Filippo LA MANTIA

Chef

Born in 1960 in Palermo, Filippo La Mantia studied at the Arts High School and then attended the Faculty of Architecture.

A Karate teacher and a passionate motorcyclist, he began his career as a photojournalist - he is the author of the famous image of the murder of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and his wife, that was distributed worldwide.

In his “second life” he is a chef, although he prefers to be called simply cook rather than a professional chef. He inherited the passion for cooking from his family. His grandmother was the classic Sicilian host with food always ready for any number of guests at any time, and this is where his concept of hospitality comes from.  The family was known for supplying bakeries and ice cream shops, hence his passion for desserts.

Filippo La Mantia initially opened a couscous bar in San Vito Lo Capo where he invented his famous “citrus pesto” and it is this, along with couscous and his ‘caponata’ that have become his signature dishes.

In 2001 he moved to Rome, first working at La Zagara restaurant and then moving on to manage La Trattoria, a restaurant located between the Pantheon and Piazza Navona that had an open-view  and a sense of “homely’ which immediately became trendy.

In 2008 he moved to the Grand Hotel Majestic where his first-floor restaurant, with its retro ‘dolce vita’ atmosphere soon exceeded the success even of La Trattoria.

In 2015 he moved to Milan and opened ‘Filippo La Mantia, Oste e Cuoco’  in Piazza Risorgimento, his most ambitious project to date. The 1800-square metre restaurant, open from 8am-1am,  celebrates “his” traditional Sicilian cuisine that uses neither garlic nor onions and which is based on a cooking style that showcases the fresh scents and flavours of Sicily, a “coloured cuisine” as he likes to describe it.