GALLARATE – Chef Giorgio Locatelli in front of the chefs of tomorrow at the Falcone Institute: «You are the future of Italian cuisine. It will be a modern, more open business with fair working conditions for everyone”. Not even a week later the crowds in his Vergiatewhere the mayor gave him the keys to the city, chef Locatelli is back, this time in Gallarate, at the Falcone Instituteinvited by his childhood friend Michelangelo Raiola (Falcone teacher). The same school that he formed one of the last MasterChefs, Edoardo Francothe Varese native who won the 2023 edition of the reality show in which Locatelli is a judge together with Bruno Barbieri and Antonino Cannavacciuolo.
The interview
In front of the kids, Chef Locatelli retraced his experience, started at the Varese professional training center, and then developed around Europe. From Zurich to the prestigious Savoy in London, where he became sous-chef, and then in France, «because until the 1980s either you cooked French or if not you were a pizza chef». However, he lives in Paris «a very hard, almost inhuman experience, and very negative – reveals Locatelli – I was almost convinced that if I had to become a chef like them it wasn’t worth it. So I returned to Corgeno, very much in crisis, and my grandmother, a 90-odd year old farmer from a small village on the lake, told me something very simple: “you don’t have to be a chef like the others but you can be a chef as you want to be“. And then I decided to have my own restaurant.” Time to return to London, to lead Mauro Sanna’s kitchen at “Olivo”:«He took me because I was the only one who hadn’t asked how much the salary was. I was interested in doing what I wanted to do. And in fact when I returned to Italy my friends had BMWs and I was always broke, they sent me money from home to pay for the plane ticket.” But he advises students not to give up: «It is very important to have experiences in restaurants, international but also national.”
It’s no longer the apprenticeship it once was
Does Chef Locatelli consider himself lucky? «My great fortune – he reveals – was the ability of Italian cuisine to expand throughout the world with a quality project. The international demand is for Italian haute cuisine, rather than French. You are the next step in this cuisine. What you are doing is very important.” But it is no longer the “kit” it once was: «You have to take every obstacle as something that improves us. Mistakes, falls, blows are what make us strong and build character. But the apprenticeship it’s not being treated badly, it’s not bullying in the kitchen. This system must be eliminated. And it’s up to your generation to do it.” And it’s not just the kitchen: «Service is an integral part of the restaurant experience, especially in Italian cuisine that tells the dishes, does storytelling, almost like a cultural mission.” Yet today Falcone’s cooking department welcomes almost twice as many students as the dining area. «But waiter is a great job. AND they will no longer have to work 80 hours a week. Today the well-being of staff is fundamental.”
Visit
The last bell of the school year 23/24 for the over 1600 Falcone students has already rung, but the doors (and kitchens) of the Institute in via Matteotti also open on Saturday mornings to welcome chef Giorgio Locatelli, starred restaurateur with his Locanda Locatelli in London and judge on MasterChef on Sky. An initiative organized by prof. Raiola together with the principal Vito Ilacqua and to the lawyer Giuseppe Mantica. Chef Locatelli visit the kitchens and laboratories of the Institutethen he gives himself a lesson in the Falcone’s great hall in front of the students and teachers of the hotel sector (kitchen and dining room)before a final refreshment in the internal “Saperi e Sapori” training restaurant.
