Massimo Bottura and Barack Obama in Milan. All images courtesy of Massimo Bottura's Instagram

Massimo Bottura breaks bread with Obama in Milan

Food and climate change brought the chef and the former President together in northern Italy earlier today

How should a world leader conduct him or herself after leaving office? Many pick a few causes and campaign hard. Former US President Barack Obama is keen to nurture tomorrow’s leaders, yet food and ecology seems to be on his mind too.

Obama arrived in Milan on Monday for his first formal overseas trip after leaving office to speak at Seeds and Chips, a global food innovation summit that focuses on “one of the greatest global challenges: climate change and the issues linked to food supply in an increasingly populated world with progressively scarce resources."

Massimo Botttura and his family in the White House grounds, 2015

Obama delivered the conference’s keynote speech earlier today, conducted a conversation with Sam Kass, Senior Food Policy Advisor to the President, and met with a few local luminaries, including the star chef, food activist and Phaidon author Massimo Bottura.

Yet this is not the first time Bottura and the Obamas have broken bread. The chef cooked for Michelle Obama when the former First Lady visited the Milan Expo in 2015, introducing the Obamas to Refettorio Ambrosiano, his haute cuisine soup kitchen, where notable chefs prepare excellent dishes for the poor of the city, reusing unwanted food portions from Milan’s fairground.

The Obamas were impressed by Bottura’s work, and invited him and his family to the White House later that summer, to present his thinking both White House staff and Sam Kass.

Massimo with Sam Kass, 2015

Now it seems Obama has come back to Italy, to get another taste of Italian culinary innovation. To learn more about the skinny Italian chef who impressed the Obamas, order a copy of Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef. Hungry for morre? Then look forward to our forthcoming Bottura book, Bread is Gold: How Chefs Turn Ordinary Ingredients into Extraordinary Meals, which we will publish later this year.

Never Trust A Skinny Italian ChefMassimo Bottura

Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is a tribute to three-michelin star restaurant, Osteria Francescana and the twenty-five year career of its chef, Massimo Bottura, 'the Jimi Hendrix of Italian chefs'. Voted #1 in the S. Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2016.

Osteria Francescana is Italy's most celebrated restaurant. At Osteria Francescana, chef Massimo Bottura (as featured on Netflix's Chef's Table) takes inspiration from contemporary art to create highly innovative dishes that play with Italian culinary traditions.

Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is a tribute to Bottura's twenty-five year career and the evolution of Osteria Francescana. Divided into four chapters, each one dealing with a different period, the book features 50 recipes and accompanying texts explaining Bottura's inspiration, ingredients and techniques. Illustrated with photography by Stefano Graziani and Carlo Benvenuto, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is the first book from Bottura - the leading figure in modern Italian gastronomy.

Specifications:

Format: Hardback
Size: 290 × 214 mm (11 3/8 × 8 3/8 in)
Pages: 296 pp
Illustrations: 250 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714867144

Massimo Bottura is the chef patron of Osteria Francescana, a three Michelin star restaurant based in Modena, Italy. Massimo grew up in Modena and developed an interest in cooking from a young age after watching his mother, grandmother and aunt in the kitchen preparing family meals. In 1986 he left a law degree to open his first restaurant and subsequently went on to develop his love of food with stages for Alain Ducasse at Louis XV in Monte Carlo and Ferran Adriá at elbulli. He opened Osteria Francescana in 1995.

Featured on the Netflix documentary series Chef's Table

"Massimo Bottura is the Jimi Hendrix of Italian chefs... he takes familiar dishes and classical flavors and techniques and turns them on their heads in a way that is innovative, boundary-breaking, sky kissing, and entirely whimsical, but ultimately timeless, and most importantly, deliciously satisfying." – Mario Batali

'A pioneer of modern Italian cooking, Bottura possesses both a deep respect for local traditions and a drive to keep blowing them up.' – Wall Street Journal

'Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is an incredible book, as rich with inspiration as Massimo’s dishes are with flavor.' – Cindy Sherman

'Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef demonstrates that food has indeed morphed into an element of high culture.' – The New York Times Book Review

'This is more than just a conventional map of how to cook; it is the best study yet of how a highly original and creative chef thinks and works.' – Economist

'The genius of Bottura lies in his ability to transcend opposites. In his inventive new book, Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef, he offers a mix of recipes and memoir, with striking photography by Carlo Benvenuto and Stefano Graziani.' – Food & Wine

'The book is a wonder – full of photos of food, setting and whimsy. Fascinating windows into the workings of one of cooking’s greatest minds.' – LA Times

'Massimo Bottura is a luminary of the culinary avant-garde.' – New Yorker

'Energetic, engrossing, and often quite funny ... Hard to put down.' – Tasting Table

'Bottura is part of a new word order of chefs, intently focused on their terroir, but global in reach.' – GQ

'A heady trip into the thoughtful mind of the three-Michelin-starred culinary genius.' – Slate

'A tribute to the 'Jimi Hendrix of Italian chefs' ... Not only does it tell the story of his special journey with food it also features 50 of his amazing and inventive recipes.' – Elle Decoration (South Africa)

'Bring a bit of Italy to UK shores ... Will teach you to cook in a way that will make your old nonna proud.' – Shortlist