To begin with, «in my grandmother’s stories, there were no agnolotti, nor caciucco». So in other words he didn’t have the gastro-anthropological substrate that is the cultural essence of our cuisine. The childhood food of Roy Salomon Caceres - born in Bogota in Colombia in 1977 and now chef at Metamorfosi in Rome – was different, like hummus, kibbeh...
How come, these Middle Eastern specialties in South America? There’s an explanation. The grandad of Roy, an excellent cook, was from Syria, while his grandmother was from Spain. The future chef – whose parents separated – spent a lot of time with them, so much so he still recalls having breakfast with red onion, tomato and garlic, which was typical of his life at the time. And on top of this past that mixes Latin America and the Middle East, there’s also and most of all a lot of Italy in his life.
Caceres arrived in Italy partly by chance: when his mother moved here, he came to pursue a dream: he wanted to become a basketball professional. «There was a team in the C1 league here in Rome, and they wanted me to play with them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the right papers, I needed a permit. I tried for a while, then I gave up. After all, I needed to work».
So he became the kitchen boy in a hotel on Lake Misurina, and from that point his career never stopped: Il Pellicano (2001), Locanda Solarola where he became chef (from 2002, for 6 years), then the meeting with Alessandro Pipero that led him to Albano Laziale... In October 2010 he opened Metamorfosi, one Michelin star since 2012.
His passion for cooking induced him to study. Since he didn’t have suitable stories from his grandmother, he explained, he read our most famous ancestors, like «Bartolomeo Scappi, Bartolomeo Stefani, Platina». So basically Caceres has studied Italian cuisine so much he can be considered an Italian ad honorem.
