Chef Maurizio Angelini: Interview

Chef Maurizio Angelini, born in '78, after accelerated and intense studies at the Gambero Rosso schools and various internships around Italy and abroad, found his key professional level in Rome, at the restaurant "Le Tre Zucche" where, in a short time, he became first chef.

Experience concluded to date to be able to dedicate himself to a new and exciting project in the heart of Tuscia, “Cantina del Drago”, in which he is the protagonist.

The cuisine of chef Maurizio Angelini is oriented towards the continuous search for the right combination of tradition and innovation, always respecting the raw materials.

Interview with Chef Maurizio Angelini

Where does your passion for cooking come from?

Chef Maurizio Angelini

My passion was born with me, because since I was a child I saw food not as a simple food useful for subsistence but rather as a protagonist and above all a means through which to give free rein to our ideas and our desire to research, to try... I once read a beautiful thing that fully reflects this concept and it was "the chef never stops playing, he simply changes the means to do it...".

Chef Maurizio Angelini

And it's true. We are like children who make constructions, sand castles or experiments like the little chemist and so on... with the positive difference that we can then propose our games, we can share them and in the most beautiful of circumstances they can make others happy. Well, all this made me understand how much I loved cooking in all its aspects and above all, how much cooking could reflect and satisfy every side of me and every desire and ambition of mine. I can say out loud that I wouldn't change this job for the world.

What was your professional background?

Chef Maurizio Angelini

My professional path was not at all simple and above all it was hindered, hindered and diverted in every way, but in the end it came out as it should be.

I didn't attend hotel management school, in fact I'm an accountant. I come from a small village in Campania where the hotel industry was a school for misfits and lazy people. A school with no future, if not immediate work as a waiter. There was no concept of a chef, also because in those realities the chefs are grandmothers, mothers or those who have been doing it all their lives and if you asked him he would answer almost as if his job was a sentence.

So I attended the schools that society deemed right, then I graduated and even opened a business that had nothing to do with it, but I continued to dream, to hope, to look for a way to do what I wanted.

A kitchen style for every occasion

Chef Maurizio Angelini

At every opportunity I tried to cook, to organize and every time it was like an impossible love, I knew it made me happy, but I didn't know how to put it into practice. I was dissatisfied, I knew I wasn't doing what I was good at and what I wanted to do. So at a certain point I said enough, I have to do it!!!

I moved to Rome, I attended many schools and specialization courses, and in the end I found someone who trusted me and made me start working just the way I wanted, starting from the basics, starting from washing dishes, although I already had school and certificates, I wanted to work my way up, to let the profession become more and more in my blood and I must say that I was successful.Shortly thereafter I became head of the party, then manager and we are talking about restaurants of a certain level given that I immediately liked haute cuisine and above all cuisine that gives emotions and offers a real journey and not simply making food.

Shortly thereafter I helped a friend to start a restaurant but not even the latter satisfied me, I lacked the adrenaline of service it was all too simple and I returned to Rome where I am currently the chef of a bistro which offers four services and where the tension never drops and above all where you are always in the spotlight as it is also the location of a famous film and this spurs me on and encourages me every day to do better and more...

How important is it to use 0 km products in catering?

The use of 0 km products is very important and it is something I am very careful about. They are for several reasons. First of all, to be able to offer and guarantee the freshness and authenticity of the products to the customer, then it is also very important to be able to sponsor, enhance and make known the typical products of the area where we operate and finally also to ensure that the local economy does not die and to guarantee that minimum subsistence to the many entrepreneurs who with passion and love carry on the traditions and do not leave the countryside and the crafts handed down to us by our ancestors.

Chef Maurizio Angelini

But although it is very important for all the reasons listed above, I must also say that for me it is the only formula. This is because due to my way of cooking and ranging between experiences and elements that characterize a dish and in order to always offer new sensations as well as combinations and research into details, I am always constantly looking for particular, exclusive elements and ingredients.

What are your plans for the future?

Chef Maurizio Angelini

My plans for the future are simple, or rather there is only one, and that is "cooking". We'll see how. I would certainly like to find a way to always do it carefully and have the possibility of ranging between types of food and customers. Finally, I would like to open a business that reflects myself and my cooking as much as possible, but above all where I can do everything that inevitably happens to us chefs over time. At the moment I'm in no rush to do it, first I want to enjoy the luxury of being able to change, wander and have more and more new and exciting experiences, given that in this job there is no shortage...

What is the dish prepared by you that identifies you most?

In reality I don't have a real dish that characterizes me, also because I always try to put my all into every dish. To put passion, love, knowledge and commitment into it and in the end it is as if each of them characterizes me since each one is my creation based precisely on my being.

There are ingredients and preparations that for a series of reasons characterize me, distinguish me, but above all that I love because for a series of various reasons over time they have become characterizing as well as exciting and above all loved. One of these, my ingredient par excellence and my most loved are "gnocchi", in all its forms, filled, water and potato flour or with any other type of flour and seasoning, as long as they are gnocchi.