Maybe we’re biased, because Davide Guidara – a native of Cerreto Sannita in Campania – impressed us tremendously back in 2016, when he was only 22 years old (he was born in 1994) and donned the chef’s jacket for the first time at Eolian in Milazzo. Since then – despite the reasonable ups and downs of this profession – we have considered him one of the brightest rising stars in the future of great Italian cuisine. He possesses crystal-clear flair, enormous technical skills, solid awareness, and an extraordinary creativity. There was only one issue we had noticed at the time. Let’s quote from the article we wrote back then: "His approach to ingredients is still very much tied to Redzepi’s lessons: marinades, brines, fermentations, smoking, dehydration… He is seeking a balance between technical approach and the pure enhancement of local raw materials."
At that time, he had just emerged from experiences with Nino Di Costanzo, Alfonso Iaccarino, Michel Bras, but most importantly, the one that shaped him the most: his time with René Redzepi at Noma in Copenhagen.
Even that single doubt has now completely vanished, especially after the chef, following a brief stint in Catania, took the reins of I Tenerumi at Therasia Resort on the island of Vulcano with extraordinary determination and inspiration. There, he proclaimed his Manifesto of New Vegetable Cuisine (which we published [here]), stating in point 1:
"New vegetable cuisine is born out of gastronomic needs. The evolution of taste and techniques has led us here. It is the history of haute cuisine over the last forty years that has progressively seen vegetables emerge as protagonists, whereas before they were considered mere complements."
For this young chef, exercising creativity with vegetables means creating fully rounded dishes that have an extraordinary taste value of their own—dishes that are, quite simply, delicious in absolute terms, not just by virtue of their defining characteristic, which is being plant-based. The latter is not a self-imposed limitation but rather an opportunity. This means that his dishes are never—and are not—"imitations of" something else, compensating for an absence with a substitute.
Guidara’s immense brilliance lies, above all, in his ability to offer an excellent meal, something many chefs can now achieve; but he does so in line with a systemic approach, the mark of the greatest minds—from Ferran Adrià to René Redzepi.
