Cooking and charity at the highest power: chef Massimo Bottura meets Pope Francis

From Milan to London, from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, already open, the Refettori Ambrosiani, managed by the world’s No. 1 chef Massimo Bottura, will soon open their doors in New York and San Francisco, USA, Montreal, Canda, and Merida, Mexico. A social cooking project, that of “Food for Soul”, aimed at the less fortunate but not only, and with a great attention to the fight against waste and sustainability, which has attracted the attention of the world media and not only, since Bottura himself, in recent days, was received in private audience by Pope Francis, fascinated by the project.
“I told Pope Francis about the cup of milk and bread that my mother recommended not to sugar too much, about the old cooks in our workshops who teach autistic children to make tortellini and tagliatelle, about the refectories for the poor in Mexico and Harlem. It was a splendid confrontation: it opens the mind to hear him talk about hospitality, welcome, attention to others, walls to be brought down,” Bottura told the newspaper “La Stampa”. Stressing that he gave the Pope “the complete availability to carry out projects for young people in difficulty. Doing something with the Pope for those in need is a dream come true for me”.