QUALITALY_131

October/November 202 2 IV MAGAZINE AT PAGE 22 CHEF’S FACES LOCAL INGREDIENTS, LOCAL INGRE- DIENTS, BUT INFUSED WITH HINTS OF DISTANT CUISINES AND OFFERED AT A FAIR BALANCE BETWEEN QUALITY AND PRICE ARE THE HALLMARKS OF CHEF SIMONE STRINATI’S PROPOSAL by Elena Consonni There is an air of times gone by at Podere San Faustino, in Fidenza (Pr): an old farmhouse with terracotta floors, a wood- burning stove, and slicing machines in full view. The menu has strong ties with the territory, but also gathers and reworks ideas gathered from distant cultures. A unique blend, offered at a reasonable price, that has earned Chef Simone Strinati and his wife Daniela Bertozzi , AIS sommelier and WSET sake sommelier, inclusion among the Michelin Guide’s BIB Gourmands, an accolade that is truly close to the chef’s heart, as he told us in this chat. CHEF, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE COUNTED, ONCE AGAIN, AMONG THE BIB GOURMANDS? For me it is really very important, more so than if I had obtained a star, because it reflects our way of understanding cuisine: the right quality/price ratio, the ability to work with ingredients, the hospitality... This qualification fits us like a glove and represents an idea of cuisine in which I recognise myself, not only as a restaurant manager, but also as a customer and as an enthusiast. On a personal level the recognition is a confirmation of the value of what we have done, on a professional level it helps us to make ourselves known, especially to foreign customers or those passing through. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE JOURNEY THAT LED YOU TO THIS RESULT? I followed a different path than most of my colleagues: I went to art school, but I have always been passionate about food. I was born in Bern, Switzerland, where my father worked in the meat industry and I learned alongside him how to deal with this product. When I was 25 years old, with some friends I opened a restaurant in Parma and started to approach the world of catering and cooking, learning from the guys we had hired as cooks. I started attending courses, perfecting myself, comparing myself with colleagues to refine my technique. A very important reference for me was Luciano Tona , who was ALMA’s teaching director, whom I met about ten years ago: I asked him for advice and over time we became friends. I had several experiences in Parma, Milan and abroad. At a certain point I left the actual kitchen to work as a manager in a prestigious restaurant opened by a company in Milan: it was a very formative experience because it led me to deal with organisational and management aspects. It was a three-year experience, at the end of which I started a new adventure. In 2006, in fact, my wife and I decided to renovate an old farmhouse belonging to her family in the Parma countryside and Podere San Faustino was born. HOW ARE YOUR PAST STUDIES IN ART REFLECTED IN YOUR COOKING? As much as aesthetics are also very important in the composition of a dish today, for me, the arrangement is secondary to the taste. Let me explain, if I add a decoration, some edible flowers, a sauce, it is not out of a pure aesthetic sense, but because that ingredient completes the flavour of the dish. The world of art, however, is not very different from the world of cooking: when a painter sets out to create a painting, he already has in his head what he wants to achieve, what colours he will have to use and what techniques he will have to adopt to arrive at the result. It’s the same in the kitchen: knowing the ingredients, a cook already