Gianluca Gorini's first book, Cucina Radicale, is out

Cucina Radicale, the first Gianluca Gorini book, reached Italian bookshops on 15 September, published by Topic Edizioni and written with food writer Eugenio Signoroni. The 256-page hardback costs €39 and tells the story of daGorini, the one-Michelin-star restaurant Gorini runs in San Piero in Bagno, in the Tuscan-Romagnol Apennines.

The publisher is clear about what it is not: neither a recipe collection nor a work of food criticism, but a choral account of the chef told through his dishes and the people who shaped them. The photographs are by Andrea Di Lorenzo, and Signoroni also signs the preface.

The title works on three levels, according to the launch notes: the roots in the mountains around the restaurant, a cooking that goes to the root of each ingredient, and choices pursued without compromise.

A starred chef who writes a book without recipes is betting on method over imitation.

Inside the Gianluca Gorini book

The book opens with the encounters that defined the cook: his mother, Luciana Cardinali; Paolo Teverini, the Bagno di Romagna chef he calls his great teacher; restaurateur Fabio Ridolfi; Paolo Lopriore, now at Il Portico in Appiano Gentile; his wife and business partner Sara Silvani; and Fiorenza Pacino, whose ceramics have stood in the dining room since opening day.

"After almost ten years, I felt the need to stop and look at the road we had travelled," Gorini said in the launch statement, adding that the story also belongs to the community that welcomed the couple. Signoroni, who says he has followed Gorini's cooking since his years in Lopriore's kitchen, describes the aim as extracting the "Gorini style" and the techniques and methods behind it, rather than parading signature plates.

Publisher Marco Bolasco called Gorini's cooking "a breath of fresh air" on the current Italian scene.

From Il Canto to San Piero in Bagno

Born in Pesaro in 1983, Gorini cooked under Lopriore at Il Canto in Siena from 2008 to 2012, then led the kitchen at Le Giare in Montiano for four years. He opened daGorini with Silvani in September 2017. Michelin awarded it a star in December 2019, and the Identità Golose guide named him chef of the year in its 2019 edition; the guide's 2026 edition crowned Di Fabio and Chan. The star holds in the 2026 Michelin Guide Italy.

The book joins a busy autumn shelf of chef-authored titles, after Michael Wignall's cookbook of 70 dishes from The Angel at Hetton. Its first public presentation is set for 8 October at 20:30 at the Teatro Garibaldi in San Piero in Bagno, during the Fuori Contesto festival, with places booked in advance. Anyone after the dishes themselves will still need a table in the valley.