Air April 2019

Gastronomy
APRIL 2019 : ISSUE 95
The
Good Life
The mastermind behind ‘the world’s best restaurant’
returns with Torno Subito – a laid-back experience
imbued with la dolce vita from childhood
holidays on the sun-kissed Italian Riviera
WORDS : CHRIS UJMA
Reclined on a handcrafted chair,
Massimo Bottura looks every
bit the poster child for his new
dining concept: with sunglasses affixed,
he’s casually dressed (insofar as Italian
elegance accomplishes ‘laid back’),
savouring bites of creamy gelato on the
shaded terrace at W Dubai – The Palm,
as gentle music and a balmy breeze
dance around.
He’s childlike in his level of
enthusiasm, too – not surprising,
given that Torno Subito taps into his
deepest nostalgia. “It’s playful, because
I want to share with the world this
amazing feeling of when I was a kid in
the 1960s, spending the summer in
the Italian Riviera – playing soccer
and eating good food on seemingly
endless days, enjoying the best things
in life. Those times as a teen were the
best vacations.”
To fully understand what a departure
this move is for Bottura, one also has to
cast their mind to Italy. There, Bottura
is the mastermind behind Modena
-based Osteria Francescana: a far more
serious dining affair that has earned
three prestigious Michelin stars, and
recently reclaimed the mantle as the
World’s Best Restaurant. “In Italy, food
is like religion,” he confesses. “It took
15 years to get 3 Michelin stars which,
for some people, can take their entire
lifetime – and just a few of us are
so lucky to be prized by Michelin in
this way.”
Naturally, then, when the W Hotel
first approached Bottura, they floated
the idea of him imitating the restaurant
outside Italy. “I said ‘No way – it would
be so wrong.’ They wanted me on board,
though, and were persistent, and I
thought of something totally different
– a new format. I didn’t want anyone to
say I was coming to Dubai to replicate
Francescana.” The contemporary,
energetic island resort is an ideal place
to push the boat out, creatively, and it
offered an arena for liberation.
Gazing out over a glittering Arabian
Gulf that shapes around Palm Jumeriah
and laps the hotel sands, he explains the
meaning behind the playful name of the
venture. “In Italy, we’re used to seeing
the sign ‘torno subito’ – ‘I’ll be back
soon’ – for when the shop is closed,
and the owner has paused to have
their espresso.”
In Dubai, torno subito will come to
mean a convivial restaurant with plenty
of charm. A vertigo-spiral striped
entryway is dominated by a photo of
Bottura, hands on his temples, almost
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