New Alps food event Genesis to launch this September in Italy with international chefs

A new international food event will launch this September in the Cortina d’Ampezzo, a luxury destination often dubbed as the Queen of the Dolomites. The first edition will run from Friday 10^th to Monday 13^th September: three days of immersion in nature will enable guests to travel back in time and discover the origins of cooking, surrounded by peaks of the Dolomite Alps.

“To understand what we eat today we need to go back to the origins of everything”: this is the concept behind the first edition of Genesis, the event conceived by chef Riccardo Gaspari and Ludovica Rubbini, owners of the Michelin-starred restaurant SanBrite in Cortina D’Ampezzo (BL), which aims to explore the primordial roots of cooking through a culinary journey from ingredients to table.

During the weekend, food and wine enthusiasts, along with European and Italian chefs, will meet in the heart of Dolomite Alps to celebrate fine cuisine, the land and the environment, savouring genuine flavours and participating in a unique sensorial experience. For the occasion, European and Italian chefs will be taking turns to host four-handed and six-handed events. To open the event on the evening of Friday 10^th will be Valerio Serino (Tèrra, Copenhagen – DK) and Mikael Svensson (Kontrast, Oslo – N). Saturday’s lunch will be the turn of Alessandro Gilmozzi (El Molin, Cavalese) to who will follow Jordan Bailey (Aimsir, County Kildare – IRE) together with Gaspari; while the Sunday lunch in nature will be hosted by Chita Pelazzi, Sara Nicolosi and Cinzia De Lauri (AlTatto, Milano). After a good night’s sleep in their tents, the guests will start the day with a breakfast by Stefano Ferraro (Loste Cafè, Milano).

Water, air, earth, fire: the four natural elements will be at the centre of the agenda, also thanks to the element sponsors who strongly believe in the event’s first edition. First is  SanBrite restaurant, which represents the fire element, from where it all started. To follow is Parmigiano Reggiano, whose products – aged in specific rooms with an air control system – will be used in the chefs’ own creations, together with Felicetti pasta cooked in water from the surrounding woodland’s spring waters. Diotisalvi wines, originating from the same part of the earth where Dolomite Alps are, will accompany the dishes.

Guests will be encouraged to turn off their phone and live in the moment, participating in moving experiences whilst perfectly tuned into the Alpine landscape. These include everything from sunrise yoga to e-bike tours to the spring; from a performance by artist Stefano Ogliari Badessi (SOB) curated by Irene Baselli to the Seedlip masterclass with Ben Branson; from the workshop at the Piccolo Brite cheese factory and the foraging class with expert Valeria Mosca to the key moment: sleeping in previously heated tents and dinner around the fire with chef Davide Di Fabio (Dalla Gioconda, Gabicce Monte), Franco Aliberti (Anima, Milano) and Riccardo Gaspari.

“Genesis is my own desire as a chef,” says Riccardo Gaspari. “I’ve always been handling ingredients myself and I’m familiar with their taste and secrets and mostly I know how hard the land and the manufacturers work, especially my family, so we can taste all the flavours.” Rubbini explains how this passion for nature motivated them to create the concept: “At the same time, we want to bring you into our daily life, in the same way we’re used to greeting our guests any time they enter our restaurant in order to promote our land. To respect and care for everything around us, to bring it back at the centre of the creative, culinary and taste thinking.”

The event is sponsored by private banking Fideuram: “[Our] company for years has been truly dedicated to promote and support environmental sustainability,” state Edoardo Bobba and Stefano Danieli of Fideuram. “We believe that combining environmental, social and governance aspects with our business model is essential to foster a sustainable economic and social development.”

Genesis will be a homage to the land and the culinary arts, but also and especially an occasion to slow down and find ourselves, and at the same time tune into nature’s rhythm, learning to listen to it and to respect it. Adventure, reverence for the earth and fine dining will be the main ingredients.

The editorial unit

Tickets for Genesis powered by Fideuram Private Banker are on sale on their website.