Alice Delcourt

Alice Delcourt was born of French father in Angoulême, but her journey in life has taken her to many places, very distant from the roads of Cognac. Her passion for pans began, as with many of her female-colleagues, by watching her grandmother, an English woman from Bournemouth, just like her mother, in the kitchen: in awe, Alice often admired and tasted the roast with mint sauce, the lemon meringue pie, the Oxford pudding… By the time digestion was completed, she already had her suitcase ready to cross the Ocean.

Chicago, Boston – where she studied Political Sciences -, New York – working for a law firm with frequent trips to North Carolina, where she discovered she widely prefers concepts such as farm-to-table and farm dinner to civil law or criminal code. Between one trip and the other, she had a first taste of Italy, mostly thanks to the Erasmus programme in Florence, where she received her second degree in Italian and Political Sciences.

Time for some serious stuff, now: she crosses the Channel once again to learn, at the River Café, the obsequious respect for seasons, the super-freshness of ingredients and the sustainability of each phase of the production, even the most banal. These three principles will mark her journey as a mature chef. The training continues in Milan: at the Park Hyatt she learns the basics of luxury products, followed by the experience with Andrea Provenzani at the Liberty and at Alice's: «I owe Viviana Varese a lot: from her, I learnt everything on fish. And how to follow my instinct in the kitchen». Once at the Osteria di Lambrate, she met Cesare Battisti and Danilo Ingannamorte, the Ratanà duo.

In the autumn of 2010 came the idea of opening together a real “vegetable-garden & kitchen”, which was put into practise in June 2011: at the Erba Brusca all of Alice's dreams finally converge. She now works especially on eliminating the fridge as a step between the picking of the vegetable and the serving of the dish – a just born fruit, with segments that are already true juiciness. Go and visit the restaurant on the Navigli – better if on bicycle, as all those who work there do – to enjoy a democratic experience at its start: food picked from the vegetable garden at the back, when it doesn't come from mini-greenhouses or small organic producers. Green thoughts that move the greyness of Milan a little further away.