Whatis talent? It is a colorful dish of refined and complicit ingredients, made of instinct, expertise, curiosity, experimentation, creativity, love for one’s work and passion. Paolo Griffa is talent, pure. A tomorrow that is already today when you consider that, at only 27 years old, he is already in the Olympus of top chefs, not only from Italy.
Born and raised in Piedmont, he became the sous-chef at Marco Sacco’s Il Piccolo Lago at just 22 years old before joining Serge Vieira in France as head chef in 2016.
The following year Paolo was a finalist at the Bocuse d’Or Italia and landed at the Grand Hotel Royal and Golf in Courmayeur as Chef of the Petit Royal. Since his arrival he has succeeded in a short time in bringing the restaurant to the regional and national forefront for the originality of the menu, returning a particular vision, his own, of haute cuisine.
Dishes that speak a language that is creative, irreverent, and cultured, while in the pantry and in the kitchen he is an ambassador for the Aosta Valley with a unique style that is at times alchemical, playful, and often ironic. Paul has always followed an iron routine that revolves almost exclusively around cooking, between observation, study and learning.
He alternates days and weeks between preparation and research with travel, meetings, inspections in nature and visits from artisans in search of the best seasonal raw materials and the traditions of the land where he is located.
Raw materials that Paolo Griffa, together with his kitchen brigade, works on in different ways: some products are blanched or left raw to enhance their flavors, while others are preserved through drying, fermentation and distillation; each essence its preparation, each flower its utility, each fruit its distillate.
So in the winter season butters, sauces, and essential oils are full of the intense flavors of summer in the mountains, and enhanced by the finest extraction, pressing, and marinating techniques. Paolo Griffa’s vision sees cooking as sharing: and here, from his toque blanche, is the Declinazioni menu, designed to interact with guests in choosing their own dinner: Fire and Flames, Leaf, In Color, Neither Meat Nor Fish, I Love Aosta, Jolly .
All the choices are shown on a brand new chart created by Paul, with sliding elements that reveal the icons of the first courses, inspired by the ancient game of ruler.
