Save
The Italian chef Massimo Bottura has been awarded the prize of The European Chef of The Year at the Madrid Fusion culinary congress.
Organisers say Bottura was picked as the recipient of the award for the solidarity work he undertook during Expo Milano - in which he was one of the Ambassadors. His main project, Refettorio Ambrosiano, was a huge undertaking that saw more than 40 world famous chefs arrive in Italy to man the stoves of a soup kitchen that took the leftover food from the Expo’s supermarket site and utilised it to feed up to 90 guests a night - many of them homeless.
We attended the project on a number of occasions and were lucky to see chefs such as Ferran and Albert Adrià and the great Alain Ducasse step away from their empires for a day and cook wholesome, nutritious food for visitors.
Speaking about the project back in July 2015, Bottura hinted at the idea that he hopes it will continue to work in different parts of the world. ““It’s so important that this spreads. Planting seeds and waiting until they sprout, one here, one there, you know, they’re going to build maybe a new tradition. If one is opened in New York, one in London, one in Lima.”
The chef accepted his award on stage during this year’s Madrid Fusion coneference which focused in on a theme of the Post Avant-Garde.
