Matteo Pisciotta

Not accidentally, he was born in 1975. In fact, Matteo Pisciotta belongs to that most vibrant generation of thirty-something chefs, equipped with a strong constitution, tempered by the solid background of double "T" (tradition and territory, which in his case is Varese, the birthplace and the city where the De Filippi is based, the school he learned the first food/fire alchemies). As lots of same aged coworkers, however, his pedestal is just a good excuse to drive the sculpture away of orthodoxy. Recent dishes like citrus-oyster, passion fruit popcorns, or the criobruschetta depict striking playful variations on the mainstream themes, funny flashes that do not dazzle out of nothing: they’re the result of insistent studies on food chemical and physical processes, on raw materials’ textures and temperatures, probed in their innermost constitution (we would say "molecular" if the term had not taken the negative meaning it recently got in Italy).

Anyway, Pisciotta has wide horizons to explore because of the many paths he followed after graduating in Varese (and post-graduating at CarloPorta in Milan): Cannes, Recoaro, Elba, Corsica, Tuscany, Rimini, an interlude as Chief of Staff of the Navy’s personal chef. And then again France, Switzerland, Rome, Stresa until the important years at Osteria del Sass in Besozzo, Varese. In more recent times, the guy is very busy collecting important challenges: since December 2009 he’s been driving Luce in Varese, a super-hi-tech restaurant located in Villa Panza. And he also became a Pappafood partner, a group also managing the new team of Milan’s Peck .