Pietro Leemann’s biography represents a journey of tireless research towards an increasingly aware and mature self-expression.
“We are what we eat and we become what we choose to eat”.
At the basis of all his experiences and his creations there is full respect for the environment and for the physical and spiritual well-being of the person, which passes through our healthy eating, a means that can help us to elevate ourselves and connect with our highest Essence. The study of food and nature almost becomes a spiritual journey which is made up of several steps through which Pietro Leemann goes with all his human curiosity. A journey full of encounters, high-qualified Chefs, and different cultures, including Chinese and Japanese, which have left a decisive imprint on Pietro Leemann’s personal and professional development.
Originally from Switzerland, he was very impressed at the age of 15 when Angelo Conti Rossini, a chef from Ticino, showed up at his home with a vanilla Bavarian cream, which struck his taste and opened his curiosity to food culture.
During his life he comes into contact and works with top Chefs such as Frédy Girardet and Gualtiero Marchesi, from whom he learns the basics of haute cuisine. Not satisfied, he is an indomitable spirit, he undertakes travels to the East, China and Japan, studying their cultures and their life philosophy and drawing points of reflection to discover his mission. What fascinates him most is bringing man closer to Nature, which alone is capable of offering all the nutrients man needs through a careful and respectful cultivation. His desire to offer an entirely vegetable, healthy and sustainable cuisine becomes his dream, and a group of friends support this project. ‘Joia‘ was born in 1989, a name evoking the pleasure of a tasty, gourmet vegetarian cuisine making people happy.
At the beginning the restaurant is not understood but over time it is enhanced through illustrious personalities, who praise its quality, beauty and variety of flavors. Until the year of its full recognition with the Michelin star in 1996: Joia becomes the first European starred vegetarian venue, increasingly appreciated worldwide for its ethics and refinement.
Over the years increasingly sophisticated and creative dishes have been created, the result of a continuous study and a tireless experimentation.
When the Michelin green star was established in 2020, Chef Leemann was immediately rewarded for his virtuous cuisine, which makes use of organic, biodynamic seasonal ingredients through friendly producers with whom he collaborates and with the firm intention of minimizing food waste and energy impact.
Today the restaurant is a consolidated reality where you can live an excellent experience attentive to details and where each dish is unique, rigorously prepared by hand, and with a name evoking its essence. Cooking is meant as a creative act and the dominant feature of a vegetable cuisine is its variety. Vegetables and fruit are the protagonists, followed by cereals, proteins and vegetable fats capable together of nourishing the body and making it healthy and satisfied. Ethics and aesthetics (good and beautiful) walk together and become for its founder and his brigade (the Executive Chef Sauro Ricci, the Sous Chef Raffaele Minghini, the Restaurant Director and Sommelier Antonio Di Mora, and the team of cooks) a way to spread an increasingly contemporary and avant-garde message.
“Cooking is art and culinary practice is an artistic doing that creates symbols of reality, human representations of the aesthetic forms of Nature… the beautiful and the good, when simple and authentic, naturally lead to the balance that determines our deep well-being”.
Further fruits of this path are the Joia Academy created with Sauro Ricci since 2015, as a meeting point between professionals and enthusiasts to deepen the techniques and values of vegetarian gourmet proposal, The Vegetarian Chance founded with the journalist Gabriele Eschenazi, the first international festival of vegetarian cuisine; and finally the numerous books on food culture written by the master.
The last of which, The code of vegetarian cooking, the most complete and important, for for the thirty years anniversary of the Joia restaurant, a generous gift on all the secrets learned in these long years on food and nutrition and numerous recipes.
It is said that Pietro Leemann is planning his ‘departure’, but we are happy to see him always involved in different projects in defense of the environment and in events, schools and initiatives aimed at spreading his concept. We are also proud because recently, on the International Day of Italian Cuisine, he partecipated in an Instagram live together with Karine Castro and Camilla Parmigiani, with whom we collaborate, to talk about the natural and vegetable haute cuisine.
An ideal can evolve over time but it never has an end!
Vegan Suite for Pietro Leemann
