#05 KITCHEN (PART II) 

All Eyes On > #05 KITCHEN (PART II) 

An Atlantis of taste

Marco Bravetti

He/Him

IG: MarcoTocia & TOCIA!

Facebook: TOCIA! Cucina e comunità

Reading time: 4min 11sec

Speaking time:  8min  4sec

In Marco's Tocio you will find liquid, matter, tradition, and new ideas, lagoon, lots of lagoon, but also the flavour of distant lands, a vision.

Gastronomy has shaped and inspired Marco, but it has also sucked him into a life he did not want to lead. 

"The restaurant is limiting because it is an environment that is part of an industrial production system - a catering industry - and is therefore still oriented towards the production of a good, a consumption. What I have always been interested in is the vision of food as a powerful instrument of relationship, the relationship with the people you cook for and then the relationship with the places where you cook, so that the material, the ingredients, my concept of catering becomes a bridge between people and the environment".

"Cooking was a means of reconnecting with Venice, the place where I was born, and where I grew up, but from which I felt completely estranged for a certain period of my life."

Whether in the Spiazzi space or in other places in Venice where Marco can be found, food is not the destination, but rather the atmosphere between restaurateurs and diners, and the magic between ingredients and research: "This is my practice, my work, and this is what those who come here get to know, a place that is a laboratory of experimentation, where we constantly question ourselves, study, evaluate together with the people who work in the area, we value sociality, the landscape.

During the various researches, we come to an understanding of something that we, as chefs, can make our own... at this point, we try to translate this set of elements by sharing it with the public, as if we were opening the doors of a house".

This is the sense of a place where you experiment, where you offer the public unusual food, out of their daily routine, out of their comfort zone, maybe even a challenge, in some cases quite radical to what they usually eat,  

But you are thrown into an extremely empathetic, familiar place that can draw you into a very emotional, warm, and cosy feeling, so in some ways, it is also more able to change your opinion about cooking, about food, about eating.

"Being a cook takes on a completely different meaning for me, probably much closer to what I am interested in, unlike those who prefer to develop their bubble of style, an author's discourse on what they are doing for the sake of something that is intended for a consumer audience... certainly interesting, but still for consumers.

Here, on the other hand, we have the opportunity to engage with people, to talk to them, and to create a dialogue, there is constant direct feedback and the space itself is informal and designed so that there is no separation.

TOCIA! collaborations are very similar to what happens in people's everyday lives. There are no strategies or planning as there might be in a curatorial setting.

It involves a random flow, leading to both productive and less productive encounters. 

Marco clarifies that: "It is interesting how there is no planned dimension, but moments that may seem unproductive can sow potentialities unconsciously that time can eventually determine," 

"In my opinion, all creative processes are collective. 

TOCIA! is a participatory project, but the creative gesture and everything that is done should lead to collective work. 

It is a process at the moment.

I declared it to be a collective even when I was alone because I tended towards that kind of horizon. Then, of course, it's also a bit of navigating in the open sea in terms of the fact that it doesn't mean finding all the people on the same frequency, unity of purpose, and so on. It's very difficult, but for me, it's a much more interesting challenge than cultivating a bubble where you make your speech, get applause, all that great stuff, and convince yourself that it's your stuff (but a bit fake). 

It seems more interesting to me to try and measure myself against making the community more and more open. The result, in my opinion, I don't know if it will be better, but at the same time the criteria for judging what is better will change".

This is also true for those who approach Marco's culinary offerings, unencumbered by preconceptions, you can merge with the experience in its entirety.

What is TOCIO? 

"Objectively, it is not even a dish anymore. It is a continuous narrative tool, it is something that has a fundamental ritual function. This means that if we don't reactivate an idea of ritual around cooking and food, it remains just a product of consumption. 

Our bodies need food, need proteins, vitamins, etc., but we humans, more than other animals, need not only a regular and healthy intake of food but also food as a symbolic meaning. If we delegate this to the industrial market, our needs will be transformed into something that is not food, but a fetish designed to satisfy frustrations and the illusion of what we believe is lacking in our lives from a social, sexual, or whatever aspect, and there food becomes the ideal means of venting, filling these repressed, unfulfilled drives. 

If, on the other hand, we use food as a tool to activate other levels of symbolic meaning by sharing it, I think this is the truly revolutionary action around which we can rebuild an idea of community. "

The restaurant dimension proposed by Marco and all his collaborators frees us from any previous culinary experience. An (extra) sensory adventure, a challenge against habit, and a rediscovery of human values at all levels. It would be interesting to find the same mindset not only in Venice: 

"Our audience is not gourmets. They are not people who go to fancy restaurants, this people do not have a pretentious relationship with cuisine. they are curious, they look at art, and culture, and recognise the fact that ours is a cultural, social, and political discourse.

And that, in my opinion, is the interesting thing, these are discourses that interest everyone, universally - talking about beauty, art, poetry, nature, politics... subjects that touch the lives of all people, and cooking is an extraordinary tool for doing so"

A deep dive into the Tocio is highly recommended.