For a while now, I define myself as going beyond a gelato chef; certainly not to discredit gelato, which will always remain my biggest love, it is quite the contrary. The industry of cold desserts today has been turned upside down, contaminated by pastry, foodservice and chocolate arts. Me defining myself as going beyond a gelato chef serves as a way to include my whole world, which has increasingly malleable boundaries with other disciplines, not only with the contiguous ones but also with those that are extraneous to cuisine, such as music and design, two other great passions of mine.

The Brunelli cream, a pastry cream with dark chocolate chips, caramelised hazelnuts and anise. It contains all of the aromas of my region. It has the magical power to unlock memories of amusement parks and a blooming countryside. Still today it has an iconic and evergreen flavour, and it is a real sounding board for my name.

Opening a gelato shop in the middle of the pandemic. The shop in Marzocca, Senigallia (Ancona, Italy) first opened at the turn of 2019-2020, a time period of restrictions, fear, and confused and delusional institutional messages. More than a mistake, it was a mixture of bad luck, forced decisions and uncertainty with staffing, caused by the terrible period we were all experiencing. Today it is a joy, but it took us four years to revive it.

Because I am curious and I let myself get carried away by different worlds. Inspiration doesn’t just come from studying in the lab. A bit because of my age, because I have been doing this job for many years; partly because I have also dealt with other things, but always related to the world of taste, fine living, culture. After that, transferring all the discoveries, teachings and, why not, contrasts into my gelato was a fluid, natural process.

A huge love. It is a fascinating product because it changes over time; it melts and this makes it captivating; it is popular but at the same time rests elegantly on starred dishes. Sexy, yet an everyday thing, it is an immortal product.

Until twenty years ago, chocolate gelato did not exist; there was cocoa-flavoured gelato. The evolution, therefore, is given by the use of chocolate (in my case, pure), of which I preserve the intrinsic origin and aromas. Chocolate sorbet, on the other hand, just didn’t exist.

All this together, but above all the pleasure of eating not only to nourish oneself or as a release, but also to research, explore and give value to agricultural products. Today we are all more educated and competent, so I would say that it is a social change, before I would say it is a culinary one.

It’s not exactly a branch that suits me. I love traditional gelato and how its recipe works: it must pamper you. Then it can be enriched or blended with flavours that are unrelated to desserts or it can take particular forms, as in my famous reproduction of the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest), presented at Identità Golose 2018. So, I’m not at all against innovation and exploration, but I don’t like to distort just to provoke: the taste must be balanced and pleasant.

It’s erotic, sensual. One of life’s pleasures. Plus, it takes on different shapes and textures, so it’s also a fun material to play with. The chocolate I prefer is definitely dark chocolate. However, I have discovered, in the last few years, the wonder of a certain type of milk chocolate, which should not be denigrated as it has been in the past, when it was seen as chocolate for children. Every chocolate has a reason for its characteristics. The Brunelli Cake is made with a single-origin milk chocolate from the Dominican Republic.

I respect Valrhona first of all as a customer and this already says a lot, with them there is a relationship of trust that has continued over time. Ten years ago I started my journey as a Brand Ambassador precisely to experiment with chocolate gelato and it was exciting because I followed firsthand the transformation that I mentioned before. At the time, there was no knowledge of cocoa mass and with Valrhona, I have followed and continue to follow the evolution of chocolate gelato. Today, with Valrhona’s “Gelato Mondo” project, we are travelling to bring Italian gelato and our gastronomic and professional culture to the world. The first stop was China. Other dates are scheduled in 2025 that we will soon be able to reveal.

The savoir-faire of our gelato and pastry professionals; the ability of the Italian Maestros to illustrate, teach, fascinate; the extreme respect for ingredients; all of these factors have given a very precious value to these products. Like haute couture, Italian gelato and pastry make people talk about them with that discreet and immortal elegance, which cannot be forgotten.

Because it’s made with only two ingredients: hazelnuts from a very small producer in Piedmont – whose name I do not declare because I have jealously guarded it for years – and single-origin chocolate from Santo Domingo. “I apologize for the length of my letter, but I didn’t have time to write a shorter one”, this is how Blaise Pascal, around 1656, opened one of the best-known of his Lettres Provinciales. The same is true for the Brunelli Cake: finding the perfect formula for such a simple product was a titanic undertaking.

I love zuppa inglese and hazelnut gelato. However, if you mean which is my favourite recipe “to make”, I like everything that contains egg yolk, too mystified in recent years. The yolk is a magical product. It is what allows you to emulsify gelato and to soften it. A cream without egg yolk is not a cream, just as a tiramisu without egg yolk is not a tiramisu. Obviously, as with other ingredients, it is important to make a balanced and contained use of them.

First of all, since this year I have been working closely with my daughter Vittoria, who has always been a point of reference at the shop counter and with the public. Today she has taken the reins of the company with me. She is a burst of youthfulness, and she has a very practical approach (the sign of Taurus rarely contradicts itself) and a different point of view from mine, which disrupts routine and does a lot of good for the creativity of the production kitchen. Then, going into detail about new creations, at Identità Milano 2024 I presented PAUSA., a one hundred percent plant-based product, to be used instead of butter or to be grated on top of a sorbet or any other dish, even a risotto. I’m using it in gelato, panettone and savoury leavened products. It is an extraordinary amplifier of flavours.