The Italian who has debuted in '50 Best'

In February, he turned 64 and, since July 18, his restaurant is considered number 12, an example that not only young chefs shine on the world culinary scene. Uliassi, surname of the chef who gives the restaurant its name, is not a recent project, but rather started in 1990, in a kind of beach bar in Senigallia (Italy). “It was a cabin, a wooden shack, which little by little we rehabilitated until the space was converted into a restaurant like the current one,” says the chef, whose business has been awarded with powerful recognitions -apart from the 50 Best ranking- (the first arrived in 1994, the second in 1998 and the third in 2018), such as the three Michelin stars, apart from local classifications such as the five Espresso hats or the three Gambero Rosso forks.

Senigallia is a town in the province of Ancona, in the Marche region, on the Adriatic Riviera, where the brothers Mauro and Catia Uliassi originate. “We wanted people to be passionate about our cuisine and want to come back,” they maintain. It seems that they got it at the cost of work, effort, perseverance and travel.

At the gala for the presentation of the 50 Best list, last July in London, Uliassi entered the ranking through the grand door, jumping directly to twelfth place to debut in the world Top 50, which gave the chef the award for the strongest entry of 2022 (Highest New Entry Award). In its Top 100, it ranked 61st in 2019 to climb to 52nd in 2021. Uliassi is “a well-known institution for gourmets around the world,” emphasizes 50 Best, whose Top 50 includes five other Italian spaces: Lido 84 (Lake Garda), in eighth place; Le Calandre (Rubano), in tenth; Reale (Castel di Sangro), number 15; Piazza Duomo (Alba, Piedmont), 19; and St Hubertus (San Cassiano), 29.

Mauro Uliassi declares himself a fan of Spanish gastronomy, which he has dedicated himself to learning about through visits to various haute cuisine restaurants for 25 years. “What for us was almost a game became a solid reality”, adds Uliassi, who, first, dedicated himself to teaching at a catering school in Senigallia until deciding to open his own business with his sister Catia. the. “In the beginning, we didn’t have a particular style that identified us, but I learned the good taste of food from my grandmother Jolanda, who was also a cook,” he says.

Etxebarri, Mugaritz, Nerua, Aponiente, Quique Dacosta Restaurante… are clues that emerge in a conversation with the chef after a summer meal in his restaurant overlooking the Adriatic. And… elBulli, where he ate three days in a row in 1998, to end up kneeling before Ferran Adrià. “I got the idea for our lab from Ferran Adrià’s model at elBullitaller”, confesses a chef who years ago created his own lab to centralize creativity and R&D around dishes, so that each year he estimates that he creates a dozen new recipes, which complement its menu of classics made up of historical proposals. “We keep the restaurant open nine months a year and close on December 27. In the three months while it’s closed, we travel the world, and when we come back, from February 10 to the last Wednesday in March, we literally lock ourselves in.” in the kitchen and we began to reflect on all our experiences,” says Uliassi, who refers to brain sailing, a term he prefers over brainstorming -that is, navigation of ideas instead of brainstorming-, which “lasts about 40 days; it is a beautiful period because in this time we discover and experience what creativity means, which has to do with imagination and with imagining possible alternatives to what is commonplace”. Then, “we put together our new menu in two days. The summary of what’s new for the year is, in fact, his Lab Menu.

The chef reports on the creativity that emerged in the Uliassi Laboratory and its operation in reels published periodically on Instagram, in which he appears with a member of his creative team, made up of eight chefs, with whom “we sat around a table and we start throwing ideas around, always trying to go beyond what we already know or are familiar with. We write absolutely everything we can think of on the computer and everything we write down then gets done,” he says. “With this highly structured method, we guarantee maximum freedom of creativity as well as maximum satisfaction. We have discovered that the results of teamwork through the exchange of ideas are much more significant than those generated by one person.”

In its cuisine, there is an evident predominance of the sea, a habitat on whose shore the restaurant is nestled in the sand, between the local marina and the beach. But not only, since against all odds a house as fishermand by its location as Uliassi offers as an alternative a game menu, which delves into another of the traditions of the area, which mixes the cuisine of the sea with poultry meat, another of the traditions of Senigallia, “a typical sea-land of the regional tradition”, point out from 50 Best. “We are inspired by the smell of the sea, but we also like to try our luck,” they add from the restaurant. “Tradition is not a photocopy of the past,” says the chef.

Uliassi relies on a total team of more than 30 people. Her sister is in charge of room service and a perfect and close hospitality concept, made up of eleven women and a sommelier.