Massimo Bottura

1962 -

Massimo Bottura (born 30 September 1962) is an Italian restaurateur and the chef patron of Osteria Francescana, a three-Michelin-star restaurant based in Modena,[1] Italy which has been listed in the top 5 at The World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards since 2010 and received top ratings from L'Espresso, Gambero Rosso and the Touring Club guides.[2] After first winning the 50 Best Restaurants in 2016 Bottura announced the refettorio that he had established in Milan the year before would continue and went on to form the cultural foundation Food for Soul.[3] Bottura spends time in New York City to spread the Italian culinary tradition.

Osteria Francescana was ranked The World's 2nd Best Restaurant at the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards in 2015. In June 2016 Osteria Francescana was ranked No. 1 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants and No. 2 in 2017. The restaurant returned to rank No. 1 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2018.

Massimo Bottura was born and raised in Modena, Italy. He developed an interest in cooking from a young age after watching his mother, grandmother and aunt in the kitchen preparing family meals.[4]

Bottura was an apprentice to chef Georges Coigny.[5]. Bottura also worked with Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo in 1994.[6] Ducasse invited him to stage in his kitchen following a surprise visit to Trattoria del Campazzo.[7] Massimo Bottura won a 2020 Webby Special Achievement Award.[8]

On 19 March 1995 Bottura opened Osteria Francescana in the medieval city centre of Modena.[9] His concept was to juxtapose culinary tradition and innovation with contemporary art and design. Bottura then spent a summer at elBulli with Ferran Adrià, which encouraged him to continue pushing boundaries and re-writing rules with his cuisine.[10]

In 2012, shortly after Osteria Francescana was awarded its third Michelin star, the restaurant closed for the summer for a period of refurbishment and opened with an updated insight into Bottura's two biggest passions - contemporary art and avant garde cuisine.[11]

Bottura and Osteria Francescana were featured in episode one of the first season of Netflix's Chef's Table series in 2015, and the second episode of the second season of Master of None. Bottura had heard that the series had shot at nearby Hosteria Giusti, and directly confronted Eric Wareheim and Aziz Ansari one evening, asking why they had not approached him. He offered them a full meal, which was subsequently shot for the episode and featured the actors' real reactions to his food.[12]

Franceschetta 58, an informal dining brasserie and bar serving small plates was Bottura’s second restaurant project and opened in 2011 in Modena. This was a collaboration with Bibendum director Marta Pulini.[13]. He is on the board of directors of the Basque Culinary Centre, a project directed by Ferran Adrià.[6]

After the 2012 Northern Italy earthquakes in the region, which caused significant damage to millions of pounds' worth of Parmigiano-Reggiano, Bottura worked with local producers to raise awareness of the situation.[14] As part of these efforts, he developed a recipe for a risotto variation of the Roman pasta dish cacio e pepe (traditionally made with a sheep's cheese like Pecorino Romano) using broken wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano.[15] He also took part in the Crave International Food festival in Sydney in October[16] and played the leading role in a festival in Taiwan, La Festa di Chef Massimo Bottura.[17]

In 2013 Bottura took on the role of Ambassador for Food in the Year of Italian Culture in the United States.[18] He was also a guest of honour at the Cancún-Riviera Maya Wine and Food Festival in March.[19]. In May 2014, he opened his first restaurant outside of Italy, "Ristorante Italia di Massimo Bottura" in Istanbul, Turkey.

In January 2018, he opened Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura at the Gucci Garden inside the Palazzo della Mercanzia, which formerly housed the Gucci Museo, in Florence, Italy.[20]. In February 2019, Massimo worked in partnership with W Hotels to open Torno Subito at W Dubai - The Palm on Palm Jumeirah. The restaurant design was created by the award-winning interior specialists Bishop Design by Paul Bishop and is a mesmerizing reflection of Massimo's affection with bygone eras. Inspired by Rimini's coastal playground in the 1960s, the quirky and bold interiors takes guests on a sensory journey through Massimo's imagination. In 2019, Torno Subito won Interior Design of the Year: Food and Beverage at the Commercial Interior Design Awards in Dubai.

In 2019, Massimo was listed among Time's 100 most influential people in the world.[21] In May 2019, he opened a new hospitality concept, Casa Maria Luigia, a 12 room guesthouse with a new dining experience.[22]. In 2019 Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura was awarded one Michelin star, while in February 2020 the concept expanded into the United States, where Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura Beverly Hills opened in Los Angeles.

In June 2020, he and other chefs, as well as architects, Nobel laureates in Economics and leaders of international organizations, signed the appeal in favour of the purple economy (“Towards a cultural renaissance of the economy”), published in Corriere della Sera,[23] El País[24] and Le Monde.[25]. In 2016, Chef Massimo Bottura and his wife Lara Gilmore founded Food for Soul, a non-profit organization conceived to build culture as a way of empowering communities and advocating for healthy and equitable food systems.[26] The very first seed was planted during Expo 2015 in Milan, when Bottura, in partnership with the Italian NGO Caritas Ambrosiana, decided to approach the dual issue of food wastage and social vulnerability in a new way. Bottura’s concept was to reinterpret the church refectory, where monks used to gather around long communal tables to have their meals, and turn it into a welcoming dining hall where the city's most vulnerable population could find a moment of restoration. Every day, guests were served a three-course menu prepared using the unutilized produce from the Expo’s pavilions that would have otherwise been thrown away. The first Refettorio was born.[27]

Since then, Food for Soul has developed several projects around the world in partnerships with local partners. By building community spaces where people are invited to connect around a meal, Food for Soul wants to demonstrate the value and the potential of people, places and food and encourage the community served to advocate for social change.[28]. To date, Food for Soul has successfully launched seven Refettorios in Milan, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Modena, Bologna and Naples.[29]