Massimo Bottura at The World's 50 Best Restaurants awards in New York, June 2016

Massimo Bottura tops World's 50 Best Restaurants!

The Italian chef's Osteria Francescana took the top spot at the awards ceremony in New York City last night

Massimo Bottura’s book might be called Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef, but on receiving the award for the number one spot in the 2016 list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, the 53-year-old sounded remarkably sincere last night.

“Our job is all about hard work,” the founder chef of Osteria Francescana told the audience at the Cipriani Ballroom in Manhattan last night. “People think we are rock stars, but it's all about our work – in the kitchen, every day, to work and succeed."

Massimo Bottura at The World's 50 Best Restaurants awards in New York, June 2016

It was a typically charismatic, magnanimous speech from a chef who has helped reinvent Italian food, and restaurant philanthropy, for a worldwide audience. Over the past few years the chef’s restaurant in Modena, northern Italy, has found fame for contemporary interpretations of his national cuisine, concocting such dishes as The Crunchy Part of the Lasagna, and a Memory of a Mortadella Sandwich, while the chef himself has pioneered a number of impressive charitable enterprises, which has seen Bottura help redistribute broken cheeses after the 2012 Italian earthquake; feed the hungry in Milan and Bologna; and consult with Sam Kass, Michelle Obama’s Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy.

Redzepi and Bottura with the staff at Refettorio Ambrosiano. Image courtesy of Bottura's Instagram

Indeed, Bottura went on to invite his fellow chefs to join in him Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Olympics, where he plans to open one of his Refettorio Ambrosiano soup kitchens, serving healthy food to the city’s poor, just as he did during the 2015 Milan Expo

Massimo Bottura with his wife Lara and his children Alexa and Charlie, at the White House. Image courtesy of Bottura's Instagram

What’s more, Bottura wasn’t the only Phaidon winner last night. André Chiang’s Restaurant André rose 14 places to 32; Virgilio Martinez's Central was at number four; René Redzepi’s Noma restaurant was ranked at number five; Andoni Luis Aduriz's Mugaritz was at seven; Alex Atala's DOM was at 11; Enrique Olvera’s Mexico City restaurant Pujol was at 25 while his New York restaurant Cosme was at 96; Albert Adria's Tickets was at 29; Gastón Acurio, Astrid y Gastón was at 30; Magnus Nilsson’s Faviken was at 41; and Dan Hunter's Brae was at 65.

Massimo Bottura and co at The World's 50 Best Restaurants awards in New York, June 2016

Congratulations to Massimo and all of the Osteria Francescana brigade. To find out how they did it buy a copy of Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef here. You'll have to wait a season or two for our Dan Hunter and Virgilio Martinez titles, however you can browse through our other food and cookery books here.

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