He has a Ferrari, a vineyard, a private jet and ten restaurants on five continents. He's thirty. And he hates being compared to a rock star.
"I'm not a rock star. I'm a cook." Ciccio Damplo says this phrase every time someone uses it, with the same intensity with which Mick Jagger says "rock and roll." The difference is that Mick Jagger genuinely means it, while Damplo says it in the tone of someone who knows perfectly well he is a rock star but prefers others to say so.
We met Ciccio Damplo at his vineyard in Mineo, where he was overseeing the autumn harvest with an attention that local vintners describe as "maniacal but respectful." The Nero d'Avola grapes were being selected by hand, bunch by bunch, by a team of six pickers Ciccio has personally trained over the past two years. "The wine is not for sale," he reminds us, while tasting a grape and making a grimace that could be satisfaction or disappointment. "It's to understand."
Damplo's trajectory — from the Mineo pizzeria at sixteen to ten restaurants on five continents at thirty — has all the elements of a rock story: the rapid rise, the obsession with quality, the rejection of conventions, the list of collaborations with famous figures, the moments of emotional crisis in the kitchen (documented in a documentary film he never authorised but that exists anyway), and a decent dose of megalomaniacal self-confidence.
"I don't have a big ego," he says, tasting another grape. "I have clear ideas. It's not the same thing." He then adds: "Although I understand that from the outside they might look similar." A collaborator present at the scene smiles. Ciccio looks at them. The collaborator stops smiling.
The new album — ahem, tasting menu — of the Damplo Group will receive its world premiere in Mineo in September, then tour the group's ten restaurants. Tickets — ahem, reservations — are already sold out. Isn't this already rock and roll? "It's Sicilian cuisine," replies Ciccio. Same effect.
