Yeah, that’s me! |
It’s 2014 and what better way to start the year with.. a restaurant guide?
A couple of months ago now, I flew to Milano for the launch of the 2014 edition of what has now established itself as a major publication in Italy for ‘ristoranti d’autore’ (in the country and abroad). For the first time published by Mondadori, the Identità Golose Guida ai Ristoranti d’Autore 2014 is in its 7th edition; the ‘numbers’ of the guide are fantastic, the main one (for me) is how many collaborators have participated reviewing restaurants all over.
107… and I am one of them! Indeed, I had the pleasure of covering 9 restaurants, mostly in London. Amongst these, Murano, Tom Aikens and Pollen Street Social.
I am in great company: a lot of my fellow collaborators are actually professional food writers such as my sister, Federico De Cesare Viola, Sudi Pigott.
The venue for the launch was the modern and minimalistic Magna Pars Hotel near the Navigli area of Milan (which meant a lovely breakfast at Taglio on our way there). The room was absolutely packed with many people standing for the presentations and the awards which are given every year to a number of categories including ‘best chef’ and ‘best family restaurant’.
Paolo and Gabriele on stage |
On stage our wonderful Paolo Marchi, founder of Identita’ Golose and Gabriele Zanatta, our editor and ‘boss’. With them, the ‘creme de la creme’ of Italian food scene… the guide has in fact, introductions on a number of cities (12 in total) written by food writers and chefs including Carlo Cracco and Massimo Bottura (both present on stage).
Massimo Bottura |
For me, it was a first – it made me feel very proud of being part of such a bunch of like-minded, food lover people. To see my name in print, it is pretty cool indeed. I love writing as I don’t get to do it in my day job, but writing for an audience such as Identita’ Golose’s is surely a different matter to writing one’s own blog. Challenging, exciting, rewarding.
While I look forward to hopefully covering some more delicious restaurants for next year’s edition, for those interested here is the link to purchase the online version of this year’s publication. It is only available in Italian and costs 19.90 Euro.
Happy New Year! |