When the rural becomes touristic

For decades Tuscany has attracted visitors from all over the world, from E.M. Forster's English yearning for a room with a view, shaking off the Edwardian conventions of the early 20th century, to today's hordes of tourists, mobile phones in hand. All with their own expectations of this Italian land. To these we must add a new type of visitor, one who, beyond art, il dolce far niente or the photo for Instagram, wants to know what the land of Tuscany has to offer. Let's not forget that this is an important agricultural area, with the fertile Chianti hills as a reference point, but also a producer of excellent oils, rice and vegetables. Juan Camilo Quintero's job is to put this rural and agricultural Tuscany on your plate. He does this from the restaurant Il Poggio Rosso, located in the Hotel Borgo San Felice, a Relais & Chateaux in an idyllic enclave in the Crete Senesi countryside.

A rural restaurant in a tourist area is a double-edged sword," warns Quintero, "because we are talking about a tourist who is well-informed, has an eco-sustainable sensibility and is looking for quality and excellence. It is true that being in a tourist area makes it easier to attract customers than in other rural areas, but as the Colombian chef, who has lived in Italy for almost half his life, points out, it is not without its drawbacks. You can't let your guard down. Juan Camilo Quintero is well aware of this, which is why he pays so much attention to detail and tries to offer his customers "something they can't get in the city". In a rural environment, luxury is not the design of the premises, or the service, or even the wine list. Luxury is cooking a vegetable that we picked from the garden an hour ago’, explains the chef, while confessing that in this sense he is very demanding, especially with the use of the aromatic herbs that they pick from their own garden fifteen minutes before service, “so that the aromatic part of the plant is almost intact. This is priceless”. An anecdote that gives a good account of the philosophy that permeates the cuisine of this chef from Bogotá, who, before taking charge of the stoves at Il Poggio Rosso, washed up in the kitchens of Arzak and Massimo Bottura. 

Juan Camilo Quintero is very clear about the type of cuisine he wants to create. And one of the basic premises is sustainability which, for the chef, ‘has to stop being a trend and become part of the ABC of running a restaurant, together with culinary techniques and management’. But Quintero is not naïve in his approach, although he argues that ‘until the majority of restaurants stop talking and implement these changes, sustainability will not be a reality’, he also admits that ‘there is no identical formula or recipe for all restaurants. There are different realities, different locations, diverse political situations. It is a mistake to think that what Nordic cuisine does can be applied to other places, each restaurant has to analyse who it is and approach sustainability from there’.

The producer as guarantor of local identity

From his reality, that of touristy but also agricultural Tuscany, Juan Camilo is forging his way towards sustainability with the main commandment of rural cuisine: honour the product and the producer. ‘The client of the rural restaurant comes relaxed, enjoys and appreciates the simple things, the contact with nature. The cuisine has to be coherent with that, without transforming the product too much, letting it express its best in its natural state. Avoiding artificiality’, says this chef who is fully aware that, deep down, that means that “the chef is only the media figure of this process in which, in reality, the real protagonist is the producer who obtains the best possible raw material”.

But the vindication of the producer's role is not only due to the fact that they provide these basic quality ingredients, but also because thanks to them ‘a tradition is preserved, because the producer is the guarantee of the identity of the place’. This is not a trivial statement when we consider that it is expressed by a Colombian in charge of promoting the products of Italian Tuscany so that they are mostly consumed by foreign customers. ‘The identity of the place is not in the origin of the cook, nor does it matter whether the customer is local or a tourist. The identity is offered by the product that one deals with and the other enjoys,’ he says. What's more, Quintero has no hesitation in affirming that “there are many similarities in the way of cooking in rural environments”, one more argument in favour of breaking down barriers and prejudices about who is endorsed to cook one landscape or another. The presence of cereals, the value of the vegetable garden, harvesting, making the most of what is available... all these are signs of the union between territories. 

But despite this, and to paraphrase Ortega y Gasset, one is oneself and one's circumstances, and Quintero grew up in Colombia with arepas. Therefore, his dream would be to be able to apply everything he learned in Italy to his native country. And not only at a gastronomic level. Juan Camilo also talks about the social aspect that can derive from gastronomy. On the one hand, with a cuisine that values the product ‘you help the development of production and local economies’; and on the other hand, ‘you achieve a very powerful vehicle for social integration, something really necessary in a country like Colombia with conditions of poverty and minorities standing out in several areas’, he argues. This social aspect is nothing new for the chef, as the vegetable garden of his restaurant is managed by people with disabilities and he knows first-hand that ‘there are many ways to bring about social change from a restaurant. It is something tangible, with results, that can change a person's life,’ he says. One more avenue to explore in which rural chefs, as guarantors of that cuisine that prioritises produce and good workmanship, can make a difference in areas where fewer and fewer people want to work the land and agriculture and livestock farming need to be dignified. Maintaining tradition, doing it in a sustainable way and with social impact. Could this be the new trident of rural cuisine?