THE MYSTIQUE OF MIRAZUR

Chef Mauro Colagreco helms the reigning No 1 restaurant on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants List. He was also voted the world’s No 1 chef by the esteemed Gault & Millau guide this year. We had a tête-à-tête with the culinary superstar as part of GQ India’s first virtual Food and Drink Festival

- SHIKHA SETHI

Massimo Bottura refers to Mauro Colagreco as “the poet of a frontier land” in his introduction to Colagreco’s lush book, Mirazur. Writing about the restaurant’s unique location along the Côte D’Azur in Menton in the south of France, sandwiched between the Maritime Alps on one side and the deep blue Mediterranean Sea on the other, Bottura says: “It isn’t easy to interpret such a complex territory, one that breathes as much Alpine air as it does salty, maritime perfume from the waves that kiss a brilliant and dazzling riviera. Mauro Colagreco is one of its greatest interpreters because he is in love with this territory… I love Mauro’s cuisine because he knows how to be both contemporary and Mediterranean...which is the centre of his story. A story that’s born in the garden, his vegetables intelligently conjugated with the best fish from the Mediterranean, which is just a few metres below the restaurant, the game and meat sourced from the Alps that also share its surroundings.”