Vitrum Gourmet Festival, dining out with the STARS

In a 400 sq meter area and  for 4 consecutive days, visitors will be given the opportunity to taste the finest Italian cuisine that  interprets the culinary tradition of a country to the maximum by offering a plethora of regional dishes enhanced by a pinch of  artistic innovation and experimenting.





The two-Michelin-star Claudio Sadler: “I cultivate my cooking style with determination and perseverance to make it creative and tasty with fresh and simple dishes.”



Who are then these haute-cuisine artists, the modern gurus of the pleasures of the table? In the last NewsOnline issue we gave a brief introduction but the time has come to get to know them better to find out how they hone their art and what to expect from each of them.





The one-Michelin-star Giancarlo Morelli: “It’s all about being curious: curiosity makes you find the details that make for diversity.”



Let’s start with Claudio Sadler, grabbing the spotlight on October 26th. Known and acclaimed around the world for his exacting, meticulous style, Claudio Sadler reinterprets the traditional aromas of Italian cuisine  using a very personal mix of new techniques and ingenuity. “Regional Italian cuisine is rich, varied and flavorful.  The changes in climate that occur along the length of our country along with the rapidly varying differences in topography, provide us with an incredibly vast array of foods to choose from. In addition, the need of the early populations to take advantage of the original raw materials led to Italy’s immensely rich gastronomical heritage” – says Sadler, who ends on a lighter note: “Creative cooking should be alluring and light, similar to a new art form that transforms food from a pure source of nourishment for the body to something that is gratifying to all the senses”.





The two-Michelin-star Norbert Niederkofler: “Innovating in the kitchen means not forgetting what nature offers us spontaneously. Variety means mixing in a simple way.”



Thursday, October 27th is Giancarlo Morelli’s turn, who learnt his art traveling around the world before settling in Italy, in the town of Seregno,  where he realized the dream of a lifetime by opening the widely acclaimed Osteria del Pomiroeu restaurant: “Over the years, I worked hard to find a technique that could be mine, the perfect expression of who I am – proudly comments Morelli, adding an interesting and very personal description of his commitment and research: “The creation of a dish inevitably depends on tradition . Tradition rests on the raw materials. The raw materials are worked by man. Everything that has to do with man is subject to creativity. By creativity, I mean having a raw material that must absolutely retain its substance and at the same time know how to become something different”.





The two-Michelin-star Gianni D’Amato: “Cooking is a personal experience that comes from sentiments.”



Norbert Niederkofler, who established his reign in Alto Adige, in the heart of the Dolomites , will be on stage on Friday, October 28th. Globetrotter by definition, at 18 he began traveling the world in search of new ideas to hone and refine his art.  For some time now, he’s returned to his roots in Alto Adige, a region he deeply loves, and enthusiastically describes what life has taught him: “Perseverance is the basis, the key to reaching one’s objectives. Looking for new ideas, creating innovative dishes, experimenting and developing cutting edge techniques. In this line of work, I think the important thing is to never stop, never get stuck in one place, and always have a goal in mind. Culinary art has evolved with the introduction of modern techniques that are now commonplace, but the classics of cooking and a love of tradition are the foundation for creativity”.



The star parade ends on Saturday, October 29th, with Gianni D’Amato, who has nurtured a passion for cooking which he developed early while still a child, in the trattoria owned by his grandparents where, half in earnest, half in joke, he decided he wanted to become a great chef. Of all four artists, D’Amato is the one who more emphatically brings out the emotional component of his art: “Passion is the guiding force in my work. In my work, I try to maintain the right balance between experimentation and tradition, marrying the benefits of new technologies and the products the earth has to offer. My creativity is a feeling that wells up out of the soul and pours forth through the desire to create new dishes where the product lies at the core of the entire process ”.