Italian chef Gianni Tota compares eating his dishes to kissing. As he combines components of different consistency, soft and crunchy, and temperature, cold and hot, every bite gives a different gustatory sensation, just like a kiss.
“The first kiss is beautiful but then you begin to enjoy it more and feel better and better,” he told the Kyiv Post.
Tota, 44, has cooked for many outstanding personalities including the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.
Today the chef works at Kyiv’s restaurant Fabius, where he experiments with traditional Italian recipes to adjust them to the gastronomic habits of Ukrainians.
Tota started his culinary career at the age of 14 when most of his teenage peers enjoyed their carefree lives. He says he started working that early both because he was one of four children in the family where only father has worked and because he didn’t enjoy studying much.
“I was very lucky to meet people who taught me practically how to work,” he said.
Tota became the executive chef of Romani restaurant in Milan when he was 25.
“It was very difficult to work there because I was the youngest. All those who were older than me tried to put a spoke in the wheel,” he said. “In Italy, there’s a very harsh competition in the kitchen.”
During his career, Tota has cooked for British singer Sting, fashion journalist and editor Anna Wintour, the U.S. tennis players sisters Serena and Venus Williams, as well as the Inter football club.
He says that working for famous people might be difficult, as many of them have whims, however, he could always choose whether to work with them or not.
A restaurant, he says, doesn’t give such a choice — a chef is supposed to serve to different people with different tastes at the same time.
Developing Fabius
Tota first came to Ukraine back in October 2016 for a couple of days, as he was invited to create a menu for one of the Italian restaurants in Kyiv. He came back to Kyiv in a year for the restaurant’s opening, but it turned out that there was a new owner and he lost the job. That was the time he was offered to head Fabius’ kitchen.
The chef says he fell in love with the restaurant from the first visit.
“I looked at everything wide-eyed. Everything was beautiful,” he said.
Fabius is a large restaurant that includes five dining halls and a big terrace outside that can seat up to 350 guests. It also has a show-kitchen, internal bakery and creamery, as well as a greenhouse, where Italian cultivars of tomatoes, peppers and greenery are grown.
“What you eat here is what we have created with our hands,” he said.
For Fabius, Tota has drawn up a menu that offers Italian dishes with some signature twists. He says he tried to bring two cultures together, respecting and taking into account both of them.
“I have my own culture of cooking Italian food. I can’t make risotto al dente for Ukrainians. A client will not appreciate it,” he said.
Gianni Tota, the Italian chef of the Fabius restaurant in Kyiv talks to Kyiv Post on May 30. (Volodymyr Petrov)
What Tota can’t accept despite his desire to satisfy Ukrainians is using cream.
“It’s an insult for Italians,” he said. “Those who use cream don’t know how to cook. It’s a taste modifier,” he added.
The chef has also introduced some of his signature dishes to the restaurant including the Dalai Lama Ravioli made with broccoli and almond that the spiritual leader enjoyed a lot.
Although Tota doesn’t speak either Ukrainian or Russian to communicate with the staff, which can only add to the stress while cooking for hundreds of people, the chef says that his intuition and attention help out.
“While I’m cooking I’m watching everything that is happening around — how many dishes are about to be served and what we run out of,” he said.
Rules and values
At Tota’s kitchen, nobody tries dishes to taste if they’re good or not. The chef says that people who work with him do everything mechanically, according to the cooking cards.
“Cooking is a scientific discipline. There are many rules that one should stick to,” he said.
Nevertheless, Tota is the one who gets to experiment and improvise at the kitchen.
“I’m in connection with food. I try to add a magical component to a dish.”
For instance, the chef adds some chocolate mousse to the bottom of Tiramisu to surprise customers when they’re almost done with the dish.
Gianni Tota, the Italian chef of the Fabius restaurant in Kyiv shows the restaurant’s greenhouse to the Kyiv Post on May 30. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Watching guests’ reactions is a part of communication with customers that Tota enjoys a lot.
“I always talk to customers personally — it’s a beautiful part of my job,” he said.
Tota believes that a chef represents the whole restaurant and should look neat and clean.
“I’m always clean here not because I don’t work but because I have nine tunics and change them as soon as there is a single stain.”
Charity and generosity
Tota says that there are many Italian chefs working in Ukraine who became rich and forgot what they went through.
“I want to keep being myself,” he said. “I want to help people.”
The chef supports Milan’s non-profit City Angels that helps homeless people. Over the last 15 years, Tota has been organizing Christmas dinners there for homeless and spent the holiday with them.
He says he also donates to charity organizations and orphanages in Ukraine.
Apart from that, Tota pays for the education of two students at National University of Food Technologies, who struggle to afford it. The students also work at Fabius.
As Tota is looking forward to obtaining Ukrainian citizenship — he is to marry his Ukrainian girlfriend this year — he says he hopes to help people here more.
“It’s a pleasant feeling when you help someone else,” he said.
