Italian Cuisine Becomes UNESCO Heritage
A personal reflection from an Italian chef who has spent much of his career cooking outside Italy
On 10 December 2025, Italian cooking was inscribed by UNESCO on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, under the title Italian cooking, between sustainability and biocultural diversity.
For me, as an Italian chef who has spent much of his professional life outside Italy, the recognition has a particular meaning.
I was born in Milan, grew up with strong connections to Calabria, and later built my career across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, cruise ships and islands in the Indian Ocean. Italian food travelled with me through all of those places.
Sometimes through sophisticated restaurant menus. Sometimes through a plate of pasta prepared thousands of kilometres from Italy. Sometimes simply through the way we approached ingredients, hospitality and the table.
Over the years I have learned that Italian cuisine is difficult to explain only through recipes.
Of course, technique matters. Ingredients matter. Regional traditions matter enormously. But there is something else behind them.
It is the habit of gathering around a table. It is knowing when simplicity is enough. It is using what is available rather than wasting it. It is a recipe passed through a family and adjusted without ever really being written down.
This is also what makes the UNESCO recognition interesting. It is not the celebration of one famous Italian dish or one particular product. It recognizes a wider cultural practice built around food, knowledge, ingredients, family and community.
Cooking Italian food far from Italy
Working abroad changes your relationship with your own cuisine.
When you are in Italy, many things feel normal because they are around you every day. When you leave, you begin to understand which parts are essential and which are simply habits.
You also learn that authenticity does not mean reproducing Italy mechanically.
Ingredients change. Guests change. Cultures change. A chef working in Indonesia, Romania or the Maldives cannot pretend to be cooking in Milan or Calabria.
The challenge is to adapt without losing the reasoning behind the food.
I was reminded of this during an Italian dinner in the Maldives some months ago. We prepared risotto in a wheel of Grana Padano in front of our guests.
There was nothing particularly complicated about the idea. Good rice, stock, butter, cheese, patience and the correct technique.
What interested me was the reaction around the table.
Guests from different countries stopped to watch. They asked questions. Some knew risotto well, others did not. For a few minutes, a very Italian preparation became a point of connection between people who had arrived on the island from completely different parts of the world.
Experiences like that have followed me throughout my career.
They are a reminder that when we cook abroad, we are not simply reproducing dishes. We are also explaining something about where those dishes come from and why they are prepared in a certain way.
Recognition also brings responsibility
The UNESCO inscription is something Italy can rightly celebrate, but I think there is another side to it.
Heritage survives only when it continues to be practised.
For chefs, that means understanding traditions before trying to reinvent them. It means respecting ingredients, teaching younger cooks why certain methods exist, and recognizing that simplicity often requires more knowledge, not less.
It also means accepting that Italian cuisine has never been completely static.
Regional cooking evolved through necessity, geography, agriculture, migration and exchange. Protecting its identity should not mean freezing it in time.
The distinction is especially important for those of us who work internationally.
After many years cooking Italian food outside Italy, I have become increasingly interested in what should remain unchanged and what can evolve. It is a question I still encounter in professional kitchens today.
Perhaps that is one reason this UNESCO recognition feels significant to me.
It does not change the way I will cook tomorrow. It does not suddenly make Italian cuisine more valuable than it was the day before.
But it formally recognizes something that many Italians, cooks and families have understood for generations: food can carry memory, knowledge, place and identity.
I have been fortunate to carry a small part of that tradition through many countries and many kitchens.
I hope to continue doing so with the same principle that has become more important to me with experience: respect what came before you, understand it properly, and then keep it alive.
Further reading from the Journal
- Italian Food Explained: Seven Principles from an Italian Chef
- Italian Nights in the Maldives: Culture, Craft and Hospitality
- About Simplicity
About the Author
