History
Giacomo Bulleri was born in 1925 in Collodi, Tuscany. He spent his childhood in the beautiful Tuscan countryside, living a rural life marked by the slow rhythms of nature. At home the stove was on all day and dinner was made up of any seasonal food available; nothing should go to waste and you needed a lot of imagination for dressing!
Life was harsh, but cheerful. You walked miles to school every day and before sunset everyone gathered in the kitchen, by far the largest and warmest room at home. That’s where life happened. And it’s in his family’s kitchen that Giacomo sensed for the first time that cooking was “the only editable art, the one without which we could not live. And it also has the power to bring people together more than every other art could do. Kitchen is the greatest social network in history!” (from “Ricette di vita” Bompiani).
Very soon a very young Giacomo – smart, hungry for life, “a restless soul” and “never satisfied, always searching for something” in his mother’s words – leaves his hometown for Turin where he works his way up the ladder to become a chef. As a chef, he arrived in Milan in 1958 to open his first restaurant: Trattoria Da Giacomo. He starts his road to success. Milano and its people show great appreciation for his Tuscan restaurant, his style and his classic dishes.
4.- Giacomo’s focus on absolute quality and outstanding care for details: in a warm but curated atmosphere, he serves the great classics of the Italian culinary tradition. Ahead of his times, Giacomo senses when it’s time to catch a new wave.
In the ’90s he moves his restaurant “Da Giacomo” to a posher address, Via Pasquale Sottocorno 6, and relies on noted architect Lorenzo Mongiardino to translate his Tuscan aesthetic into his new restaurant’s interior design. Years go by and so do new openings; Giacomo expands his business with new clubs and restaurants.
In 2015 Giacomo is awarded the Ambrogino d’Oro, (the Municipality of Milan’s highest honour, ndt), “for having trained, during a sixty-year career, around one thousand restaurant professionals, showing them how to succeed through hard work». He dedicated this award to his wife. Giacomo, in his nineties, is still very straight forward and curious about the future as he thinks that “the best has yet to come”. He has remained true to himself and never failed to see himself as the “stubborn Tuscan boy” he started as.
