Take a look at the Osteria Francescana staff meal
Massimo Bottura shows us all how to fight food waste and satisfy a hungry restaurant brigade
If you, like many in Europe, Australia, and some parts of the United States, enjoyed a holiday on Easter Monday, you could well be readying yourself for your first working lunch of the week. We’re sure you’ve got something great picked out for yourself, but, chances are, it won’t be quite as enjoyable as the kind of meal Massimo Bottura and his staff enjoy.
Meals at Bottura’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Modena, northern Italy, are well-made, highly social events, held in a dedicated, private refectory.
“Plastered with posters of Massimio’s beloved team Inter Milan,” explains the text Per-Anders Jörgensen’s book, Eating with the Chefs, “the staff dining room feels very much like the soccer clubs you find in so many Mediterranean cities.”
Everyone from the interns to Massimo and his wife Lara have shared meals here; sometimes Bottura and his brigade get a simple dish of spaghetti and mussels, or a rustic rabbit stew.
However, a new clip posted by Bottura on Instagram shows a novel staff dish, provisionally entitled ‘everything’. True to its name, the dish combines a wide variety of ingredients, including a whole mess of roast vegetables, a rich tartar sauce and a breaded veal cutlet; it looks like a great way to fight food waste – a subject close to Massimo’s heart – and satisfy a large and talented group of culinary professionals. Enjoy, guys.
To recreate the kind of dishes enjoyed by the staff at such restaurants as Osteria Francescana, Noma, Chez Panisse and The French Laundry, order a copy of Eating with the Chefs here.