauce together with packs of spaghetti and tubs of grated parmesan cheese as a ready-to-heat meal kit.

In time, the name was changed to Chef Boyardee, which the brothers reasoned wa easier for Americans to pronounce, and production shifted to a bigger plant in Milton, Pennsylvania, which Boairdi chose for its fertile soil so that he could use locally-produced tomatoes, the key ingredient of his sauces, which eventually required him to produced 20,000 tons every year.

The Second World War created problems for the company, despite being handed a contract to produce ration packs for American servicemen. By the end of the war, maintaining 24-hour production and employing 5,000 staff in their factories became too much for the brothers, who decided to sell up to American Home Foods.

By the time Ettore died in 1985, at the age of 87, Chef Boyardee lines were grossing $500 million a year as one of the best-known tinned pasta brands in America.

The Palazzo Comunale in Piacenza, flanked by
Francesco Mochi's equestrian statues 

Travel tip:

Piacenza, where Ettore Boiardi was born, is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. The main square in Piacenza is named Piazza Cavalli because of its two bronze equestrian monuments featuring Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma and his son Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, who succeeded him. The statues are masterpieces by the sculptor Francesco Mochi.  The square is dominated by the Palazzo Comunale, also known as il Gotico, was built in 1281 as the town hall. With its pink marble and brick facade, notable for its five arcades, it is an excellent example of civil architecture in Lombard Gothic style.  The city is situated between the River Po and the Apennines, between Bologna and Milan. It has many fine churches and old palaces. Piacenza Cathedral was built in 1122 and is a good example of northern Italian Romanesque architecture.

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese is one of many
food products from Emilia-Romagna

Travel tip: 

The Emilia-Romagna region is widely regarded as one of the food capitals of  Europe. Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar from Modena and Prosciutto di Parma cured ham all originated in Emilia-Romagna, while ragù bolognese meat sauce originates in the region capital of Bologna, although it would be served with tagliatelle rather than spaghetti in Italy. The stuffed pasta dish tortellini in brodo - cushions of pasta filled with mortadella, prosciutto and pork loin served in a clear chicken broth - is another local speciality.  Historically, it was the cities of Emilia - Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena and Ferrara - whose cuisines were dominated by pork and pork products, although the whole region is renowned as a meat-eater’s paradise. 

Also on this day:

1885: The birth of tenor Giovanni Martinelli

1946: The birth of singer Roberto Loreti

1965: The birth of actress Valeria Golino

1967: The birth of conductor Salvatore Di Vittorio

1968: Soave wine awarded DOC status

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Festa del Papà - Father’s Day

Italian celebration this year coincides with Mothering Sunday in UK

While today marks Mothering Sunday - or Mother’s Day - in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, the Italian tradition is that celebrations on this day in the religious calendar are for Father’s Day.

La Festa del Papà in Italy owes its history to La Festa di San Giuseppe - St Joseph’s Day - the annual celebration that has been held since the Middle Ages to recognise the role of Joseph, the husband of Mary, as the legal if not the biological father of Jesus Christ.

In Catholic tradition, Saint Joseph is the embodiment of the ideal father, a strong, pious character perfectly suited to fulfil his role as protector of and provider for his family. 

For many years, the Festa di San Giuseppe - which always falls on March 19, regardless of whether it is a weekday or a weekend - remained a largely religious celebration. But, thanks to the growth of commercialism around family celebration days, it has taken a lead from Father’s Days around the world, and in particular the United States, and expanded into something bigger.

So nowadays, in common with Father’s Days around the world, La Festa del Papà is an occasion for children to show their appreciation and affection for their own fathers by making cards and giving treats and gifts.

Schools will often devote time in the week leading to March 19 by setting aside craft lesson time to making cards and gifts, with students encouraged to fill the card with their own verses.

And naturally, being Italy, gifts often take the form of food, with a number of different cakes and pastries becoming traditional on Father’s Day.

An example of Zeppole di San Giuseppe, one of
Italy's traditional Father's Day treats

This is thought to originate in a story in the Gospel of St Matthew in which Joseph and Mary were visited by an angel and warned to flee to Egypt so that their baby son would be kept out of the clutches of King Herod.

When they arrived, Joseph is said to have helped support the family by making and selling sweet pancakes.

The classic Italian Father’s Day pastries are Bignè di San Giuseppe, fried cream puffs filled with custard and dusted in icing sugar. Although Bignè di San Giuseppe are available throughout Italy all year round, they are made in particular quantities around Father’s Day.

In the south of Italy, the equivalent is the Zeppole di San Giuseppe, a similar concoction to Bignè, made with puff pastry, custard and icing sugar, topped with a glazed cherry.

A recipe for these zeppole appeared in Cucina teorico-pratica, a 19th century cookery guide compiled by Ippolito Cavalcanti, a food-loving aristocrat who went under the title Duke of Buonvicino, first published in 1837 and still being reprinted today. The book is considered something of a bible of Neapolitan cuisine.

In Sicily, meanwhile, the Sfincia di San Giuseppe is filled with sweet ricotta, candied fruit and chopped pistachio nuts, while shops in the north of Italy might have Ravioli di San Giuseppe - ravioli made with shortcrust pastry and filled with jam.

The Festa di San Giuseppe in Sicily is also celebrated in some households with the preparation of a soup called maccu di San Giuseppe, made with crushed fava beans, also known as broad beans.

Another part of the gift-giving element of the Festa del Papà is thought to come from Saint Joseph’s role as the patron saint of carpenters. Originally, wooden toys and trinkets were exchanged between all relatives on Festa di San Giuseppe, the practice evolving into one in which children gave wooden gifts to their father. 

An overhead view of Zaha Hadid's extraordinarily 
futuristic Stazione Napoli-Afragola 

Travel tip:

Ippolito Cavalcanti, the aristocratic gourmet who described Zeppole di San Giuseppe in his cookery guide Cucina teorico-pratica, was born in Afragola, a city today of almost 65,000 people but subsumed into the sprawl of greater Naples. Situated around 10km (6 miles) northeast from Piazza del Plebiscito, Afragola’s history is thought to date back to around 300BC when it was settled by a tribe called the Samnites, although remains dated as of Bronze Age vintage, thought to have been buried in an eruption of Vesuvius, were found in 2005.  Today’s Afragola, sadly, is an area of social problems, high unemployment and high crime rate, yet it is home to one of Italy’s most futuristic railway stations, the extraordinary Napoli-Afragola station designed by British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid and opened in 2017 for a new high speed line from northern to southern Italy.

Iginio Massari's Pasticceria Veneto is consistently
recognised as one of Italy's best pastry shops

Travel tip:

The best pastry shop in all Italy - and there is plenty of competition - is generally reckoned to be the multiple award-winning Pasticceria Veneto in Via Salvo D'Acquisto in the northern city of Brescia. Opened in 1971 by the Brescia-born pastry chef Iginio Massari, Pasticceria Veneto has dominated the pasticcerie section of the annual Gambero Rosso awards since 2011, receiving the coveted Tre Torte mark from the food magazine every year.  The store, often described as a pastry laboratory rather than simply a bakery thanks to 80-year-old Massari’s constant innovation, has been stocking a number of treats in anticipation of Father’s Day. The chef’s own creation for the occasion is a caramelized millefeuille.

Also on this day:

1661: The birth of musician Francesco Gasparini

1816: The death of physician and businessman Filippo Mazzei

1914: The death of seismologist Guiseppe Mercalli

1923: The birth of cartoonist Benito Jacovitti

1943: The birth of technocrat PM Mario Monti

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Panettone and pandoro - festive treats

Which can claim the oldest Christmas tradition?

Panettone is served as a Christmas treat by families
not just in Italy but all over the world

The festive treats tucked into by Italian families on Christmas Day almost always include a wedge or slice of panettone, the fluffy sweet bread with the familiar dome shape that sells in tens of millions at this time of year.

In little more than 100 years since it was first produced commercially on a large scale, panettone has gained such popularity that it has become readily available in food outlets on almost every continent.

It is rare to find a supermarket in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, or in most western European countries, which does not have panettone jostling for shelf space with indigenous Christmas specialities.

Nowadays, panettone is finding increasing competition from another Italian sweet bread frequently seen on Christmas tables, its tall star-shaped rival, pandoro.  

A recent Twitter poll conducted by the website thelocal.it found that panettone was still the preferred choice of about two thirds of participants, but pandoro’s popularity is almost certainly on the rise.

Bauli is one of the oldest brands of 
the classic panettone bread

But which of them has the more authentic historical claim to be Italy’s true Christmas cake?

One story in Italian folklore claims that panettone was served at a lavish, 12-course Christmas Eve banquet thrown in the late 15th century by Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, but only after the dessert made by the Duke’s head pastry chef, had accidentally been burned. 

A young kitchen assistant called Toni is said to have saved the day by adding raisins and orange peel to some dough left over from the original dessert to fashion an impromptu cake. The Duke and his guests are said to have enjoyed the cake so much they asked the pastry chef what it was called, to which he replied ‘Pane di Toni’ - Tony’s bread.

There is no way of knowing whether that story is authentic. The earliest actual record of a sweet bread resembling panettone is that which appeared in a register of expenses of the Borromeo college of Pavia in 1599.

The entry for December 23 of that year includes the costs for five pounds of butter, two pounds of raisins and three ounces of spices for the baker to make 13 loaves to be given to college students on Christmas Day.

Large scale manufacture of panettone began in Milan in the early part of the 20th century. Baker Angelo Motta was the first to set up a production facility for the bread, creating its characteristic dome shape by making the dough rise three times in a 20-hour period.

Pandoro is often sliced and dusted with
icing sugar for the Christmas table 

Pandoro is similarly thought to date back to the 15th century, when Venetian bakers are said to have dusted cone-shaped loaves with real gold for their wealthy clients, hence the name pan d’oro - bread of gold - although others believe the name derives from the golden colour obtained by adding egg to the dough.

The pandoro made today, though, originates in Verona and is thought to have evolved from a traditional Veronese Christmas cake called nadalin, invented in the 13th century to celebrate the first Christmas in the city under the rule of the Scala family. 

Nadalin was a flat cake with a crust of granulated sugar, marsala wine, almonds and pine nuts, but its star shape, said to represent the comet that guided the Magi to Bethlehem, is thought to have been the inspiration for the shape of pandoro.

Industrial-scale production of pandoro began in Verona 1894 in a factory begun by entrepreneur Domenico Melegatti.

Both panettone and pandoro are sold today as Christmas specialities. Pandoro generally comes with icing sugar to sprinkle over the cone before serving. A popular way to serve pandoro is to slice the bread horizontally and arrange the star-shaped slices so that they resemble the shape of a Christmas tree.

The Roman amphitheatre in Verona is one of 
the city'a many tourist attractions

Travel tip:

Verona, the traditional home of pandoro, is the third largest city in northeast  Italy, with a population across its whole urban area of more than 700,000. It has a wealth of tourist attractions, of which the Roman amphitheatre known the world over as L’Arena di Verona is just one. The city was also the setting for three plays by Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew - although it is unknown whether the English playwright ever actually set foot in the city.  Nonetheless, tourists flock to visit a 13th century house in Verona where Juliet is said to have lived, even though there is no evidence that Juliet and Romeo actually existed and the balcony said to have inspired Shakespeare’s imagination was not added until the early 20th century.

The beautiful Piazza Ducale in Vigevano, as
seen from the Castello Sforzesco

Travel tip:

The banquet thrown by Ludovico il Moro, who was a member of the Sforza family, quite likely took place at the Castello Sforzesco in Vigevano, a Lombard fortress developed by the Visconti family and rebuilt between 1492–94 for Ludovico, who transformed the fortification into a rich noble residence. Leonardo da Vinci was often his guest at Vigevano, as was the architect Donato Bramante, who designed the tower that watches over the beautiful rectangular Piazza Ducale, which was completed in 1493 as the forecourt to the castle.  The Peroni Brewery was founded by Giovanni Peroni in Vigevano in 1846.

Also on this day:

800: Charlemagne, King of the Franks and the Lombards, crowned Holy Roman Emperor

1874: The birth of soprano Lina Cavalieri

1988: The birth of singer-songwriter Marco Mengoni

Natale - Christmas Day

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Massimo Bottura - chef and food activist

Leading restaurateur who set up project to feed hungry

Massimo Bottura is seen as one of
the world's best chefs

The chef and restaurateur Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana in his hometown of Modena has twice been named as the world’s best restaurant, was born on this day in 1962.

Bottura is also the founder, in partnership with his American-born wife, the former actress and artist Lara Gilmore, of Food for Soul, a non-profit organisation that sets out to combat waste and feed the hungry through a network of refectories in major cities around the world.

The Food for Soul project was launched in 2015 with a refettorio in Greco, a poor district of northern Milan, and has expanded to the extent that it now numbers seven similar dining rooms for the hungry and homeless, in London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro as well as at three other locations in Italy.

As a young man, Bottura’s passions were food and football. He drew inspiration from the cooking of his mother and grandmothers in his dream of being a chef but envisioned a career as a footballer first, believing he had the talent to play professionally.

Lara Gilmore and Massimo Bottura met in
New York in the last 1980s

His father, a successful businessman, insisted he followed a different path, and Bottura enrolled instead to study law at university.  In 1986, however, before he had completed his degree, he made the bold decision to buy a dilapidated roadside trattoria on the outskirts of Modena, determined that if one of his dreams had been dashed, the other would not suffer the same fate.

He worked round the clock to restore the building and a week later his first restaurant, Trattoria del Campazzo, opened for business.  Encouraged by his mother, who argued with his father on his behalf, he was determined to make a success of it.

Bottura’s horizons were broadened by a surprise visit to Trattoria del Campazzo by Alain Ducasse, head chef of Le Louis XV, the restaurant at the Hôtel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Ducasse invited him to the kitchen at Le Louis XV, which is where effectively he had his apprenticeship.

Bottura's restaurant Osteria Francescana in
Modena has twice been named best in the world

He had met Lara while he was working in kitchens in New York in the late 1980s and she was an actress in experimental theatre.  He returned to pursue his education under Ducasse but they stayed in touch and in 1993 he invited her to Modena, to help him fulfil his ambition to open a new restaurant that combined food with contemporary art and design.

The culmination of their joint enterprise was the Osteria Francescana, on the corner of Via Stella and Via delle Rose in the centre of Modena. It opened on 19 March, 1995.  Bottura proposed to Lara the same day.

Bottura’s cooking took traditional Italian dishes and gave them a modern twist with a heavy accent on experimentation. At first, he struggled to win over local diners but had something of a lucky break when a renowned Italian food critic happened on the restaurant by chance in 2001 and gave the osteria a rave review.  It sparked a new wave of interest and within a year he had been awarded his first Michelin star.

The Osteria Francescana, which even in normal times serves only 28 guests at lunch and dinner, now has three stars and was named as one of the top three in the World’s Best Restaurants - a list compiled annually by the UK media company William Reed Business Media - for six consecutive years between 2013 and 2018, taking first place in 2016 and 2018.

Bottura launched a project to
feed the hungry and homeless

Bottura did not open another restaurant until Francescana 58, a more informal brasserie launched in Modena in 2011, in Via Vignolese. He moved outside Italy for the first time in 2014 with Ristorante Italia di Massimo Bottura in Istanbul. Subsequent ventures include restaurants in Florence, Dubai and Beverly Hills.

The idea behind Food for Soul developed during Expo 2015 in Milan, at which Bottura was invited to cook. The scale of the event within a city not without social problems set him thinking both about food wastage and social vulnerability, and he decided to take unused produce from Expo’s pavilions to create meals for the city's most vulnerable population. Rather than serve up those meals in the manner of a traditional soup kitchen, Bottura wanted to create a setting in which the diners could feel at least momentarily sheltered from the reality of their everyday lives, connecting with others at long refectory tables.

The first refettorio - the Refettorio Ambrosiano - opened in Piazza Greco in a disused concert theatre next to the parish church of San Martino in Greco. Under a giant mural of The Last Supper, seated at 14 refectory tables, each crafted and donated by a celebrated Italian designer, guests are served a three-course menu, nowadays made from food donated by local supermarkets.

In addition to the seven locations already established, Bottura has plans to open more in Mexico, California, New York and Quebec.  He regularly invites renowned chefs to cook for the project and they willingly oblige, in many cases serving the food themselves and sitting to talk to diners. 

 Modena's grand baroque Ducal Palace is one of the city's
major attractions for visitors

Travel tip:

Modena is a city on the south side of the Po Valley in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. It is known for its car industry, as Ferrari, De Tomaso, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati have all been located there. The city is also well known for producing balsamic vinegar. Operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti and soprano Mirella Freni were both born in Modena.  One of the main sights is the huge, baroque Ducal Palace, designed for Francesco I by the architect, Luigi Bartolomeo Avanzini, who created a home for him that few European princes could match at the time. 

The imposing facade of 
Modena's duomo

Travel tip:

Dominating Piazza Grande, Modena’s 12th-century duomo - the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta e San Geminiano - is regarded as one of the finest products of the Romanesque period in Italy and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The portal of the west facade is supported by two lions created by the sculptor Wiligelmo, who also did the larger reliefs that run along the wall. Inside, the plain stone coffin of San Geminiano - the patron saint of Modena – sits under the choir. On his feast day, January 31, crowds come to see his coffin, and a market is held in the square.

Also on this day:

1530: The birth of physician Girolamo Mercuriale 

1863: The birth of ballerina Pierina Legnani

1885: The birth of Carabinieri general Angelo Cerica 

1964: The birth of model and actress Monica Bellucci

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Andrea Illy – businessman and writer

Family dream was to make the best coffee in the world

Andrea Illy is the grandson of
company founder Francesco Illy

Andrea Illy, who is the chairman of coffee makers illycaffè, was born on this day in 1964 in Trieste, the capital city of the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The grandson of the founder of illycaffè, Francesco Illy, Andrea represents the third generation of his family to lead the business. His father, Ernesto Illy, was chairman of the company between 1963 and 2004. His sister Anna and brothers Francesco and Riccardo - a former CEO now vice-president - Illy are on the board of directors.

Andrea graduated with a degree in Chemistry from the University of Trieste and went on to study at SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Harvard Business School and Singularity University in Silicon Valley.

He joined the family firm in 1990 as a supervisor of the quality control department. Inspired by Japanese business methods, Andrea started the Total Quality Programme, which established standards both for the company and the coffee industry in general.

He was appointed CEO of illycaffè in 1994 and chairman of the company in 2005.

He developed the Università del Caffè to spread the culture of coffee throughout the world. He established the retail side of the business at global level with 230 stores and started a new system of capsules for making coffee.

Francesco Illy's dream was to produce
 the best coffee in the world

His book, Il sogno del caffè (Coffee: The Dream) describes the family and company’s history and the pursuit of the dream of his grandfather, Francesco, to produce the best coffee in the world.

Andrea won the Businessman of the Year Award in Italy in 2004. He is the honorary Chairman of the Association for Science and Information on Coffee and the Chairman of the International Coffee Organisation’s Coffee Market Promotion and Development Committee.

Since 2013 Andrea has been chairman of the Fondazione Altagamma, a foundation for firms that are worldwide ambassadors for Italian living, and from the same year he has been part of the Board of Governors of the Bank of Italy for Trieste.

Married with three daughters, Andrea was named Cavaliere del Lavoro, a Knight of Industry, by the President of Italy in 2018.

Piazza Unità d'Italia is the focal point of the
elegant port city of Trieste

Travel tip:

The beautiful seaport of Trieste, where illycaffè was founded in 1933, officially became part of the Italian Republic in 1954. It lies towards the end of a narrow strip of land situated between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and is just 30 kilometres north of Croatia. It has been disputed territory for thousands of years and throughout its history has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of the Latin, Slavic and Germanic cultures. The final border with Yugoslavia was settled in 1975 and this is now the present day border between Italy and Slovenia. Today, Trieste is a lively and cosmopolitan city and a major centre for trade and ship building.

Canal Grande in Trieste has many waterside bars and
restaurants that are popular with visitors 

Travel tip:

Trieste has many coffee houses that date back to the Hapsburg era, when the Austrians were in control of the seaport. Caffè Tommaseo, the oldest in the city, dates back to 1830 and is in Piazza Nicolo Tommaseo. When Irish writer James Joyce was living in Trieste, his favourite bar was Caffè Pirona in Largo della Barriera Vecchia. You could imagine yourself to be in Venice if you linger at a table outside one of the bars or restaurants at the side of Canal Grande, an inlet in the centre of Trieste with moorings for small crafts that is reminiscent of the Grand Canal.

Also on this day:

1753: The birth of Marie Josephine of Savoy, who became the titular Queen of France

1898: The birth of chocolatier Pietro Ferrero

1938: The birth of actor Giuliano Gemma

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Giada De Laurentiis - TV chef

Food Network star who was born in Rome

Giada De Laurentiis trained as a 
classical chef in Paris

The TV presenter, chef, author and restaurateur Giada Pamela De Laurentiis was born in Rome on this day in 1970.

A classically-trained chef who learned her craft in Paris, she worked in the kitchens of a number of restaurants in Los Angeles before breaking into television. Since 2003 she has been a regular on the Food Network, the American cable channel.

Born into a theatre and movie background, De Laurentiis takes her name from her mother, the actress Veronica De Laurentiis, who is the daughter of producer Dino De Laurentiis and the actress Silvana Mangano.  Her father is the actor-producer Alex De Benedetti.

Giada spent her first seven years in Rome, where her mother still has a home near the Spanish Steps, but after her parents divorced she and her sisters moved to Los Angeles.

Her grandfather had a home in Hollywood and had by then become a restaurateur and Giada has memories of spending time in the kitchen of his DDL Foodshow delicatessen and restaurant in Los Angeles, where she acquired her interest in cooking.

Her own entry into the catering business came via a roundabout route.  After high school, she went to the University of California to study social anthropology, emerging with a bachelor’s degree.

Giada made her break into
television in 2003

Yet her passion for cooking was undimmed and she felt she would risk being unfulfilled if she did not explore her potential. She enrolled at the world renowned Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris, obtaining Le Grand Diplome, awarded for a combination of classic cooking and patisserie skills. 

Back in Los Angeles, she found work in the kitchen of the Ritz Carlton before landing a chef’s job at Spago in Beverly Hills, where she came to know many celebrity clients.  The contacts she made persuaded her in 1988 to launch her own private catering company, GDL Foods.

Her famous surname attracted attention and indirectly led to an approach from the Food Network, one of whose executives had been intrigued by her background and show business connections after reading a magazine profile and suggested she have a go at presenting a show.

When she was subsequently given her own series, Everyday Italian, the network at first received negative feedback from viewers, who noted Giada's glamorous appearance and accused the TV company of hiring a model or actress who was pretending to be a chef.

Giada's grandfather is the movie
giant Dino De Laurentiis

Having felt uncomfortable at first with appearing on camera, De Laurentiis might have walked away but she overcame her misgivings and persevered.  Since then, Everyday Italian has become one of the Food Network’s most popular shows and Giada has become one of its most recognisable faces, presenting several other shows and appearing as a guest on many others.

She has also written several cookery books, given her signature to a number of spin-off products and opened two restaurants in Las Vegas, one within The Cromwell casino complex called GIADA, as well as Pronto by Giada, inside Caesar’s Palace. A third restaurant, Italian by Giada, opened within the Horseshoe Casino in Baltimore.

De Laurentiis was married for 11 years to fashion designer Todd Thompson but they divorced in 2015. She has a daughter, Jade, who has appeared in some of her TV shows.

She regularly returns to her roots in Rome, where her mother, Veronica, still lives in a house close to the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti, better known as the Spanish Steps.

The pretty Via Margutta was one of the
most fashionable streets in Rome

Travel tip:

Giada De Laurentiis’s mother, Veronica, has a house in the area around Via Margutta, a narrow street situated between Piazza di Spagna and Piazza del Popolo in the Campo Marzio area of Rome.  Originally home to craft workshops and stables, it now hosts many art galleries and fashionable restaurants, having become popular after it was depicted in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, in which Gregory Peck’s character was said to have an apartment in Via Margutta. It became an exclusive neighborhood popular with artists and figures from the movie industry, including actress Giuletta Masina, director Federico Fellini and writers Renato Guttuso and Marina Punturieri.

The Spanish Steps is one of
Rome's favourite landmarks

Travel tip:

The Piazza Trinità dei Monti is a square in central Rome adjoining the Renaissance church of the Santissima Trinità dei Monti, at the top of the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti, better known as the Spanish Steps. During Springtime, just before the anniversary of the foundation of Rome, April 21, part of the steps are covered by pots of azaleas. Recently, the Spanish Steps have included a small cut-flower market. The steps are not a place for eating lunch, the consuming of food there being forbidden by Roman urban regulations, but they are usually crowded with people.

Also on this day:

1599: The death of composer Luca Marenzio, an influence on Monteverdi

1849: Venice fell victim to the first air raid in history when attacking Austrian forces attached bombs to unmanned balloons

1913: The birth of nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, who defected to the Soviet Union after working in the United States

1914: The death of progressive priest Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi

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Federico Peliti - catering entrepreneur and photographer

Italian became important figure in British Colonial India

Federico Peliti, pictured in traditional
Indian headdress

Federico Peliti, whose skills as a chef and pastry-maker led him to spend a large part of his life in India under British colonial rule, was born on this day in 1844 in Carignano, a town in Piedmont about 20km (12 miles) south of Turin.

He was also an accomplished photographer and collections of his work made an important contribution to the documentary history of the early years of British rule in India.

The restaurant Peliti opened in Shimla, the so-called summer capital of the British Empire in India, became a favourite with colonial high society and was mentioned in the writings of Rudyard Kipling and others.

Peliti’s family hailed from Valganna, near Varese in Lombardy. They had mainly been surveyors and Peliti initially studied sculpture at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. 

He was diverted from a career in sculpture by the Third Italian War of Independence, in which he participated as a cavalryman in the 1st Nizza regiment of the Italian army. By chance, during his active service, he made friends with a group of confectioners and pastry-makers, who taught him some of their skills.

Armed with this new talent and in search of a job after leaving the army, Peliti entered a competition organised by Richard Bourke, the sixth Earl of Mayo and Viceroy of British India, to find a personal chef. Peliti won, moved to India in 1869 and settled in Calcutta. 

A postcard advertising Peliti's restaurant
in Calcutta. The building still stands today

Lord Mayo was assassinated three years later but Peliti stayed in Calcutta, teaming up with business partner Thomas O’Neill to form O'Neill & Peliti, a bakery in Bentinck Street. 

When the partnership broke up, Peliti moved to the more upmarket Chowringhee Road in 1875, and in 1881 opened a restaurant at Esplanade East which became popular among British high society.

In the same year he set up in Shimla, the so-called summer capital of British India, opening a cafe next to the Combermere bridge in Shimla, which had a terrace overlooking a valley and became very popular. Peliti built a grand home in nearby Mashobra, which he called Villa Carignano, where he lived with his wife, Judith, the daughter of a British-Indian government official.

As his reputation grew, Peliti was invited to cater for a lunch hosted by the Prince of Wales in Burma in 1891. 

He expanded his operations, establishing Peliti's Grand Hotel in Shimla and starting a company that canned food for export.

Peliti also trained other Italian confectioners, such as Angelo Firpo from Genoa, who set up another restaurant in Calcutta, and Felice Cornaglia, who took over his business in Bombay.

Peliti's Grand Hotel in Shimla was part of the
Italian's business empire in India

British expats took to Peliti's restaurants in both Shimla and Calcutta and they became centres of society life. The author and journalist Rudyard Kipling, who was born in Bombay in 1865, immortalised Peliti's Shimla restaurant Regent House by referring to it in his short story The Phantom Rickshaw and his poem Divided Destinies. 

Peliti never returned to sculpture but channelled his creative talents in another direction through his interest in photography. Formally trained by the Turin photographer and instrument maker Felice Bardelli, Peliti was fascinated by the exotic and picturesque and his images of life in India at the time of British rule provide a valuable record.  Much of his collection is now housed at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica - the Central Institute for Graphics - in Rome.

In 1902 Peliti decided to return to Italy, handing the management of his company to his sons, Edoardo and Federico, and moving back to Carignano, where he had a house decorated with frescoes by the painter Paolo Gaidano, a contemporary of Peliti’s from the nearby town of Poirino.  Peliti died in Carignano in 1914. 

Today, the name of Peliti’s lives on in Peliti’s Vermut, a vermouth manufactured in Turin which is based faithfully on the liqueur Federico Peliti produced for an official visit by the Prince of Wales, Edward VII, in 1877, using a blend of Indian spices, Piemontese flowers, absinthe and muscat wine.

Carignano's 18th-century Baroque cathedral
built by Benedetto Alfieri

Travel tip:

Carignano is one of the oldest towns in Piedmont with a rich history, going back to the Bronze Age.  It was an important stopping-off point on a road built by the Romans between Turin and Carmagnola and archaeological finds such as Roman tombs, pottery, cobblestones and weapons have been discovered locally.  Carignano became one of the most important municipalities of Turin in the late 19th century thanks to the Bona wool mill.  In the centre of the town, there is an 18th-century Baroque cathedral dedicated to Saints Giovanni Battista and Remigio, designed by Benedetto Alfieri and decorated by Paolo Gaidano, which overlooks the town’s market square.

The Badia di San Gemolo
in Valganna, near Varese

Travel tip:

The municipality of Valganna, from which Peliti’s family moved to Carignano, is a few kilometres north of Varese in Lombardy, in the heart of the Italian lake district, surrounded by the picturesque countryside of the Parco delle cinque vette nature reserve.  The Maggiore and Lugano lakes are nearby. Visitors to Valganna are often drawn to the Badia di San Gemolo, a church and abbey complex dedicated to the memory of San Gemolo, the nephew of a bishop who died after being attacked by robbers nearby, whose remains are preserved in the abbey.

Also on this day:

1861: The death in Florence of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1925: The birth of former president Giorgio Napolitano

1929: The birth of journalist Oriana Fallaci

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