Culinary visions from the future with Cristina Bowerman and Leonardo da Vinci

“Leonardo was an open-minded man”, the chef said from the stage at Teatro della Misericordia, on 11 April on the occasion of the Leonardo Genius of Wine event, emphasising Leonardo’s extraordinary contemporary relevance even in gastronomic matters. For chef Bowerman: “Leonardo da Vinci was a pioneer of food-wine pairing and immediately embraced ingredients and techniques that were not merely Italian”. Thus was born the menu “Culinary visions from the future”, a multisensory culinary journey where food becomes a creative and intellectual matter, a catalyst for reflection and discovery of new techniques and cultures. “I imagined cooking for Leonardo da Vinci. A polyvalent genius, so far ahead of his time that his vision of the world transcended the boundaries of his era. He devoted his life to overcoming the concept of limits and his research still appears today as visions from the future. His boundless work is a challenge and a journey through time“. From this inspiration arise unusual and visionary dishes such as the Parchment filled with lobster mousse, the Mini cone with tuna, Tuscan olive ice cream and grape, or Quail legs in apricot chutney in which forms play with structures and flavours. The menu is also a parade of curious ingredients, cross-pollination and gustatory stimuli: Head terrine, fennel pollen and crème fraîche, wild fennel infusion, Beef tartare sandwich with spiced orange sauce, capers and wasabi tobiko, Scallops with marrow and fermented pears, pea and lemon sauce.

A journey through time and space, yet without forgetting Tuscan origins, as in the case of the Crispy sheets of tomato, Tuscan beans, caviar and vinegar powder, or Pigeon risotto, marzolino and rosemary and Black garlic gnocchetti, broad beans and candied lemon. And it closes sweetly with Mini frangipane with white chocolate and wasabi, the Grape jellies or the Tartlets with red wine and red fruit. A tasting of 19 courses in which colours, textures, flavours alternate, capable of stimulating every sense: just as Leonardo would have liked. “Cooking too is able to open a temporal gateway to the future and it does so through the senses. So I conceived a menu that would be a tribute to the Genius of Leonardo and his life. With original, multisensory dishes, where flavours play with forms, technique dialogues with raw materials, science with art and agriculture. These are my culinary visions from the future.”