Interview - Marco Assaggia
by Simone Spiritelli
by Simone Spiritelli
[Simone Spiritelli] A name, a destiny: “Marco Assaggia” — can you explain where your name comes from?
[Marco Assaggia] The origin of my name comes from a turning point in my professional life, which coincides with the decision to start my own business. After making peace with my family, I dedicated the project to my mother, who, ever since I was a child, whenever she cooked, would say to me: “Marco, assaggia” — Marco, taste it. And that is where my name came from.
[SS] What was the misunderstanding with your family that led you to undertake your creative project?
[MA] For the first years of my life, the thread running through everything was feeling misunderstood. In time, though, I realized that sometimes you take refuge in that condition and identify with it. The real turning point came when I made peace with myself. I understood who I was and, above all, I learned to accept myself. From that moment on, everything became simpler. I think my family, just like me, simply needed an instruction manual to understand me. And the moment I managed to write one for myself, I handed them a code, a key to reading me.
[SS] What is the distinctive trait in your character that shapes your persona and your cooking?
[MA]“Let us say that I live a kind of dichotomy between Marco Corradi — an introverted person— and Marco Assaggia, who breaks free of my reserved, private side. Both figures coexist and feed each other.
[SS] Over time, surrealism has become your stylistic signature. How did this aesthetic direction come about?
[MA] It came from my personal passion for the work of Salvador Dalí: his aesthetic imagery, built around symbolism, coincides with my own idea of aesthetics. I began to translate those pictorial concepts into physical settings, completing my dreamlike idea of the table.
[SS] The Persistence of Memory, from 1931, is one of the paintings in which Dalí develops the concept of subjective time and relative time. How important is time in your work?
[MA] I would say that in my work it is an unknown quantity that is more a matter of management than important in itself: I notice that often the finest works are conceived in almost no time at all, while others, in which more people are involved, turn out to be more complex to execute and less successful. That is why I would speak of a subjective time that makes an hour seem like a second — a liquid time, like Dalí’s melting clocks.
[SS] The famous cook François Vatel killed himself in 1671 because of a delay in the delivery of fish for an important banquet. How important are planning and management in organizing a culinary event?
[MA] In planning, it is enormously important to know how to handle the unforeseen: not to panic, and to turn the unexpected into a solution. It all comes from experience and from a trained eye for the details that others often do not see or notice.
[SS] What is your relationship with madness?
[MA] We know each other and spend time together; if it ever abandons me, I will take a different road.
[SS] As in Buñuel’s famous 1972 film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, the shared meal becomes an almost performative moment in which the guests, caught up in events, never manage to eat dinner. How important are the performative operations that often shape your dinner parties?
[MA] They are important because of the spontaneity and improvisation of the situation. The performance is not only a study; it is a component that has to flow and move in relation to the dynamics of the dinner, which becomes the real performance.
[SS] One of your favorite films?
[MA] Slumdog Millionaire.
[SS] The film is about a young man in search of economic and social redemption. Do you think that only through suffering can an insight emerge that changes things and gives rise to a solution?
[MA] My story is different, but it still tells of a great comeback in life. I believe that anyone who manages to react, get back up, and turn their own difficulties into strength deserves to be talked about. In the end, these are precisely the stories that leave a mark, the testimony of someone who does not give up and finds the courage to build a new possibility.
[SS] In your work, fashion too becomes an element of communication, so much so that the references are plentiful, with themed dinner jackets created for every occasion. Is fashion more a concept or a function?
[MA] Fashion is decidedly an instrument that changes, that evolves; sometimes it is louder and sometimes it is quieter. I like the extravagances of Moschino, the knitwear of Rambaldi, the material solutions of Margiela — and I very much like the idea of using it rather than being a slave to it or being swept away by it.
[SS] So you are against the concept of a uniform? Understood as a concept of moderation, poised between an awareness of one’s own limits and, at the same time, of one’s own worth.
[MA] I am in favor of the uniform when it genuinely serves to put everyone on the same level, reducing social differences. In that case I consider it a useful instrument. I also believe that a uniform is never just a garment: it always carries with it both privileges and responsibilities, burdens and honors.
[SS] Your performative operations could be described as “high temperature,” above all in their use of smoke effects, which amplify the theatrical component as well as the dreamlike one. How important is the dream in a mise en place?
[MA] The dream is a fundamental component: estrangement creates a sense of wonder and the fullest involvement of the guests. During the time needed to enjoy dinner, there is a constant expectation of a gesture, a sign, an unexpected suggestion.
[SS] We often use the word heat to mean the degree of atmospheric temperature or the thermal degree of an object. How do you identify with the idea of heat?
[MA] If you talk to me about heat, the first thing that comes to mind is human warmth, the warmth of affection. Perhaps because it is what I lacked most and what today I continue to seek most intensely. I believe that, in the end, there is nothing more precious than feeling welcomed, understood, and loved.
[SS] Coming back to your background: you grew up in a small provincial town. How much does that come through in your creative work?
[MA] What emerges in my creative work is the spontaneity that characterizes small provincial places. Considering that I left Quingentole slamming the door behind me, my enthusiasm rises when I return and am welcomed like a superstar. That gives me the energy to always give the best of myself.
[SS] What traditional comfort food do you most like to cook?
[MA] My comfort food is definitely gummy candy — I could not face life without it. But if I had to give an answer suited to my profession, I would say pumpkin tortelli.
[SS] “The simplest Surrealist act consists of going down into the street, revolver in hand, and firing at random into the crowd for as long as you can,” wrote the founder of the Surrealist manifesto in 1930 (A. Breton). Is this what drives you to destroy everything, as you did at the end of this photo shoot?
[MA] I believe there is a beauty in the destructive gesture, or in the simple gesture of consuming in a disordered way what had been built. A little like playing with building blocks: once the complete work has been achieved, the desire is to demolish the whole thing, underlining how much more interesting the end is than the beginning. I find destruction to be a typically natural component, and therefore a human one.
[SS] Andy Warhol said: “I think anyone who can do one thing well is an artist. Cooking, for example.” Do you feel more like an artist or a cook?
[MA] I feel more like an artist, perhaps because I see the cook as a technician, whereas I experience this dimension as something experimental. That is why I favor traditional cooking used as an instrument for generating new forms of representation, ones that turn cooking into something more involving, as in a theatrical performance, where every component contributes to the final result.