L'Autre Pied
London. A one-Michelin-star restaurant in Marylebone, known for precise modern European cooking.
Chef & Photographer
Riccardo Riccio
Trained in Michelin-starred kitchens in London and Venice. Now cooking a tasting menu for ten people at a time, in a room where someone is singing.
A cook, then an eye
Riccardo Riccio was raised between Brazil and Italy and started working in kitchens young, developing an appetite for art alongside the cooking. He trained in Michelin-starred restaurants across Europe and South America, and was part of the team that cooked George Clooney's wedding dinner at Hotel Cipriani in Venice, under chef Davide Bisetto.
At 24, a tumour diagnosis changed his direction. Facing blurred vision from Stargardt disease, he turned to photography — an unlikely choice for someone losing central sight, and exactly the point. He learned to compose differently.
Both disciplines now sit in the same evening. The plates are built to be looked at as much as eaten, and the room is lit the way he'd light a photograph.
Kitchens
Where he trained
Oro, Hotel Cipriani
Venice. The Michelin-starred dining room on Giudecca, then under chef Davide Bisetto — the first Italian chef awarded two Michelin stars in France.
Zuka
Leblon, Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian fire cooking, and the other half of the culture he was raised in.
The Opera Kitchen
Barcelona. A tasting menu for 2 to 10 guests, built course by course around live arias, in a private room in El Born.
Cooking against music
Pairing a menu to a voice is not the same as pairing it to a wine. A course has to land while an aria is still in the room — rich against a lament, sharp and cold against something fast. Courses are timed to arrive between pieces, so nothing is eaten over the singing and nothing is sung over the eating.
The menu changes with the season and with the guests. Allergies and dietary restrictions are worked into the composition rather than removed from it, which is possible precisely because there are never more than ten people at the table.
He cooks this menu with soprano Alexandra Nowakowski at The Opera Kitchen, which they founded together.
Barcelona
Eat at his table
Fully booked until November 2027. The waiting list is offered in order as dates open, including seats that free up from cancellations.