On March 20th and 21st, on the occasion of what would have been his 88th birthday, many Italian cinemas will screen ‘Gualtiero Marchesi – The Great Italian‘ the documentary movie that celebrates the life, vision and work of Gualtierio Marchesi, the extraordinary chef who invented the Italian haute cuisine, and that sadly died in December.
His parents ran a hotel restaurant in Milan and it was there that he had his first experiences in the kitchen, before training in France and Switzerland. In 1977, he opened his first restaurant in Via Bonvesin de la Riva, in Milan, where, in 1985, thanks to his ‘total kitchen’ vision, he was the first Italian to obtained three Michelin stars. However, he was mostly proud of the ‘Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ award that he received in 1990 by the French Minister of Culture and that recognized for the first time the culinary art as a part of the cultural sphere. In 2004, he opened the most important gastronomic university in Italy, ALMA, before devoting himself to the project of a retirement home for chefs.
Directed by Maurizio Gigola and produced by Food & Media International in collaboration with the Gualtiero Marchesi Foundation, ‘Gualtiero Marchesi – The Great Italian’, presented at the last edition of the Cannes Film Festival, traces the life and vision of the man who revolutionized the Italian cuisine, bringing it to the top of the international gastronomy. The movie, with an original soundtrack composed by cellist Giovanni Sollima, is an evocative and emotional journey through the cities dear to the Maestro, the raw materials of his kitchen and, of course, the dishes that confirmed his greatness, like the famous ‘Gold and Saffron Rice’ or the ‘fish dripping’, just to mention the most famous.
Maria Temperoni