Lo Stregone

Who is the Sorcerer really? Some regard Francesco Minervini as a visionary who has changed the way we understand food; others see him as a guru at the head of a cult; some praise his ability to get to the very essence of life; others view him as a manipulator; some recall his first restaurant going up in flames; and others would do anything to taste his cuisine. One thing is certain: Bíos – his restaurant – is about to experience the most important night in its history, the one that will decide whether it can continue to exist or whether it is destined to disappear, taking its founder and his secrets with it. It is not the Sorcerer, however, who recounts the decisive hours that make up this novel, but the members of his kitchen team: Aurora, the head waitress who knows every guest intimately; Edoardo, the brilliant yet self-destructive sommelier, perhaps the Chef’s only true friend; Monica, the Sorcerer’s partner and the manager at the helm of Bíos’s fragile empire; Roberta, the young cook who has sacrificed a completely different future; Mauro, the kitchen assistant who has stumbled into a world he does not understand; Gabriele, who works for free in pursuit of a dream; Luciano, who has been given an unexpected second chance; and, alongside them, an eighty-kilo wild boar whose only ‘crime’ was taking a wrong turn. At the tables, there are those filming for millions of followers, those ordering bottles as expensive as jewellery, and a father and son who speak to each other without understanding one another, yet end up at the centre of everyone’s attention. In this sweeping ensemble novel, Rielli skilfully moves between multiple registers – from the dramatic to the comic, from the psychological to the surreal – and orchestrates distant voices and perspectives, constructing a compelling literary tapestry in which every member of the kitchen brigade holds a fragment of the answer to the question from which it all begins: who is the Sorcerer really, what secret does he harbour and, above all, what does his mystery reveal about us? A kitchen brigade is not a group of gourmets, but a handful of possessed artists, an elite unit on the front line of battle; and Michelin stars do not reward those who cook, but those who survive the clatter of cutlery, the edge of knives and the wounds of the soul. A polyphonic novel, fierce and compassionate, contemporary and surprising. (Antonio Franchini)