Massimo Bottura

chef ‘artiere’

When you cross the threshold of Casa Maria Luigia, Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore’s guesthouse, it almost seems like entering a contemporary art museum. This is an 18^th-century villa transformed into a farm immersed in the Emilian countryside as well as an open-air gallery where art, food, music and nature blend like the perfect ingredients of the chef’s best dish. A real hub of ideas where you can discover Massimo and Lara’s collection of contemporary artworks, including paintings, photographs and sculptures, but also be inspired by new flavors, scents, songs that you will take with you even after your departure. Bottura, who considers art in the same way as cooking, believes that the most important ingredient in the future will be culture, and, referring to a definition by art critic Achille Bonito Oliva, compares himself to an ‘artiere’, a figure somewhere between an artist and a craftsman, a craftsman obsessed with quality. Among the fields, the days begin early, with the smell of the wood-burning oven where the farmers’ favorite breakfast is prepared. Jessica Rosval, who has been an integral part of the Francescana team for seven years and is now Head Chef at Casa Maria Luigia, leads the team in the kitchen to offer the best of the local countryside every morning: cotechino cooked under the ashes, focaccia, frittata, handmade jams, Rosola ricotta and gnocco fritto with mortadella. Excellent products chosen to represent all the beauty of the territory from the very first moment.

In the kitchen of Casa delle Carrozze, an independent building adjacent to the entrance of the villa, the nine-course tasting menu is the only one created by the chef to narrate the twenty-five years of Osteria Francescana, and includes Five ages of Parmigiano Reggiano, The crunchy part of the lasagna and Oops! I dropped the lemon tart. Three tables to share and an open kitchen provide the setting for moments of conviviality. casamarialuigia.com