Massimo Bottura Opens Up on 60 Minutes

The Italian chef Massimo Bottura was just featured on the award winning U.S news shows, 60 Minutes, in an episode that focused on the story of Bottura’s Osteria Francescana restaurant. number one on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list.

Dubbed The Pavarotti of Pasta by the news show, Bottura and his wife, Lara Gilmore, explained how they struggled to make an impact with their restaurant for years before Bottura’s distinct, modern makeover of Italian cuisine was finally accepted in the country.

The episode saw the chef take presenter, Lesley Stahl, through a journey of his signature dishes as he explained the ideas behind creation like seawater paper and camouflage hare.

For anyone wanting to glean insight into the mind of the chef, it's a good look at the work he’s been doing at the top of Italy’s culinary ladder and, more recently, the work he’s done with his Food for Soul project: seven soup kitchens opened around the world to feed needy people with food destined for the trash. 

“The numbers are math," explained Bottura during the interview, “33 percent of the world’s production is wasted every year. 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year. You know, think about one a trillion apples in the garbage. Think about how many, you know, apple pies you could create with those.”