Turin-born Stefano Rossi grew up cooking with his grandmother in nearby Rivoli. At Assaggio Trattoria Italiana in Hong Kong, he cooks truly Italian food without adapting it to local tastes.
My name is Stefano Rossi, and I'm the chef of an Italian trattoria in Hong Kong. I must say that Italy and Asia rolled into one make a terrific combination. But it's not for me, because the cuisine at Assaggio Trattoria Italiana is truly Italian, without Eastern “sauces.”
I was born in northern Italy, in a town surrounded by the Alps. You know how it goes: while you wait for your food in a restaurant, they bring you crunchy breadsticks sticking out of a cup. At first everyone at the table acts modest, and then they fight over the last one. These are grissini, and they were invented in the city where I was born, Turin.
I spent my childhood, my youth and the rest in Rivoli, with my grandparents, so basically I grew up there. And it's not in France, and it's not the famous street in Paris, as you might think. Rivoli is a small town near Turin, in the Piedmont region, and this is where my culinary roots grow.
We weren't a rich family: breakfast, lunch and dinner were cooked from whatever was in the kitchen and whatever was grown in the garden. My grandfather (he is 97 now) grew vegetables and fruit and even kept fowl, rabbits and turkeys. The animals roamed freely around the backyard of our house. Of course, later they moved onto our plates (I hope no vegetarians are reading this?).
And my grandmother did the cooking in our house. We spent whole mornings together in the kitchen, with me as her little helper. She entrusted me with all sorts of small tasks, and I never complained about it.
You might think I cook well only because of my grandmother. But my training merely began in her kitchen: after that I graduated from culinary school, and in the '90s I was cooking full time. I started out in the world of gastronomy at 15, and I remember that the beginning was very difficult. But is it ever easy?
In 2011, I became head of an entire kitchen for the first time. Even so, I was never ashamed of low-ranking positions, and on the contrary, I looked for places where I could improve my skills rather than satisfy my pride. I chose better restaurants and discovered a lot that was new to me there, and that became an important part of my training.
At the end of 2010, I moved to Hong Kong, where my friend opened the restaurant and bar La Piola, focused on the cuisine of the Piedmont region. I enjoyed my first experience abroad and worked at La Piola until the end of 2013, and it was an awesome time. Now, in 2014, I have the opportunity to work with Miramar Group. I'm really excited, because it's my new challenge!
If you ask me to name the most exciting moment of my career quickly, I can't, and I couldn't do it slowly either. For me, everything I have gone through all this time has been cool and interesting. I can never say “I know everything about food!” because there will always be something new and unknown.
You should know that being a chef is damn hard. Lighting sparklers on New Year's Eve, stealing the kids' cookies from the fireplace at Christmas, hugging a girl on Valentine's Day and hoping for a kiss? I had to sacrifice all of these things. When you're young, everyone goes out late and you have to work, and you have to work a lot, because it's not an office job from 9 to 6.
I think each of us, at some point, goes through the ordeal of choosing between work and having more fun. Here you have to take responsibility for the outcome of your actions.
The secret is that you can't treat the work as a job (pardon the tautology), otherwise it will drive you batty! If you truly love cooking and adore it so much that your passion is combined with a mild form of masochism, you'll get the reward for the hard life of a chef. That reward is the happy faces of customers, and plenty of them.
My favorite food is the food whose taste I still remember from childhood: traditional Piedmontese cuisine made by my grandmother's hands. Agnolotti and other kinds of pasta, beef stew, rabbit or other poultry, or maybe just hand-cut pieces of meat, Battuta alla Piemontese. How can you love the same thing your whole life? I don't know, perhaps it's simply true love.
Does it sound strange that I never cook for myself? And you thought, “How nice it is to be a chef: he can decide to cook himself a luxurious dish in the middle of the night.”
If I'm not alone, I'm happy to cook, but just for myself? No, I'd rather go out to a restaurant and try something new. By the way, I like Asian food, and only now have I understood how it differs from the idea of “Asian food” that haunts us in Europe.
My hobbies are skiing and anything with a motor. I have been riding a motorcycle for 25 years. Of course, I have one in Hong Kong too, and sometimes I go to Zhuhai just to ride.
You know, when I pick up my favorite pasta with a fork at Assaggio, I can close my eyes and remember how I helped my grandmother as a child. I'm trying to carry everything I have, all my knowledge of Italian food, to the other side of the world. I don't adapt to local tastes, and I want to give every guest of the trattoria an Italian culinary adventure.
I simply judge by myself. When I want Chinese food, I really want Chinese food, and not Asian food with Western gimmicks. Fusion isn't my thing. I hope you agree with me!
My little piece of advice: the next time you have to choose between work (lovely!) and fun with friends, choose the first. Yes, it can be difficult. But if you're 25, you grew up in an ordinary family and you want to realize your potential, simple entertainment won't help you do it.
You think I'm boring? Perhaps, but now I have a girlfriend and work I love. That's happiness, isn't it?
The tasty dish in the photo is Agnolotti “del Plin” with Castelmagno cheese, butter and sage sauce, served in a Parmesan basket. It's my own creation and my favorite recipe, so I want to share it with you.
