Pino Saccheri

The Path

Seasonality is the throughline in Pino Saccheri’s work, but the discipline behind it was built across very different kitchens. Internships in Sicily, Milan, and New York gave him early exposure to multiple culinary languages, followed by a move to Greece, where he took on the role of chef from 1994. The line of work points to a cook shaped by practice across place and climate, with Mediterranean clarity held alongside urban rigor. Teaching and service sit side by side in his current practice. As a teacher at Tessalico IEK School and chef of ristorante DONO, Pino Saccheri works in both transmission and execution: one setting for method, the other for application. At DONO, the work stays rooted in seasonality, with vegetables treated as a central element and the kitchen’s attention fixed on what the produce can do when handled with restraint.

The Work Today

In Kyoto, ristorante DONO places Italian cooking inside the city’s seasonal cadence. The menu follows the year’s small changes rather than forcing a fixed formula, which gives the food its measured pace. The kitchen language is one of construction as much as composition. The food is described through engineering in the creation and design of the food, which points to a practice built with structure, sequence, and control. The result is careful without being spare, shaped by attention to what the season is offering in the moment.

In Their Words “Not a challenge, more a genre of Fun! It stimulates me and especially my imagination.” “The engineering in the creation and design of the food.”

Acclaim

Michelin Plate is listed among Pino Saccheri’s honors.