i. Biography
Milk, animals, woods, and altitude set the working order for agri-cooking in Cortina d’Ampezzo before a dish is composed. At SanBrite, where Riccardo Gaspari is chef and owner, Alpine cuisine is handled through locally sourced, self-produced ingredients and a modern kitchen vocabulary. The method starts with production rather than procurement: pasture, dairy, herd, and surrounding mountains define what the kitchen can use and how far technique should go. Mountain cooking in this register depends as much on limits as on abundance. Fresh milk, resinous woods, grasses, animals, and the conditions of Cortina d’Ampezzo function as structure rather than scenery in Gaspari’s work. The plates carry contemporary precision, but the logic remains agricultural: flavor is built from materials known before they enter the dining room.
Training and Lineage
Training in sculpture and carving gives a maker’s discipline to material before it becomes cuisine. At Cortina’s school of sculpture and carving, Riccardo Gaspari learned to read surface, form, resistance, and touch. That education translates cleanly into food work: shaping without forcing, understanding material behavior, and letting form emerge from what the material will allow. Farm labor supplied the second discipline: production at source. As a family farm worker at family farm in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Gaspari worked with animals, seasons, and the daily handling of ingredients before they became restaurant inputs. In that setting, agriculture and craft were not separate categories. Material, place, and season became practical constraints to be worked with directly. Local growth has remained tied to that production base. Riccardo Gaspari is chef and owner of El Brite de Larieto (since 2004), founder of Piccolo Brite (since 2012), founder of Brite Mobile (since 2016), and chef and owner of SanBrite (since 2017). Taken together, those roles show a progression from farm and mountain culture into a more refined contemporary language without cutting the work loose from Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The Work Today
At SanBrite, mountain traditions are reinterpreted in a sophisticated, contemporary way, combining ancient methods with modern techniques. The restaurant’s premise is not a reconstruction of Alpine life but a working use of its systems. The menu is dictated by nature and the immediate surroundings, with fresh morning milk, pine scent, and the herd treated as materials that shape flavor, structure, and the meal’s register. “The secret to my recipes is that ingredients are created first, and then the dish is composed.” In Gaspari’s agri-cooking, that sentence puts production ahead of composition. The dish follows the ingredient rather than the other way around. Technique remains present, but it serves raw material with a known origin: milk with a morning behind it, aromas from the woods, and flavors carrying the cold clarity of the slopes. “Cooking means transforming the smell of the woods in an experience for the palate and the soul.” The practical reading is Alpine cuisine worked through a contemporary hand, with animals, dairy, forests, and cold slopes still visible in the method. The transformation is deliberate: mountain memory becomes taste, agricultural work becomes restaurant language, and place is translated with restraint rather than ornament. The force of the work is continuity between production and plate. SanBrite’s cooking is modern, but its modernity is anchored in the oldest part of the chain: tending, making, and understanding the land before service begins.
Standing
Riccardo Gaspari has received One Michelin star. Recognition for this agri-cooking includes One Michelin star.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Riccardo
What is Riccardo Gaspari's current position?
Riccardo Gaspari is chef and owner.
Where did Riccardo Gaspari train or study?
Riccardo Gaspari trained at Cortina’s school of sculpture and carving.
What recognition has Riccardo Gaspari received?
One Michelin star.
