๐ฎ๐น Italy ยท Italian cuisine ยท b. 1965
The Milanese-by-adoption chef who became Italy's most televised fine-dining figure.
Carlo Cracco is an Italian chef from Creazzo in the Veneto, who became the chef-patron of one of Milan's most internationally recognised fine-dining restaurants and, for more than a decade, the country's most widely seen television cooking judge. He trained at the hotel school in Recoaro Terme before, at the age of twenty-one, joining Gualtiero Marchesi at his flagship in Milan โ the first three-Michelin-star restaurant in Italian history โ where he worked under the man universally regarded as the father of modern Italian cuisine for several formative years. He then staged at Alain Senderens's Lucas Carton and at Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo before returning to Italy.
In 1996 Cracco took the kitchen of Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence and within a year regained the restaurant's third Michelin star after a kitchen fire had cost it its previous stars. In 2001 he and the Stoppani family opened Cracco-Peck (subsequently Cracco) in central Milan, which received its second Michelin star in 2005 and held two stars for thirteen consecutive years. In 2018 he relocated the restaurant to a prime three-storey site under the glass arcades of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II โ the first and only restaurant in the history of the Galleria to occupy a full architectural unit โ and at that point lost the second star, retaining one, in the only public Michelin downgrade of his career.
From 2011 to 2023 Cracco was a judge โ alongside Joe Bastianich and Bruno Barbieri โ on MasterChef Italia, the most-watched cooking competition on Italian cable television, where his sharp tongue, his deliberately theatrical critiques and his trademark moustache made him the breakout television personality of the show. Outside the flagship he runs Garage Italia at Eataly in Milan, the Carlo & Camilla in Segheria cocktail-and-tasting restaurant, the Cracco-Portofino summer outpost in Liguria, and an extensive consulting practice for hotels, airlines and corporate dining rooms.
Italian technique through a Northern lens. Cracco describes his cooking as a sustained attempt to apply the precision and the discipline of the great French kitchens โ and of his master Gualtiero Marchesi's reading of them โ to the pantry of the North Italian table. The signature dish 'tuorlo marinato' (a single egg yolk marinated for hours in salt and sugar, then breaded and warmed, served on bread) is a deliberate French-school treatment of one of the simplest Italian ingredients, and is presented as the manifesto of the kitchen.
One Michelin star; three-storey restaurant under the glass dome of the Galleria, opened 2018.
Bistronomic cocktail-and-tasting restaurant in a converted sawmill, opened 2014.
Casual Italian restaurant within the Eataly flagship in central Milan.
Summer-only Cracco outpost on the harbour at Portofino, opened 2022.
These recipes from our database reflect the italian cooking tradition that Carlo works in. They are not direct reproductions of Carlo's copyrighted recipes, but traditional dishes inspired by the same culinary heritage.
โMarchesi taught me that the only acceptable reason to change a classical dish is that you can produce, after the change, something more honest than the original. Not more modern. Not more beautiful. More honest.โ
โ Identitร Golose (2015)
โI do not believe a chef has the right to call himself an artist. The plate is gone in twenty minutes. The artist's job is to make those twenty minutes worth what the diner paid for them.โ
โ La Repubblica interview (2018)
At twenty-one joins Gualtiero Marchesi's three-Michelin-star restaurant in Milan.
Stages at Alain Senderens's Lucas Carton in Paris and Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo.
Takes over the kitchen of Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence and within a year regains the restaurant's third Michelin star.
Opens Cracco-Peck in central Milan with the Stoppani family.
Cracco awarded its second Michelin star.
Joins the judging panel of MasterChef Italia on Sky.
Opens Carlo e Camilla in Segheria โ a cocktail-and-tasting restaurant in a converted sawmill.
Relocates the flagship to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II as Cracco in Galleria.
Loses second Michelin star at the relocation; retains one.
Departs MasterChef Italia after twelve seasons.
Yes. After Cracco relocated his flagship in 2018 from its long-standing Via Victor Hugo address to a three-storey site in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, the Michelin guide reduced the restaurant's rating from two stars to one in its 2019 edition. The downgrade was the only public Michelin demotion of Cracco's career and was widely covered in the Italian press.
Cracco's principal mentor was Gualtiero Marchesi โ the first Italian chef ever to hold three Michelin stars and universally regarded as the father of modern Italian cuisine โ under whom he worked in Milan from the age of twenty-one. He also staged at Alain Senderens's Lucas Carton in Paris and at Alain Ducasse's Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo before taking the head-chef role at Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence in 1996.
The tuorlo marinato โ salt-and-sugar-marinated egg yolk โ is Cracco's signature dish and has been on the Cracco menu in some form since the restaurant opened in 2001. A whole egg yolk is buried in a mixture of salt and sugar for several hours until it becomes solid enough to handle, then breaded and warmed gently in clarified butter, and served on a piece of toasted bread. The dish is offered as a manifesto of the kitchen: French technique, Italian ingredient, single bite.
Yes. Cracco was a judge โ alongside Joe Bastianich and Bruno Barbieri โ on every season of MasterChef Italia from its launch in 2011 until his departure in 2023, twelve seasons in total. The show was the most-watched cooking competition on Italian cable television throughout that period.
Cracco in Galleria occupies a three-storey site under the glass-domed arcades of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in central Milan, directly between Piazza del Duomo and the Teatro alla Scala. The ground floor is a cafรฉ, the first floor is the main dining room, and the upper floor is a private wine library. The restaurant opened in this location in 2018 and is the only restaurant in the history of the Galleria to occupy a full architectural unit.
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