Today with great pleasure we are at Joia restaurant in Milan. We are going to interview Pietro Leemann who is the owner and the founder of the restaurant; and I think it will be very interesting interview. Pietro, the vegetable a very fundamental part of the Italian cuisine, but in 1989 you decided to open this restaurant which is a vegetarian restaurant. It's a great innovation. What was behind this idea? Maybe in Europe it's an innovation because the new tradition of gourmet cuisine is not vegetarian, but in the Orient we have a long tradition of so many vegetarian restaurants and also we cook vegetarian in the temples. What we noted with a group of friend twenty-five years ago is that society was changing to a more healthy and more vegetarian direction. Also who decided to change were people with quite good culture and also a quite good economical possibility and so we decided to open a vegetarian gourmet restaurant to respond to them, but of course we decided to do it as well because we were and I am vegetarian because I think it is very important to do something that is not false but is true. Doing a vegetarian restaurant must be something very clear because vegetarian cuisine means other things like trying to keep the planet better, protecting animals, and finding farmers who work with us. It is not only an economical sense, of course it is that too, but mostly a life sense and also a relationship sense and also a life choice. Well actually when you opened the restaurant, the innovation was not only to have a vegetarian restaurant, but to have a gourmet restaurant because Joia is the only vegetarian restaurant with Michelin stars in Europe. It's a double innovation. How complicated is it to have a gourmet vegetarian restaurant? It is quite complicated because all the gourmet cuisine is based on animal protein. All the cuisine around Europe makes dishes by putting something all around like some grain or some vegetable. Vegetarian cuisine doesn't have this support, so I needed to invent something very different, and also before becoming a vegetarian, I worked in important places in Europe and also I lived in Asia. So I learned how to cook a good level cuisine. I like very much to cook as well. For me it was very important not only to cook vegetarian but to do something at a very high standard. For the fact as well that many times when we think about vegetarian cuisine, we think of very healthy cuisine that is not so tasty; maybe even a little sad cuisine. It is not true because what I believe is that, of course, eating vegetarian will be more healthy, more bright, and there are many opportunities to change our life in this direction, but it is also very important to make the people happy because happiness is very important part of life. Even if we eat very healthy food but it is not happy, it is not a good thing. Instead it was balance these two things: doing something very healthy but also with a lot of taste, also my dishes are beautiful to see. They have philosophical sense so they are quite complex. For this because the sense of life can be very short and on the surface but it can be so very deep and very complete and complex. I belief that it’s more interesting to live in a more complete way, not in a too simple way because we are human beings, we are intelligent, we can choose what we want to do and to become, but we must do it. Observing this many times, we don't really choose what to do, but for the fact that we become what we choose, that means that the people don't become what they want to be. What I always say always, yes, we are what we eat, but also we become what we are eating. Deciding what we want really to eat is very important. You just mentioned your cuisine makes a lot of reference to other traditions like the Asian one. What is the concept of tradition in the kitchen? What is tradition? Because having tradition in Italy but important traditions from other countries can be a very novel idea, What is the concept of tradition? It is interesting because cuisine represents the culture where we live in. That's important because that also represents our psychology, our climb in many things, but also to we can observe since we founded civilization a long time ago that traditions always change. In Milan now there are maybe five hundred Japanese restaurants and twenty years ago, there were no vegetarian restaurants here. Food and tradition becomes an exchange. It’s where a Japanese person or a Chinese person speaks to me to about tradition and then I speak to him with about tradition and then the results change. Pasta is born, risotto is born, and ginger is born and many things change in our tradition. That in a way is very important, because in a healthy conception we should always eat the food that grows where we live and also the food of the season when we are living. Food can break the barrier between a population and so even if our ideas are different then we can exchange them with food. The globalization of food in fact it is a good globalization because the culture comes without a barrier. What I did in my life, of course, was to live in this country, Because I lived in China, in Japan, in India to understand this relationship between the place and the food that is very deep. But it always changes, because like now in Japan, we eat kind of French-Italian-Japanese cuisine. In Europe we have my cuisine as well I keep the culture of many things. In vegetarian cuisine it is very important because like in Asia for this here I have a lot of Asian influences. They have a different attention on vegetables making sure that they're very fresh. They keep them crispy and they are very important in the dish. We used this fact a little bit in Italy because the Artusi cuisine was a cuisine with a lot of meat and the vegetables were like medicine. It's not the same because the vegetables are very good and also make the sense of the dish. I observed many times, oriental cuisine is more complex and as well more elevated than our cuisine because they have been observing, for a long time, the global sense of the cuisine more deeply. What you're saying, what I get, is that you can innovate by importing traditions from other countries. But also the sense is that we, as consumers, tend to think of innovation in cuisine in terms of ingredients. Where as there is a lot to do with how to cook, so cooking methodologies. Maybe importing from abroad has a lot to do with innovative methodologies, how to cook. Yes. Two important things— I mean, the three important things to import are: the way of thinking, the philosophy, the culture of the country; The ingredients for example, bok choy and ginger in Italy; but the methodology as well. In China, they are masters at making pasta, or cooking vegetables very fast in the wok, and of marination. In Japan they are masters at aesthetics and a very deep and simple way of cooking. In India, they are a masters of spices. Their cuisine is based on spices. The technique, when it's better, will pass to make a better cuisine. For instance, you will see here the style to fry is like tempura in Japan because I found that that's the best way to fry. Then when we roast, that's a Chinese style for the roasting. The aesthetic is in a Japanese way. Using the spice, it is an Indian way. Basically, you opened this restaurant more than twenty-five years ago, so we can say that now Joia is a tradition knowing the vegetarian restaurant world. Also the people, the culture, and the knowledge of consumers about vegetarianism has changed. So how did you evolve? How did Joia evolve following these changes in the culture of consumers? Twenty-five years ago, it was very early. When we opened here, everybody said you are little bit crazy. Probably we were crazy when we opened Joia. But then quite fast, my style of cuisine, the vegetarian style improved. Now in Italy we say that there are seven to ten percent vegetarian people and we say as well that in twenty years years we will be thirty percent so it is really the trend. What is interesting is that, in some way, Joia was always a little bit in advance compared to what the others were doing, and also a reference for the other people. In this moment where as well in Milan we have the EXPO that is based on our own food and as well, everybody speaks about health and vegetarians and so we are in some way, in the center of everything. Everybody calls us to explain what we should and also how to do it. We founded a school. I wrote different books. I went for conferences because here it is not only a restaurant, it is also a way for me to push the people to became a little more vegetarian. The Italian market is changing in this direction very fast because we have may local farms that come to Milan and sell their food. The people really think what they would like to eat, so organic food is growing very fast. Besides the evolution of the culture of people, many more people now, as you said, appreciate the vegetarianism and vegetarian cuisine, if you think or focus on your restaurant, there are many people who are loyal customers. They started years ago and they are following you. In all these years that have gone, how did you change your way of cooking or your way of approaching your profession given the fact that the culture and knowledge of these people has improved? In the beginning in Joia I was very intellectual so the cuisine was very thought out and made less with the heart and then it changed but what changed much more was my way to communicate to the people because I didn't convince them to come here because there was vegetarian cuisine, but I convinced them to come here because it was a philosophy, and that's much more interesting. With them, I speak about philosophy, not about food or about healthy food. You know we say that birds with the same feather flock together, and that's true. And this is interesting because food and life is based a lot on relationships. When our relationships are good we live better, and so living wit people similar to us but also people that try in their life to become better and to make a better landscape and to choose good things, etc., then our lives become more interesting. Here at Joia, it is more like a community. It is not really a restaurant. It's a community of thinkers. I am a thinker, but my guests are thinkers as well, and we exchange. My way to exchange, is the food, and their way is to be guests. Maybe they're artists or doctors or other things, but there is always an exchange. In your experience, all over these years, did it happen or does it happen that consumers, your guests, give you some advice, give you some insight, or give you some suggestions on how to cook or do other things that regard your job? They influence me a lot because the relationships work better if I can communicate something. Because if my food is too distant from the other people, it's quite difficult to speak with them. For instance, this year, I worked a lot on taste. I made the taste very round and very warm. The sense of my life is to make the people more vegetarian, but they know, so it is not a trick because they know the term vegetarian. They know when they come here they will eat vegetarian, and maybe I will say to them that vegetarian is very good. To make it better, I am never against the other people, so a person that eats meat is free to eat meat, like my daughter. She was born vegetarian, but now she eats some fish, but that's her choice. I never judge other people. I also don't judge my colleagues that they cook meat. All I say is this is the way, and for me that's the better way. If what I do and my image is good, then they will follow. It is more an example for them, and for this I try to write, to communicate, but at the same time telling them my thinking. That not necessarily their thinking and not necessarily but if my model is a good model, then they will follow. Joia is an example. It is a model that it is possible to be vegetarian, successful, and respectful of the planet and animals. It's possible. Did it happen or does it happen that a customer or some customers give you some advice, suggestions: “Why don't you do this?”, “Why don't you try this?” Has that ever happened? Sure, guests, many times, travel a lot and then also give me a sensation because the culture is changing very fast, and so the food is changing very fast. We must always be able to upgrade on these. Ten years ago we had the Spanish movement. Everybody was making this style of cuisine. Now everybody is looking to the North, so to Norman and these kind of restaurants. Many cooks are doing this. I heard about them out, but then I follow my way. If, in Denmark, they use something interesting from nature that, for me, can be interesting, I'll do something similar. I go myself picking wild herbs in the countryside, and I use different herbs than before, so that's an evolution. Because to be successful, that means as well to be in the present. When we lose the present in this, of course everybody knows, in this historical moment, we are already behind, and we lose the way and we are out of the economy. And then the restaurant will not be full. And now it is a successful place, but I always need to think and to be able to change. Thinking of your innovation, and for a while we’ll keep the cuisine aside, which other components of the restaurant do you think are important to innovate and to be consistent with your philosophy? It is very important because in a restaurant you have an aesthetic, a style, a landscape, and also a sound, so we worked on this. What was to be changed, is something that's a revolution in the cuisine is that the direction became more and more spiritual. In some way now Joia is a community, but it is also a temple. The people come here because there is a temple as well in the cuisine that you see. And the sense of what we do is not just for health or just to make the planet better, but also for a spiritual thought. I do this of course because I believe in spirituality as well. The sense of my life firstly is a spiritual sense. As well, the shape always has the sense of a place to stay in some way like in a temple, because the temple is the best place to be and to feel good. In this temple, we eat the food that corresponds to the temple. The good food for our temple is vegetarian food that respects the animals that is a message of peace and of good relationships not only to human beings but to everybody. That's supposedly very oriental but it's not oriental because most spiritual people are vegetarian or are becoming or they think about this. Even in Christianity, there are many people that are becoming vegetarian. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you.
