The chef Antonio De Benedetto wants to revolutionize the world through food. He decided to turn the world of Nicola, Mirco, Jessica, Nicolò, and others, upside down. He tells us about a good documentary that came out recently in some cinema halls: The recipes for revolution of chef Antonio directed by Trevor Graham. It’s an Italian-Australian production since the idea of the Ethical Hotel reached even the Blue Mountains in the southern hemisphere, and there they thought, correctly, that his story needed to be told and heard around the world.
The film recounts around a year of the experiences of the boys and girls mentioned above had at the first Ethical Hotel, started in the historic center of Asti. A place dedicated to hospitality, that can support itself economically, with about 60% people with intellectual disabilities employed within as kitchen staff, waiters, and room cleaners or at reception. Many of them had experienced the search for work as almost as «begging», recalls Jessica, one of the main disabled waiters in the film. Here, instead, for work «it’s Antonio who offers it to us! And even if at times it’s harsh, I’m happy. I am well-liked».
An apprenticeship that started with learning how to handle the demanding first principles: a cutting board, a knife to sharpen, and parsley to chop finely, without losing a finger or anything, in the Tacabanda restaurant kitchen, was where the idea initially took shape. De Benedetto, he tells in the film, first met Nicolò, a boy with Down syndrome: «Reliable, punctual, he started here as help in the kitchen. Now he is the headwaiter and sommelier. » With him, Antonio understands that there are many kids in his situation that can do a lot and finally «sit at the table of life». With this he starts to think of something else; they took five years to broaden the network of friends and professionals to be involved, find the funds, and the right place.
In 2015, the hotel in Asti was opened, a place that becomes «a university of applied life», in which the experience of job training becomes a period of real autonomy, seeing that there are also rooms to sleep for the boys and girls involved. They come from all over Italy for the training that allowed, for example, to Mirco, to access a hiring program in public administration snack bars (in his case, at a penitentiary institution). There are kids with various difficulties who, like Nicola («he can’t stay here according to the diagnosis he has» says chef Antonio), stimulated by her colleagues, seems to have benefited more from the period of job placement than from many years of therapy to communicate more.
The inspiration is contagious and now there are eight Ethical Hotels in Italy (10 by next year) and four more scattered across the world (there’s a complete list on the official site). In fact, De Benedetto travels and advises families and associations on how to repeat the experience in their city. The work, family, and social lives of the kids, which naturally aren’t always devoid of problems, together with succulent and curated recipes are well-measured ingredients in Graham’s film: now there is certainly no lack of desire to experience an ethically revolutionary stay and dinner.
Translation from Italian to English by Sarah Jorgensen on the initiative of the course taught by Nives Valli using the Service-Learning pedagogical approach at John Felice Rome Center della Loyola University Chicago.
