Pino Cuttaia

The Path

Today, Pino Cuttaia is the owner and executive chef of La Madia, and, since 2021, chef of Uovodiseppia Milano, which was closed in Milan. In that pairing of places, the work sits between a fixed house language and the faster register of Milan, without losing coherence. Cuttaia's cooking is built on patience, discipline, and a controlled hand: a style that relies on clear structure rather than volume, and on repetition shaped into precision.

The Work Today

Pino Cuttaia's current work is organized around clarity, memory, and restraint. At La Madia and at Uovodiseppia Milano, the dishes are built from familiar ingredients treated with exacting attention, so that the effect comes from balance rather than excess. The cooking stays rooted in kitchen rhythm, but it does not stop at procedure; it carries a measured emotional charge without turning decorative. What remains is a body of work that reads calm at the surface and carefully made underneath.

Signature

Pino Cuttaia's signature dishes include Uovo di Seppia, Cappuccino di baccalà, The Cornucopia, Shellfish soup, and Rice Arancini with red mullet ragout and wild fennel. The names themselves show a useful range: play without slackness, form without stiffness. Across the list, the work moves between land and sea, softness and structure, memory and surprise, with each plate shaped to hold contrast without losing control. That is the craft at stake here: composition that stays legible while still feeling alive.

In Their Words The statement is plain, and that plainness does the work. Black and white, as Cuttaia puts it, reads as a method: a way to strip the kitchen back to essentials and keep the line of work clear. The emphasis falls on continuity, family, and the long practice of building a restaurant through time. “I found my freedom cutting an onion.” The line turns a basic task into an ethic. Cutting an onion becomes the point where repetition, attention, and manual control meet; freedom is not abstract here, but earned in the small motions of the prep board. It is a concise account of how craft often begins: not in declaration, but in the handling of one ordinary ingredient.

Acclaim

Pino Cuttaia's honors include Michelin two stars. The recognition suits a kitchen built on precision, where refinement does not flatten character and where control still leaves room for feeling. It marks a career defined by exacting work and a steady culinary identity.