WORDS BY Alexandra Marvar
on a bright day in May, the French Riviera sun is glinting off the yachts rocking in the water, and two young Italian chefs — Filippo Canessa and Leonardo Sanni — are building out the kitchen for a luxury restaurant, here in the micronation of Monaco.
They have just arrived at a blank patch of paver stones beside the marina. Three days from now, they’ll be serving exquisite meals to VIPs, celebrities and foreign dignitaries. And another three days beyond that, the entire operation will be gone without a trace.
The two chefs first met at the Michelin-starred Ristorante San Giorgio, in their hometown of Genoa, Canessa a chef and Sanni staging as he completed culinary school. Instruments in the orchestra of San Giorgio’s back of house, they prepared dishes like pigeon, plated with nduja, radicchio and dates over a tartlet of pigeon livers, for diners seated at big round tables with white tablecloths and a tome of a wine list 1,500 bottles deep.
Canessa and Sanni are sous chefs on the team of Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali. Under head chef Alex Hohenwarter, they are bringing those same standards to their menu at the 95th annual Monaco Grand Prix.
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Chef Filippo Canessa, a passionate baker, likes to spend time honing new skills and learning new recipes.
“I would say the food is similar,” Canessa says of their mobile kitchen as compared to a Michelin-starred restaurant. “But the starting point … It’s very different.”
Indeed, an uber-elite dining experience and world-class food take quite a different route — full of twists and turns — to make it from kitchen to plate behind the scenes at a Grand Prix. Here in Monaco, as at every Formula 1 race, a glistening pop-up city is built as the racing teams’ “motorhomes” roll into place.
Of course, in the world of Formula 1, this term doesn’t refer to your typical RV. Each team has a fleet of massive vehicles that park, connect and unfurl to form Transformers-like architecture — two-story buildings that look like luxury department stores, or battleships, or skyscrapers in miniature. The stretch of motorhomes often spans a third of a mile. The whole production will depart as quickly as it came, to be built again on a different continent, in a different climate — but for the chefs working at the invite-only, luxury restaurants inside of them, the same expectations for exceptional dining.
The motorhomes contain all manner of amenities — meeting space, lounging space, high-tech interactive exhibitions and outdoor dining terraces — but the dining opportunities are the main attraction.
An uber-elite dining experience and world-class food take quite a different route — full of twists and turns — to make it from kitchen to plate behind the scenes at a Grand Prix.
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A view of the floating Formula 1 Paddock Club at the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix. © DPPI Media/Alamy Live News
Mise en Place
Fine dining is a key part of the experience across a Formula 1 Grand Prix. The sport’s best-known dining experience is the elite Paddock Club. Here, the views of the circuit are the best you can buy, and the food makes a perfect pairing. In Monaco, guests take small boats over to the club venue: a yacht, where they can watch the circuit from the water. Paddock Club guests can expect close encounters with drivers, royalty, celebrity athletes and stars. For most races, three-day tickets with club access are often priced at upwards of $6,000. In Monaco, that number is closer to $20,000.
Glasses clink at the open champagne bar. Chefs are lined up against the windows in their tall, white toques unveiling stunning dishes and laying them out buffet style. Sanni knows the scene well: His departure from traditional fine dining for Formula 1 involved a run here at the Paddock Club before stepping up into his current role, joining Hohenwarter and Canessa for Formula 1’s European races.
“The first time for me was a shock,” Sanni said of making the leap from Michelin-starred San Giorgio to the Paddock Club. “In the Paddock Club, you do big, big numbers, cutting a hundred kilos of zucchini for days.” It's a different world at the Formula 1 motorhome, which is more "small projects" on the scale of a "normal kitchen" at a luxury restaurant, he says.
Now that he’s working with Canessa and Hohenwarter for Domenicali, he’s preparing meals on something like 1/50 of the scale, letting his talents shine. While the Paddock Club was about speed and volume, here in the motorhome, Sanni says, it’s about luxury and agility. On the first level, Hohenwarter, Canessa and Sanni will serve a gourmet multi-course meal, buffet style. Some 100 invited guests per day will partake — as compared to the Paddock Club’s several thousand.
And guests can’t buy their way into the experience in Domenicali’s motorhome: This is invite only.
Upstairs, Domenicali’s VIP area is even more exclusive: Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served as seated meals, and here, Domenicali decides who dines with him, and which guest has what. The F1 motorhome’s trio of chefs — accompanied by back-of-house help if the race permits — take it in stride, plating up Michelin-caliber dishes in what, just this week, may be the most exclusive dining experience in all of Monaco.
At the end of day one, when Hohenwarter, Canessa and Sanni, with the help of front-of-house manager Giorgia Foisor, finish setting up, the food prep begins. They’ll start with the foundations, Canessa says: cooking the red sauce, for example. Because no matter where in the world they’re racing this week, one theme persists: There will be pasta.
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Canessa and front-of-house manager Giorgia Foisor prepare breakfast for the staff.
Leveling Up
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Octopus salad with potatoes, fresh leaf basil sauce and pickled blueberry.
Domenicali has a long history with the sport. After a tenure as the team principal of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team, he took up a post as CEO of Lamborghini. But in 2020, he made a triumphant return, becoming Formula 1 CEO: a fitting new chapter for a man born and raised in Imola, Italy — and who grew up spending weekends in the paddock and on the track at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, home to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Domenicali stepped into the shoes of a man who was “happy with hamburgers and fries” at the Paddock Club, rumor has it. But he wanted to level up. He started with the corporate motorhome, which was previously just one single, modest vehicle with an awning. Today, his chefs create menus with special dishes that nod to regional cuisine or highlight exceptional local, seasonal ingredients.
On the VIP menu upstairs, they balance the adventurous with the elegantly simple and familiar — and they always include some of Domenicali’s Italian favorites.
There are things the CEO “is just going to ask for,” no matter what, Canessa says — classic, Italian things, presented in the manner of Michelin star dishes. Take Vitello Tonnato, a traditional Italian recipe of seared veal loin served cold with tuna sauce. Or homemade focaccia. Prosciutto crudo. Octopus.
“Traveling all year round, he likes to have something familiar that feels homemade, ‘home style,’” Foisor adds. “Something familiar.”
Today, his chefs create menus with special dishes that nod to regional cuisine or highlight exceptional local, seasonal ingredients.
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Parmesan and asparagus risotto and yolk (marinated and gel)
Double ravioli Parmesan and courgette with sauté courgette and pumpkin espuma.
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Pumpkin and guanciale ravioli
Racing for Premium Ingredients
Parmesan and asparagus risotto and yolk (marinated and gel)
Double ravioli Parmesan and courgette with sauté courgette and pumpkin espuma.
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Pumpkin and guanciale ravioli
The real drama comes in procuring the high-quality meats, produce and other special items they want to cook with, wherever in the world they may be: “We have an idea what we are going to do, but when we see the ingredients, we decide,” Sanni says. “Sometimes we’re very, very lucky finding these ingredients.”
And the stakes are high: The quality of the food is reliant on finding them, Canessa adds — “We’re not magicians.”
The most difficult country to get the ingredients they want? “Honestly I’m sorry to say the USA, but America has the worst,” Canessa says. In Australia, in Arab countries, around the world, it’s not hard to get the quality charcuterie, cheeses, and produce to make a meal shine. But in the U.S., the chefs agree, nothing is guaranteed.
“The meat is good — it’s not like Japan, but it’s good,” Canessa says. “But the charcuterie? We need to fight to get what we want.”
However, for the teams, whose motorhomes may be right next door, this all works a bit differently. Quality ingredients are still the hinge factor that no one can plan for, but unlike the Formula 1 CEO’s team, these chefs have access to different resources.
For example, Red Bull’s team chef Sandro Gamsjager has the advantage of beginning to plan his menus for overseas races two to three months in advance, sending out order lists before he arrives to vendors across the region, and then, on arrival, devoting himself fully to driving around searching for the freshest, best meat and fish and buying them himself.
Hohenwarter’s team doesn’t spare a moment of set-up for such a shopping excursion. Instead, they rely on Formula 1’s massive purchasing team, which deploys to round up all the materials everyone in Domenicali’s orbit needs for the week’s race. “But they’re very busy. They don’t have much time for us,” Canessa notes. “For them the priority is the 5,000 people of the Paddock Club. The Formula 1 motorhome is ordering very small quantities of very specific things.”
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Squid ink ravioli filled with braised hamachi in dashi broth, samphire and lemon.
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Orange parmesan and rocket
Steamed cod served in salad water with crispy black olives basil sauce and tomato concasse.
Steamed cod served in salad water with crispy black olives basil sauce and tomato concasse.
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Squid ink ravioli filled with braised hamachi in dashi broth, samphire and lemon.
Orange parmesan and rocket
Around the World in 24 Races
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Even during the chaos of a race weekend, the team finds enjoyment in the little moments.
The work of a Formula 1 private chef is a rollercoaster that rides with the race schedule: A week of work here, two weeks there, a three-week “summer break.” For much of the year, Canessa says, races are back-to-back.
On the off weeks this year, Sanni is cultivating his garden and gearing up to launch a business teaching tourists to make garden-to-table pizza with hand-harvested, seasonal ingredients in his pizza oven. Canessa likes to spend time honing new skills and learning new recipes, particularly in his passion for baking. Last year, he devoted his offseason to learning the art of Vienna-style breakfast pastries, Viennoiserie, at a bakery in central London. This year, he’s taking every opportunity to travel — including between race weeks — throughout Japan and Australia.
After the thrill of another race week, each member of the team will motor back into these “off-week” pursuits in Genoa and in Foisor’s case, Turin. But this Friday morning of the Monaco Grand Prix, while the racers gear up for their qualifying sessions on the circuit, everything else is far from their minds: The buzz of engines fills the air, the mis en place is set, and the guests are arriving — starting with breakfast.
The work of a Formula 1 private chef is a rollercoaster that rides with the race schedule: A week of work here, two weeks there, a three-week “summer break.”
Foisor will welcome something like 100 people into the Formula 1 motorhome, making sure she greets them before they even have a chance to search for her, and that their glasses are full before they even think to ask.
They’ll partake in the buffet, and for lunch today, it’ll include freshly baked focaccia and grissini, a selection of charcuterie and cheeses — bresaola, mortadella, prosciutto crudo, asiago, taleggio, and more — salads of prawn and avocado, of courgette and barley, smoked salmon, an arancini portofino.
These dishes are locked down, and now, Hohenwarter, Canessa and Sanni are perfecting the final details for the lunch menu in Domenicali’s upstairs area: Crispy baby calamari with lemon and herbs sauce to start, and main courses of handmade courgette ravioli with prosciutto; swordfish involtini in rosemary sauce with la ratte potatoes and seared green asparagus; grilled filet of beef on white asparagus with saffron mousseline and herbs jus. For dessert, profiteroles and tiramisú.
After the Monaco race, Canessa, Sanni and Foisor will hop in a car for the ride back to Canessa’s apartment in Genoa, just under three hours away where they will sit on a bench together looking back on the event. They'll part ways from here — at least, until Canessa joins Hohenwarter for the next Grand Prix, a week away, across the Atlantic in Canada.
“It’s almost impossible to do what they do in a Michelin-starred restaurant,” Canessa says. The expectation, however, exists. “We do our best,” he says. And the guests? “They are very happy” with the results.
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Leonardo holding a bombolone, a fried sweet dough covered in caster sugar and filled with pastry cream.
