What’s your most favourite ingredient to work with?
I love so much fresh ingredients and, particularly, tomatoes, olives, oregano and basil. Those are the basis of the Mediterranean cuisine. To work with those genuine and simple ingredients to create an iconic dish is always a great challenge for me, as chef. Till today, my guests are enthusiastic of my concept of simplicity and great taste and hope il will be the same in the future.
If not chef, what would have been your alternate career option?
I am a creative thinker. This is my natural soul. I think I would have been a painter or an architect, as I love design and home furniture too.
Do you also cook at home? If no, why?
My daily presence in my restaurant doesn’t let me be, at lunch or dinner, at home. However, when I am free from my job, I love to eat what my wife prepares for me. Love is the most important ingredient in every cuisine and she is great in preparing simple dishes. I love to be cherished by family as I am always absent for work.
Do you give cooking tips to your mother and/or wife? How do they react?
Sometimes, my mother, my wife, my sisters, they ask me for some suggestions: it’s all about techniques and good choice of good ingredients. However they are wonderful when they cook as they put passion and love for their families. And this is all you can need when you cook for your family: passion and love and that’s all!
What are your hobbies, apart from cooking?
I’m a real fisherman! When I’m on holidays, I try to find some time for this hobby: while fishing I’m so close to my sea that I adore. The sound and the smell of the sea, they reminds me when I was a child and I used to spend the summer at the beach. The sea is my confort zone.
Do you watch cooking shows/reality shows? If yes, which shows and contestants are your favourites?
To be honest, I’m quite indifferent to cooking realty shows: they represent a world which is not so close to mine. I know what it means being a professional chef and reality shows are so far to the reality. I prefer to participate to real chef’s cooking classes or masterclasses: this is more educative and profitable in terms of new techniques. The world of cuisine is growing so far and we need to be always trained about what’s new in this field. I think that TV shows are simply a question of marketing for the world of cuisine, but they do not teach you how to be a professional chef.
What’s your family’s most favourite dish that you prepare?
Let’s say that we live on the seaside and fish is one of the main ingredients of my kitchen. However they are crazy about my sicilian “caponata”: it’s an old arabian recipe made with sweet-&-sour seasonal vegetable with a touch of Sicilian red pepper.
What’s been your worst/funniest kitchen incident?
I remember one of the worst but at same time funniest kitchen incident, during one of my cooking classes: I asked my assistant to refil salt and sugar in their containers. He didn’t recognise the difference between the two containers and he did not even taste before refilling them. The result? It was that I put the sugar, instead of the salt, in the base of the pizza that I was doing with my alumni: I then realised that the base of the pizza was sweet and not salty, but I found a solution: I showed to my alumni another old recipe: pizza with sugar. My young alumni ignored this very old tradition: this kitchen incident was then the opportunity to let discover a recipe which is not present in the cookery books. At the end of the masterclass, a big round of applause for me ... and my assistant!
Any famous personalities you’d like to cook for? Why them? What would you cook for them?
I cooked for a lot of famous personalities in my career, but now I would be more than honoured to cook for Pope Francesco, not because I’m Christian, but because of his great heart and personality.
-- Michelin Star Chef Pietro D’ Agostino