A novel about the need for transcendence that we seek at the bottom of a plate

No Italian would allow a stranger to decide what they should eat – in what order, in what quantities, how the meal should progress, and at what time they may leave the table. We argue with the doctor, the referee, the traffic warden, the plumber, the tax office. Yet when confronted with a chef bearing two ‘Michelin stars’ and his jacket buttoned on one side, we hand over our credit card and our free will. The ‘tasting menu’ stands as the sole form of obedience to which the Italian middle class willingly submits, paying a great deal, and in advance. Cuisine has become one of the very few things that the 21st century takes tremendously seriously: more so than politics, religion, and certainly far more than literature (it all happened so quickly: we all remember a time, not too long ago, when we went to restaurants to eat and talk about other things, not just what was on our plates).

Whilst there is no shortage of non-fiction works depicting food as a battleground for our social standing, the fictional portrayal of the great temples of contemporary cuisine is far less common. Daniele Rielli’s Lo Stregone (just published by Mondadori) recounts an evening spent in one of these sanctuaries. Il Bíos – like all great restaurants, it has a name reminiscent of a meditation and yoga centre – has two stars and has been chasing that third one for years. Its chef, Francesco Minervini, is nicknamed ‘the Sorcerer’. That evening, the chef is off duty, but the sous-chef thinks he recognises a Michelin inspector amongst the diners, so the kitchen team calls him back on duty.

The rest is chamber theatre: a parade of voices and characters who take to the stage one after the other on the same evening. There is the manager who runs an empire kept afloat by faith and a bank loan. There is the sommelier who drinks more than he pours. There is the sous chef, and there are two YouTubers who booked the venue four months earlier for ‘the best lighting for filming’. There is a father who would have preferred a trattoria. And there is a wild boar that speaks – in a chapter that is a small allegorical tableau: lying on the kitchen worktop, the deceased wild boar describes the steel as ‘neither cold nor hot: it has a morally neutral temperature, like that of someone who has been killing for a long time and has made scandal a habit’. Like a PhD in literature, the wild boar has read Seneca, Merwin and Szymborska; he recites Debord and speaks of life as an ‘immense accumulation of spectacles’, in an elegant, measured voice.

Rielli cites, among his influences, Yasmina Reza’s "The God of Carnage" and Scola’s "The Dinner". Another of Reza’s plays came to mind: "Art". Three Parisian friends tear each other apart over a blank canvas that cost two hundred thousand francs, and the canvas is never the point. The point is the secret hierarchies of friendship: who can afford to believe that a blank canvas is worth that sum, and who is afraid of coming across as someone who knows nothing about art. At Bíos, the blank canvas is the chef. For almost the entire book, Minervini exists only in the eyes of those who serve him, love him, envy him. Beneath the comedy lies an exploration of credibility in our age – on what foundations does it rest, and how little does it take to ruin it forever? Rielli knows the kitchens, the dining rooms where the waiting list is measured in seasons, the faces of the staff at the end of their shift. Yet he uses the kitchen as an allegory: the moment you turn food into a sanctuary of authenticity, you transform it into a spectacle, and authenticity slips out the back door.

So yes, it is a novel about the sacred, about ritual, about the need for transcendence that we seek at the bottom of a plate – just as "The Menu", starring Ralph Fiennes, was: a great, sombre and tragic film about haute cuisine. The Sorcerer observes the faithful before the empty altar. And he places, in the very same room with the same view of the orangery, the old judgement and the new: the inspector who fears a dish gone wrong and the YouTubers with a million and a half followers who want the perfect lighting. The novel strikes a balance between scepticism and admiration for the great Michelin-starred chefs. The scepticism is that of anyone who has suspected a scam when faced with a spherification. The admiration is for a man who truly knows how to do what others cannot, but who carries with him ‘the burden of seriousness’. Rielli never reduces him to a charlatan, nor does he ever fully absolve him.

Here, fiction meets reality. ‘Noma’ – another name reminiscent of a meditation centre – opened by René Redzepi in Copenhagen in 2003, was the temple of New Nordic cuisine, five-time winner of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list: lichens, ants, bookings akin to pilgrimages to Lourdes. In 2023, Redzepi announced the end of regular service, because that model “was no longer sustainable”. But that was only the first act. Last March, the New York Times reported on allegations from thirty-five former employees: punches, shoves, shouting, and unpaid interns. Sponsors pulled out, signs appeared outside the Los Angeles pop-up charging $1,500 per cover, and Redzepi resigned. Rielli does not recount the story of Noma, but the book’s question is the one circulating at the time: when it comes to the cult of haute cuisine, is it the prophet who answers, or the faithful?