Mauro Uliassi
Chef
I have been in the business of cooking for 50 years.
My grandmother on my mother’s side owned a trattoria. My grandmother on my father’s side cooked professionally as well as at home. I grew up in a coffee shop, surrounded by aromas from the kitchen and the chatter of patrons as I mingled with the clientele.
At the time, I didn’t think about being a cook when I grew up. In fact, I didn’t think much about cooking at all. I went into industrial engineering at the start, but I left it after three years because I found it boring. Then, more to please my parents than out of any real desire, I opted to attend hospitality school.
Though I was indifferent in the beginning, my studies turned out to be a lot of fun because they dropped me almost immediately into the profession and the working world.
I got my start as a bartender in nightclubs and then moved on to restaurant and hotel kitchens. I graduated from private school at the age of 23, but, at that point, I no longer wanted to be a cook. What I wanted was to further my studies.
So, I enrolled in college courses, which I attended with enthusiasm, and just two months after graduation, I had the really good fortune to get a job as a teacher in the hospitality school where I had studied.
It wasn’t until later, when I fell in love with my wife, that I was surprised to discover my talent for cooking. Not long after she and I met, in cooking for her and her friends, I unexpectedly found my passion and an enthusiasm for life.
A few years later, my sister Catia and I opened Uliassi Cucina di Mare, a little waterfront spot. It was a real sort of shack held together with paint and stucco, but it was mine, it was ours. There were five of us in the kitchen then and three in the dining room. I still find my memories of our pioneering era exhilarating.
It’s been 30 wonderful years since then.
Even if either of us had been able to sleep the night of Sunday, May 27th, 1990, the night of our opening, we never could have dreamed of such a professional journey.
