Are chefs artists?

Some dishes look like works or art but they cannot be by definition as such since a culinary product is destroyed when it is consumed. Thus they can be a works of high craftsmanship but not art in the strictest sense.

Benedetto Croce, a neo-idealist philosopher who lived between the 19th and 20th centuries, wrote essays about art in which he distinguished between what was authentically “artistic”, defined as the product of “human intuition”, and what was not. It is important, of course, to view his complex philosophical system, set out in The Philosophy of the Spirit, in the context of his times. Today, the concept of art itself has gone in different directions and the definition is now much less rigid and need only be based on “artistic intention”. Thus something that evokes an emotion or a reflection, even a provocation from a creation or an installation, something that can be observed or heard, even a musical piece or poem, immediately becomes art and whoever did this becomes an artist. Even in the world of cooking, with its “chefs d’auteur”, some are convinced that certain creations are authentic works of art.

Gualtero Marchesi “flirted” with the “dripping” painting technique of Jackson Pollack, creating a pesto risotto with clams and squid, as well as the “cutting” technique of Fontana when he made his monkfish with squid ink. A video of the making of these dishes was broadcast by Sky Art in a wonderful program that saw Marchesi interact with art critic Francesco Bonami.

Is cooking an art?

This is a complex question to answer. For sure Marchesi, who was a very cultured man, at least had some artistic “reference points”. However, when it comes to artistic creation other factors weigh in more importantly. First of all, a work of art must be available to people. A culinary dish, on the other hand, is destroyed when it is consumed by an individual. Thus in order to make it available again, it has to be made again. It is unimaginable for a ‘real’ work of art to be exhibited or listened to by an individual to then be destroyed and then repainted or rewritten to be re-exhibited or re-listened to. This is the reason why, for me, cooking can never be an art and a chef never an artist. It is not enough that a recipe exists to repeat a dish or a protocol on how to do this. Reading a recipe or following one does not give the immediate sensorial experience that a true work of art does. At best, recipes are a form of literature, technical prose, complete with step-by-step instructions. One can imagine flavors but not really sense or experience them, there is no such thing as taste voyeurism.

The truth is that in order to fully experience a culinary creation it must be destroyed by the only person experiencing it. And this, in my view, is what distinguishes artistic expression from high craftsmanship that, no matter how good it may be, is not art in the strictest sense.