The Scientific Committee

Leading ALMA

Since 2004 ALMA has been implementing a continuous process of growth and innovation. The School has gone from being “the house of chefs” to include patissiers, dining room managers, sommeliers, restaurant managers and breadmakers.

This is why the school has decided to take advantage of the collaboration of great professionals, selected from among the leading figures in this sector. Professional experts who are able to act as points of reference for graduates and as an inspiration to the culinary world and hospitality sector.

Paolo Lopriore, Mariella Organi, Davide Comaschi, Ezio Marinato, Andrea Grignaffini and Davide Rampello respectively representing the cooking, hospitality, patisserie, breadmaking, wine sectors and culture. Chairing the Scientific Committee is ALMA’s president, Enzo Malanca, alongside General Director, Andrea Sinigaglia, and Director of Studies, Matteo Berti.

PAOLO LOPRIORE

“The gestures of taste”

Considered by many to be irreverent, brilliant, trailblazing, and provocative, today Paolo Lopriore is acknowledged as one of the most avant-garde chefs in the world. Born in Como in 1973, after Hotel and Catering school, the Chef from Appiano Gentile, in an almost “prophetic” experience, encountered Gualtiero Marchesi, the maestro of Italian cuisine, during an internship at his restaurant in via Bonvesin de la Riva. It was a visceral experience, that profound engaged the young Chef and taught him to respect the raw material and enhance it in a pure way.

Paolo Lopriore’s gastronomic vision, first at Certosa di Maggiano, then at Tre Cristi in Milan and now at Portico in Appiano Gentile, is a true celebration of Italian cuisine, which finds its highest expression in conviviality, where the “Triangle” – chef, customer, waiter – is always the focus and is constantly being reinvented. At ALMA, he has been for years a charismatic teacher of cuisine, gastronomic culture and innovation.

MARIELLA ORGANI

“Precision in action, elegance and lightness”

Mariella Organi organizes and runs the dining room of the “La Madonnina del Pescatore” restaurant in Senigalia, and is a leading and influential figure in today’s Italian restaurant industry. The story of Mariella Organi and Moreno Cedroni began unexpectedly in the restaurant’s dining room, where they first met.

To Mariella, living alongside a chef every day means understanding how kitchen and dining room are not two separate spheres but, rather, a symbiosis between preparation and sensibility. The spirit with which Mariella Organi organizes and runs the dining room service of “La Madonnina del Pescatore” is the expression of a dining style in which true luxury is revealed through style and precision, conveyed with a smile and a typically Italian lightness of touch. Mariella loves communicating these elements to the many young people who are training under her gentle and rigorous guidance. At ALMA she is godmother to many dining room students both in the classroom and in internships.

Restaurant Hall Category

DAVIDE COMASCHI

“Sweet technical style”

Davide Comaschi is a Pastry Chef from Milan who was born in 1980. In 2013 he was the first Italian ever to win the World Chocolate Master title, the most coveted award in the world of chocolate making. The story of this great professional is marked by collaborations with the major Italian Pastry Chefs. Chef Comaschi approached the sweet pastry world at the age of 13, inspired by what he himself deems to be his first true experience in this field: his mother’s home-made pastry-making.

After his first sweet pastry training course in Milan, he joined one of the most iconic producers of made-in-Italy sweets: the historic Martesana pastry shop. Through this experience, Davide Comaschi met another person who had a profound influence on his professional career: maestro Iginio Massari. Davide Comaschi’s art is characterized by a constant search for balance between the tradition of Italian and Milanese patisserie and innovation of its techniques and design. At ALMA, he is the principal teacher in the field of Cocoa, Chocolate and Praline making.

Chocolate Category

EZIO MARINATO

“The starting point must be ideas, not recipes”

Ezio Marinato is a craftsman considered by many as a true “artist of leavening”. Marinato runs his bakery in Cinto Caomaggiore, a small village in the Venice area on the border with the Friuli region. However, his fame and talent have taken him beyond national borders, first in 2002 with his win at the European Baking Championship in Bulle, Switzerland, and even more importantly in 2007 with his first prize at the World Baking Championship of Lyons.

He has often been a member of international juries, and writes regularly on many specialist magazines. His focus on curiosity and research, his tireless determination to explore knowledge and techniques relating to stone-ground organic flours, cold techniques, and doughs, together with his passion for this trade make Ezio Marinato one of the reference figures in the vast field of the art of baking.

He is the coordinator of the Bakery Chef course at ALMA.

Bakery Category

ANDREA GRIGNAFFINI

“Food and wine gastronomy under the magnifying glass”

Andrea Grignaffini is a journalist and food and wine critic who began collaborating with Gino Veronelli in 1990, writing the gourmet guide Buone Cose d’Italia and several articles on L’Etichetta. He later became creative director of “Spirito di Vino,” and has taught Methodology of Critical Tasting for the Gastronomic Science Degree at different universities.

He is a member of the executive management team of the Espresso Restaurant Guide and of Passione Gourmet. He came second in the Bancarella Cucina Award with his book “Nella Dispensa di Don Camillo,” and has won the Luigi Veronelli Prize as Best Journalist.

He is one of the creators of ALMA and manages the school’s relations with the world of gourmet restaurants.

DAVIDE RAMPELLO

“How to tell a story with Italian taste.”

A television director since the late 1970s, Davide Rampello is considered one of the major innovators of television language at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. A passion, that for art and the artistic direction of theatrical performances and cultural communication, which will involve him as an absolute protagonist in important and multiple events.
President of the Milan Triennale from 2003 to 2012, he was Artistic Director of the Venice Carnival and of the municipality of Palermo until 2006, and among his various academic assignments he counts the chair in Theories and Techniques of Image Promotion at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Padua and of the Catholic University of Sacro Cuore to which he adds the leadership of the Executive Master on the Communication of Territorial Identities at the IULM University of Milan. Always an undisputed promulgator of the Made in Italy culture in 2010 he became curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010, tripling the prestigious assignment with Expo Milano 2015 and in 2021 with the one in Dubai.