Respect is hardly a new word in gastronomy. It is most often used to describe a chef’s ability to preserve the flavour, texture and integrity of an ingredient. Yet it was the word that stayed with me after meeting Paolo Meneguz on an unusually grey, almost autumnal morning at the end of April. On the drive home, that overused word slowly regained its weight. For the first time in a long while, it felt worth listening to.

Paolo Meneguz now lives on a hillside overlooking the town of Busca, in the province of Cuneo. His home is a large farmhouse surrounded by a carefully tended garden—the kind of place that immediately conjures up long summer gatherings. Yet it is also a threshold, both literal and symbolic. From the terrace, the plain below unfolds into a patchwork of fields, villages and industrial sheds: the cultivated landscape shaped by human hands. Behind the house, the woods begin. This is where Meneguz sources almost everything he cooks, relying almost exclusively on game he hunts himself and wild plants he forages.

His approach to hunting has little to do with trophies and everything to do with patience, an intimate knowledge of the land, and quiet discipline. For Meneguz, hunting is not a sport but a practice that demands precision, focus and restraint, where every technical gesture carries an ethical weight.