Chianti Cooking Experience was born to share, through culinary experiences, our love for Tuscany and its produce. Created over 15 years ago by chef Elisa Berghi, today the company is managed by Paola (Manager and Teacher Chef), together with Chef Lorenzo Grassi and a team of partners who share their same experience, ethics and love for their work.
Chianti Cooking Experience thus maintains a family-style management: for us, every customer is unique and deserves special care. We cook professionally, always offering an accurate and tailor-made service, to satisfy every palate. Through our dishes, we offer a cultural experience of the senses, to unfold Tuscan flavors.
We like to rediscover traditional recipes and value the products of our land, also through creativity and innovation. We use organically grown ingredients as much as possible, wild herbs and local varieties of meats, cold cuts, cheeses and vegetables, produced by small farmers in the Chianti area, where we live.
We enjoy what we do, we do it with passion and we are convinced that it is the most authentic way to share the love of good food and simple life of the region.
These are precisely the secrets of our cooking style:
Attention to each individual customer
Attention to detail, starting from the ingredients
Our genuine style
On the motorway you go faster, but it is through country roads that you learn to know and appreciate places. If you want to discover the heart of Tuscany by following its paths, search no more, you-ve found what you’re looking for!
I was born in the heart of the Chianti Classico wine region, in the quintessentially Tuscan countryside. My father came from Emilia Romagna and was a great enthusiast fresh pasta maker; it is with him that I started making pasta as a child, and after many years passed on this tradition to my 4 children. As a true “donna Toscana”, the daily choice of cooking and eating good food has always been close to my heart. I’ve written a Recipe Book for Family Healthy Eating in 2009, and since then, I’ve been giving classes on healthy cooking. When I met Elisa (founder of CCE), I started to collaborate with her as a teacher chef. Today I manage the company with the passion and skills put together in over 10 years. What I love most in this work is the relationship with customers and the pleasure that comes from it. I like sharing recipes and good food, helping to make clients' Tuscan holidays an unforgettable experience. By cooking traditional Tuscan recipes together with them, I cultivate the importance of cultural, human and social exchanges and the joy of keeping alive the traditional cuisine, and some time contaminating it with new ingredients.
“We can't think well, love well, sleep well, if we don't eat well.” (Virginia Woolf)
My name is Lorenzo Grassi, I am 31 years old and I am a Tuscan chef. I was born in a small village in Chianti, between Florence and Siena. Fascinated by the world of cooking from an early age, I started cooking with and for my family as a kid, learning from my parents how to prepare the typical recipes of the area in which we live. I have always loved walking in the woods and countryside, taking an interest in the local flora and fauna, so much so that I learned about edible wild herbs, mushrooms and other products from our local habitats.
At the age of 16 I started collaborating with various restaurants in my area and, after obtaining my chef diploma, I worked in various places, acquiring experience and knowledge. I then decided to broaden my cultural and professional horizons, and thus embarked on a long journey that led me to live and work for 10 years in various European countries: from the Czech Republic to the United Kingdom, from Spain to France. Working in many different places, including important restaurants, I acquired new traditions and working methodologies, covering various roles (included sous-chef, demi-chef, chef de partie) and collaborating with great chefs, until I became a head chef myself. Today I’ve finally decided to return to Tuscany with my family, and to work as a Catering Chef, putting all my experience, creativity and passion at the service of all those who wish to get to know Tuscany through its flavors and aromas. If I had to describe myself in one sentence, I would say that I am above all a great lover of good food, good wine, genuine oil, and everything that our land generously offers us.
“Eating is a way to incorporate a region.” (Jean Brunhes)
Filippo, Christian, Duccio and Gianni are our Pizzaioli. Tuscans by birth or adoption, they know everything about how to prepare the crunchiest and most digestible dough, how to expertly season it using the right ingredients and cook your pizza to perfection. They will be happy to arrive at your home and spoil you with the best pizzas, from the most classic flavors to the most innovative ones.
“Life is a combination of pasta and magic.” (Federico Fellini)
For us good food means to do our best to purchase and use:
Healthy food: we do not use cheap and pre-processed foods.
Seasonal food: it is simply much more tasty.
Organic food: It is good for us, for the earth, for our future.
Local food: When you buy from a local producer you know where your food comes from, you avoid long distance transport, you support the local economy.
Italy and especially Tuscany are also famous for the great tradition of shopping for groceries at the local outdoor produce markets. And we do this as well, taking advantage of our local suppliers, most of whom we know personally. Fruit and vegetables are bought from local farmers whenever possible. Grains, flour, and pasta come mainly from the Tuscan region. Meat, eggs and dairy products are also mostly locally sourced, with a few exceptions such as for cow milk cheeses and some cold cuts. If we are unable to buy all the ingredients we need from small producers, we choose to buy organic products in the local supermarket.
Cooking and eating together is one of the great joys of life
At CCE we have grown up in typical Italian families, where we eat together and as we enjoy one meal we are already planning what we will eat the next one. We love to share such eagerness with you. Whatever you choose – a catered meal or a cooking lesson – prepare to slow down, relax and savour the aromas and the flavours. We can introduce you to the heart of that culture in a warm family atmosphere.
"Cooking is a love story. You need to fall in love with the ingredients and then with the people who cook them" (Alain Ducasse)
