The story of Emin Hazir, the Albanian immigrant who was named the best chef under 30 by Forbes
2024-06-06 09:44:17
TiranaPost
At the age of 7, Emin Haziri and his family immigrated to Italy illegally, today he has been declared the best chef under 30 by Forbes.
"Three days and three nights in the car, walking in the forest. In the hands of passers-by, ferries of illegal immigrants. We left with nothing, leaving our grandparents in Pristina. As soon as we arrived in Trieste, the taxi driver dropped us off in the center. It was snowing, I felt the cold in my bones. It was a November evening in 2002. The first night we slept under the stairs, the next morning we went to the police station, asking for refugee status. Babi Xelil had worked as a waiter in Germany, but he had returned to Kosovo during the war. They wanted to offer us a better future". Muslim and in Arabic his name means pious, virtuous. He was rated by Forbes magazine as the best chef under 30 and on June 7 he will inaugurate his restaurant Procaccini on the street of the same name at number 33. .
Emin inherited her passion for cooking from her mother and grandmothers, among her childhood recipes are pie and fritters, both delicious.
The parents did not want Emini, their eldest son, to enroll in hotel school: "I insisted on studying medicine. I started my internship in Brescia with Philippe Léveillé, then I went to Milan with Carlo Cracco, in Mudec with Enrico Bartolini and in Villa Crespi for Antonino Cannavacciuolo. The desire to do something came from the fact that as a child I felt inferior because I did not speak Italian well and my classmates had more things. My family had no money. I am always in the kitchen, with my head down like Jannik Sinner on the tennis court: we are silent, hardworking".
Experiences abroad are many: nine months in Copenhagen's Noma, he worked in the Mecca restaurant of chef Rene Redzepi: "There were sixty of us in the kitchen, to be noticed, you had to be good and work from 6 in the morning until 1 in the morning". After Denmark, Emin moved to Marseille to Gérald Passedat (three Michelin stars).
The well-known Italian chef Antonino Cannavacciuolo made Em the head chef of Gran Madre, in Turin, and then transferred him to the Grand Royal Hotel and Golf Courmayeur, where the famous chefs Maura Gosio and Paolo Griffa had also worked.
The restaurant industry, at these levels, is a military environment: «You earn 1400 euros, you have to pay the rent and there is very little left. After the pandemic there is less competition, many have left the sector to spend more with family and friends."
He still doesn't think of having fun: " I don't have any addictions, I always work." I started over and finally managed to buy my parents' house. Meanwhile, my brother Erioni has completed his medical studies, so we will have a doctor in the family."
