Name: Chef Johnny Di Francesco
Restaurant/Concept: 400 Gradi
Title: Chef/Founder of 400 Gradi
QUICK FIRE
Breakfast of Champions: Poached Egg, fresh avocado, and some sourdough
Favorite Kitchen gadget: Thermometer
Most underrated ingredient: Tomato
Favorite place to eat: Da Adolfo in Positano, Italy
The aroma that makes you the happiest: Fresh bread
Desert Island Dish: Lobster
What fueled your passion to become a chef?
My story is quite funny because when I started, I was 12 and I started so I could buy myself a pair of Nike runners, that’s the reason why I got into the hospitality industry and from there I finished my studies and I wanted to do Electronics Engineering, so I got into the course and lasted two weeks. Then, I pursued my career in cooking, I was 19 when I opened my first restaurant.
What’s the one great thing about working in a kitchen that people would never imagine?
The amazing family environment that you can create when you have synergy trained everybody. Because kitchens are very underrated, most people think it’s a stressful job, but I think if you have great leaders, and I’m talking about great head chefs, great sous-chefs that can really lead and make the experience a lot smoother. It’s not about the ability of cooking, when you see somebody come from the ground up, the biggest satisfaction that anyone could ever have, because now you’ve given them amazing skills to take away with them for the rest of their life.
How would you build the perfect sandwich?
A really beautiful thin, not thick, but thin scotch fillet first, Then I put some cheese, some lettuce, then I would put another piece of bread, and then the rest of it would repeat exactly the same as what I had on the first layer, squash it right down as much as I can to see all those juices from the meat drip and then I would cut it not in a diamond, but right down the center so it looks just like a sandwich.
How does your personality differ inside and outside the kitchen?
Same, I’m a very calm chef, so I’m not an aggressive chef, I’ve always been like that and I try and do the same thing. For me, I like joking while I work, it just keeps people very calm and it brings the best out of them.
If you specialized in a different cuisine or cooking technique what would it be?
Japanese.
Which dish do you most wish you’d created and why?
If I was the creator of pizza, that would’ve been cool, because you read the history and you read about people like Rafael Esposito who was the creator of pizza and the margarita for the Queen, to have that legacy now is amazing.
In which season do you most like to source local ingredients and why?
Summer, I love summer, I love the freshness of the basil, I love tomatoes and I love all the stone fruits.
What do you think will be the biggest food trend of 2020? And why?
Vegan is starting to go crazy. Is it a phase? I don’t know. I mean vegetarians have been around for years, the vegan side of it now has started to develop. We had the gluten-free phase, and now gluten-free is the norm, you need to have some gluten free items,.We’re actually developing a gluten free pizza base that tastes very similar to normal. We’re nearly finished, we got a gluten free base when you eat it, it melts in your mouth and that’s very rare, but that’s taken a long time to develop. But I really think that vegan has taken off in other regions around the world, it’s huge in the US and the UK.
