Casa Format is a restaurant on the outskirts of Turin that we follow with great interest.
Three years ago, the chef Igor Macchia told us about their exemplary commitment to building a responsible, future-proof cuisine: over 2,000 square meters of vegetable garden and production area; a modern, harmonious structure built according to bio-architecture principles, with photovoltaic panels and a rainwater collection tank.
Curious to find out how the project has progressed, I contacted Fabio Grasso, manager of Casa Format, for a brief interview.
Since we chose to follow the rhythms of the vegetable garden, our work in the kitchen has become more stimulating.
“At first, both we and our customers were a little afraid,” Fabio admits, “because we come from a clientele accustomed to classic dining, and it wasn’t easy to eliminate the distinction between appetizers, first courses, and main courses.”
Customers embraced the new approach: simple dishes that highlight the freshness and variety of the vegetable garden. After the first taste, they adapted very well, and today they come back specifically for it.
“We want the customer to recognize the dish immediately, already from the menu, and for it to be just as they imagined when they taste it. In a Michelin-starred restaurant, the experience is different: you read three ingredients and find almost a work of art in front of you. Here, instead, we want a recognizable cuisine.”
In the kitchen, following the rhythms of the vegetable garden means constantly changing ingredients or using an abundant ingredient in various interpretations.
A tasting menu and a leaner à la carte menu make it possible to understand whether a dish is being chosen less often and replace it quickly.
“We realized that creativity must never stop. It has to be constantly nurtured; otherwise, you risk having extraordinary ingredients without being able to make the most of them.”
For example, in this summer heat, the most requested dish is surprisingly a risotto: our chef has embraced the freshness of mint and zucchini from the vegetable garden, adding smoked provola and the scapece tradition of his native Puglia.
Casa Format’s vegetable garden
How do you manage to be so flexible, creative, and prepared?
I ask Fabio, eager to understand how all of this is possible.
Certainly, the focus on sustainability—understood as optimizing space and time and reducing waste—from the very beginning of the facility helped advance the project, but I am fascinated to understand how they managed to be flexible in such a simple way.
Fabio explains that they invest heavily in staff training.
Casa Format is part of Credenza Group, a network that includes other restaurants, including La Credenza, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and encourages discussion with other chefs and professionals within the group.
What are the challenges for Casa Format today?
“Over the years, our work has become highly specialized, and we have tried to recover a certain mental flexibility. We would like to pass it on to our suppliers as well.
Everyone naturally tends to want to standardize: the same products, the same quantities, the same cuts.
We want to standardize the process, not the final result.
Restore its naturalness to the kitchen.”
Casa Format’s next challenge will be to strengthen its dialogue with suppliers even further, building a network of producers who share the same vision. A cuisine that changes according to the rhythms of the vegetable garden needs curious, flexible partners who are ready to offer seasonal ingredients, forgotten local varieties, and new ideas to bring to the table.
Alongside this, there is another equally important challenge: communicating the value of these choices. Today, customer expectations are often influenced by social media and television, which tend to present an image of the restaurant industry that is far removed from the complexity of daily work. Communicating what lies behind a dish—from relationships with producers to seasonality and the choices that guide the menu—therefore becomes an integral part of the experience.
As Fabio emphasizes: «There are influences that move in the opposite direction from the values we seek to convey. We continue to work to create satisfaction for both the customer and the entire supply chain.»
I thank Fabio Grasso for this interview.
Today, in addition to the products that grow in the vegetable garden, Casa Format is also reaping the fruits of a commitment built over the years: an increasingly conscious cuisine, a well-trained team, customers who share its philosophy, and a community of people who recognize the value of a different way of doing hospitality.
It is from experiences like this that the cuisine of the future is born, step by step.
