Massimo Bottura's birthplace of Modena is home to high-octane names like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati—and that's just the ones that end in ‘i.’ But as the softly spoken chef points out, the Italian town is also famous for Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and the finest balsamic vinegars–delicacies that can take decades to manufacture. “We are about fast cars,” he says, “and slow food."

It’s here that he presides over Osteria Francescana, an avant-garde eatery that 52-year-old Bottura has propelled to three-Michelin-stars and a number three ranking in the World's 50 Best Restaurants. Inspired by everything from the origins of camouflage to the music of Thelonious Monk, Bottura’s super-high-concept tasting menus are an experience as much for the mind as the taste buds. It’s pretty much art you can eat. 

An alumnus of the now defunct El Bulli outside Barcelona, Bottura tells here at the champagne bar of London’s Connaught hotel the not-uncommon story of diners who have been moved to tears at the Osteria, not by the prices—seven-course menus start at a very reasonable 130 euro—but by the power of our sense of taste to trigger memories and feelings. The recipe responsible in this case he calls “my entire gastronomic life in one dish.”

A gentle, self-effacing figure, Bottura is mercifully free of the macho bombast so often associated with top-class kitchens. When one Japanese sous-chef dropped a pudding in front of him, Bottura didn’t bollock him, but marveled at the shape it made on the floor—and a brilliant new dish was born. Now people travel from all corners of the world for the pleasure of ordering an Oops! I Dropped The Lemon Tart, his exquisite recreation of the detonated dessert.

Tom Horan is Culture Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS.

Massimo Bottura's book Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef is published by Phaidon.