It improves self-esteem, creativity and wellbeing, and develops awareness: this is why the environment is the best teacher possible for children.
The self-taught chef has always claimed to have "an obsession with education", the desire to share his expertise, and above all, the dream of training the cooks of the future.
"Every educational model that wants to define itself as such has to be continuously rewritten, redeveloped and updated. At this precise historical moment, we need to train future cooks who will have to cook with the understanding that any creative practice must take second place to the pursuit of an indispensable ethical goal, which is the health of those eating", explained Romito, while in Dubai for the 2020 Expo.
Indeed, it was in Dubai that the chef announced that his Academy would become a real university campus.
"In 2011, I moved my restaurant to Castel di Sangro and I created Casadonna, and it was there I decided to open an advanced training academy. 10 years have passed, more than 280 young people have graduated from our course, and over 40 have achieved their dream of opening their own restaurants. Now, my academy will become a university campus focusing on the issues of innovation in food processing, social responsibility and environmental sustainability. We will do this with a multidisciplinary approach to teaching: through research, development, and the diffusion of new methodologies and processes to be applied to collective nutrition in order to guarantee healthy, sustainable and accessible food."
The campus will be based in Castel di Sangro, a short distance from Casadonna, the nerve centre for all the projects connected to the Romito universe: from the three-star Reale to restaurants in Bvlgari Hotels around the world; from pop catering projects such as ALT, the Laboratory for bakery and pastry products to collective catering. The common thread is constant research and practical creativity, with the aim of improvements that can be understood on various levels, but - from whatever angle you look at it - can be summarised into a simple, extremely powerful concept: feeling good. In ourselves, and therefore looking after our health; with others, and therefore taking care of the community; and in the environment, and therefore taking care of our resources.
In recent days, the renovation works have begun on the building that will become the seat of Romito's campus, which will be built in collaboration with the Sapienza University of Rome, among others:
"The goal is to create and spread a different paradigm for food processing, create a new language that will be the cornerstone of a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, thanks to widespread, democratic access to healthy, good quality food. The quality and research of michelin-starred cooking, combined with the principles of healthy nutrition, will be able to be used to benefit collective catering and the food processing industry."
Because, as the chef concludes: "Today, eating well has to be a necessary condition for all, and cooks need to work towards this, studying to find the balance between flavour and health."
Images Credits:
© andrea straccini
© BRAMBILLA SERRANI PHOTOGRAPHERS
© Barbara Santoro
© Francesco Fioramonti
It improves self-esteem, creativity and wellbeing, and develops awareness: this is why the environment is the best teacher possible for children.
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