We all still remember our favourite childhood dish. When the smell of this so very special meal spread through the house and our expectations and impatience grew stronger and stronger: Maybe we were sitting at the kitchen table watching our mothers preparing the meal, ready to pounce on the result of their cooking. How did we enjoy this meal! Each bite a revelation, the plate licked completely clean; hardly eaten, we were already looking forward to the next special occasion that would bless us with this special dish once again. And doesn’t still today this pleasant feeling set in, when we think back to the treats of our childhood?

What can we derive from those early experiences about the nature of enjoying food?

First, enjoying food does not call for the individual meals to be exclusive or composed with great refinement. It’s not my intention to offend anyone. Everyone knows that my mother has been the queen and 3-starred cook of my childhood. Wouldn’t we all talk about our mothers the same way? However, let’s be honest: Despite some exceptions, our mothers would hardly have the chance to be included in the Guide Michelin. And, based on culinary criteria, aren’t our favourite dishes quite simple? Nevertheless, we’ve enjoyed only a few meals as much as the noodles, semolina pudding or Wiener schnitzel from our childhood.

During our lives we train our tastes in a more or less professional way. We constantly sharpen our senses in the field of our interest; develop a sense for details which is quite unique and cannot always be shared with others, having a completely different taste. We create our own coordinate system of “good” and “bad”, “nice” and “ugly”, “right” and “wrong”.

Therefore, taste is the result of a learning process, which has one distinguished advantage against all other forms of education: On each level of our development pure indulging awaits us as a reward for our endeavours. That’s where the danger lies: Once eaten from the tree of knowledge, it has become difficult to preserve the ability to enjoy simple things. Someone who is still able to really enjoy a plate of spaghetti aglio e olio, after having learned to appreciate a deer terrine with wild mushrooms and black truffle vinaigrette, can be considered lucky.

It is now more than 30 years that Mario Gamba decided to change his life. Back then, an interpreter for Spanish and French in Bergamo, his passion for good food dragged him away from his working desk.

He quit and went travelling to learn the art of cooking, to find taste experiences and to understand gastronomy. He worked for some of the most renowned restaurants in Europe, for Hotel Palace in St. Moritz, for Alain Chapel in France, at Tantris with Heinz Winkler, who then sent him to Puerto Portals to open the restaurant Tristan, which under his management achieved two Michelin stars. After a stopover with Gualitero Marchesi in Milan, Mario Gamba opened Acquarello in 1994. Since 2000 Acquarello holds a Michelin star, the German magazine Bunte selects Mario Gamba’s restaurant regularly to the best Italian restaurant in Germany, which was confirmed by Feinschmecker in November 2013 and Forbes lists Acquarello among the world’s 100 best restaurants.

In October 2015, the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and the jury members of the Italian restaurant guide Gambero Rosso presented Mario Gamba with the “Falanghina Sannio Chef Award” naming him the best Italian cook worldwide outside of Italy.