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On the last day of Milan Fashion Week, FDL celebrates a new series called 'Dress The Plate', launched at the very beginning of the fashion kermesse, an open challenge to some of Milan's most creative chefs to produce brand new dishes inspired by three different fashion trends from the Fall/Winter 2013/14 collection.
Each chef was given a fashion creation and asked to interpret it on the plate. An elegant 'Black and White' dress from Gianfranco Ferré, a bold 'Tartan' design from the Italian fashion house Mochino and a shiny, powerful 'Gold' creation by Antonio Marras.
From here, the chefs had just 48 hours to 'Dress the Plate', telling FDL all about their creation, the idea behind their dish and providing recipes that show exactly how their plates were made. Below you can see the finished plates.
Matteo Baronetto - Cracco Restaurant
Theme - Black and White by Gianfranco Ferré
Plate - Lasagna with Black Squid Ink
Can food be art?
"In my opinion no. I really like art, my favorite artist is Modigliani, but I think food is better than art. If I am Picasso, I make Guernica, I made it once and it stays there. But Picasso can't make one, two, three, five Guernicas. Only one. Instead, I am Matteo Baronetto, I can make a dish, maybe the best dish in the world, but I don't make it only once, I do it a thousand times. This is the difference and the reason for me that a chef is not an artist, but an artisan? Yes, I think so."
Matias Perdomo - Al Pont De Ferr
Theme - Tartan by Moschino
Recipe - Tartan Sashimi
Can food be art?
No, I believe that we are artisans, not artists. We are artisans because we grab a product, we transform it, and we serve it. Manipulation of a product is a craftsmanship. Manipulating an apple, peeling it, cutting it, cooking it is craftsmanship. Art is what nature does, is something different. Art is an instant where an internal mechanism moves some emotions. A flash, is a small piece of art. A picture is art, maybe it doesn't move me, but it has been the expression of a person. Expressing and transforming is in between craftsmanship and art. But me, I am an artisan. I work.
Alessandro Negrini, Fabio Pisani and Mario Peqini - Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia
Theme - Gold by Antonio Marras.
Recipe - Dressing Gold
Do you think food can be art?
It can, it depends on the way we think about it. Maybe the difference between food nourishment and food as art is well expressed by this sentence: "Workers use hands, artisans use hands and brain, artists use hands, brain and heart”. Only if we use all the knowledge, experience, culture, skill, as well as our feelings, we will be to create something memorable and unique.
Read more about the chef's 'Dressing Gold' dessert and find out what fashion item they'd like to create if they weren't chefs.
