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.

Mauro Colagreco was still an Argentinean student at La Rochelle Hotel School, when he traveled through what would become the home of his future restaurant on a little road between the sea and the mountains on the way to Rome.

A few years later, after working with great French chefs Bernard Loiseau, Alain Passard, Alain Ducasse and Guy Martin, Mauro decided to open his own place and he settled in Menton, on the Cote de Azur. Through his personal interpretations of ingredients and flavour combinations, Mauro has forged a style of his own. He has absorbed his Italian-Argentinian cultural heritage and that of the chefs with whom he trained, and now follows his intuition as he draws on the local culture on both sides of the border.

Inspired by the sea, the mountains and the fruit and vegetables grown in his own gardens, Mauro invents colourful, pictorial dishes that play with textures and bold contrasts. His cuisine is ultra fresh, with lots of herbs, fruit and vegetables showcasing the magnificent ingredients produced by local growers: citrus fruit from the Riviera, saffron from Sospel, olive oil and lemons from Menton, wild mushrooms from the surrounding countryside, produce from the Ventimiglia markets, gamberoni prawns from San Remo, locally caught fish, and so on. Light, honest, respectful of nature, Mauro’s cuisine expresses itself freely