Massimo Bottura Unfollower
Massimo Bottura grew up in a traditional Italian household in Modena, Italy. There is a long history of cooking tortellini in Modena – the little meat pasta parcels prepared and served in a broth. All the local dishes were cooked just so – the way they always had been. Massimo loved cooking and trained as a chef. But as he experimented with food, something in him wanted to stamp his own individuality on cooking. He wanted to create not just cook. So he opened a small restaurant in his hometown and started to explore.
New dishes are being created every day by great chefs around the world, but Massimo had great memories of sitting under his mother’s kitchen table as a boy catching the little cut-offs of raw pasta from the flurry of preparation above him. He loved traditional Modenese cooking but he wanted more. So he reinvented. He created a dish that separated the tortellini from the broth which he sat on the side. He made a dish that focused on the part of lasagne he liked the most – the crispy pits around the sides. When someone in the kitchen dropped a lemon tart on the ground, he saw an opportunity and created ‘Oops I dropped the lemon tart’ dish – an upside-down tart with the crust on the top. Yet all this was too much for the citizens of Modena who liked the tortellini the way it always was. His little restaurant struggled – no one was coming. Yet with the encouragement of his wife, he persisted. He kept pushing against the gastronomic certainties, the status quo. Then one day he was, by chance, discovered by a renowned food critic who saw Massimo’s genius. His little restaurant eventually was crowned the best restaurant in the world, with Massimo receiving Michelin stars and global foodie fame.
Unfollowers can innovate by playing with tradition, taking elements of what they love from the way things have always been done, and put their own spin on it. Massimo is a loveable character, who is now recognised as one of the world’s best chefs, yet is individual unfollowing of Italian traditions meant he struggled for 10 years in the ‘wilderness’ of cuisine. To stay true to your sense of what’s right when everyone around you says you’re crazy – that takes vision and courage.