We reached him in the Mediterranean, between a route to Barcelona and a video call with his Tokyo sommelier. He answered all the questions. Not all the questions we wanted to ask.
The yacht is called Pasta alla Norma. This is not a joke: the nameplate is in hand-engraved brass, by a Palermo craftsman, in lettering Ciccio chose personally after "three hours of discussion about font size." We reached Ciccio in the waters between Sardinia and Corsica, where he had anchored for what he calls "an afternoon of thought." The afternoon of thought involved a call with the Damplo Tokyo sommelier, one with the Mineo winemaker, and an interview with us. "You never think alone," he explained. "You think with the right people."
The yacht is large enough to accommodate eleven people. On board were six: Ciccio, his assistant Luca, a cook preparing lunch, an unidentified guest who never looked up from his laptop, and our reporter. Plus us. The cook was preparing pasta with sea urchin. "That's not one of my recipes," Ciccio clarified. "It's a Sicilian recipe. Sicilian recipes belong to everyone. My recipes belong to me."
During the interview, Ciccio answered questions about the next opening (not yet announced, "but there are conversations ongoing with a city I won't name"), about his relationship with success ("success is a consequence, not an objective — those who chase success waste time they could use cooking"), and about the possibility of retirement ("that possibility does not exist. Retirement is not in my vocabulary. Not even in the dictionary I use.")
To the question of what he does on the yacht when not working, he replied: "That doesn't happen." To the question of what rest means to him, he replied: "Cooking without a fixed menu." To the question of whether he was ever truly alone, he looked at the horizon for a full four seconds, then said: "With the Mediterranean around you, you are never alone. You are at the centre." The guest at the laptop looked up and nodded. We still don't know who he was.
