Aldo Zilli says only Italian chefs should cook in Italian restaurants

Taking sides in the recent cultural appropriation debacle around Gordon Ramsay’s launch of a pan-Asian restaurant in London, celebrity chef Aldo Zilli has said he thinks only Italian chefs should work in Italian restaurants.

Last week, when Gordon Ramsay held an opening ceremony at his new Covent Garden venue, Lucky Cat, he was criticised for calling it an ‘Authentic Asian’ restaurant.

Gordon defended his decision, stating that his executive chef, Ben Orpwood, spent time in South Asia studying the local food culture.

In an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Monday, chef consiliere of San Carlo Cichetti Zilli said he only employs Italian chefs because only they can understand the food culture well enough. 

"You grow up in Italy, you grow up with your parents, you grow up with those flavours and I don't think anyone else from outside that country is going to understand that food,” he said.

"If you want to serve what people in this country want to eat, that's up to you, but if you open an Italian restaurant it's got to be an Italian restaurant. If you go to China town no restaurants have an Italian chef, they all have Chinese chefs. If you go to Brick Lane, you have Indian chefs everywhere."

The chef told The Telegraph that while anyone can apply for a job at Zilli restaurants - which the chef founded and oversaw until 2012, when he became a consultant for Zilli Media – and that they do employ staff from other countries, they need to have a deep understanding of Italian food culture.

For this, he claimed, they ideally need have lived in Italy.

He said: “I have been in England 42 years, so if I went to cook in an English restaurant and cook fish and chips that would be fine.”

What do you think? Is it possible to understand a country’s food culture with no experience of living there? Leave your comments below!