Luca Marchini doesn’t say much as he introduces us to his personal trainer, Claudio Brida. We’re in Modena, at the 22.04 Training Club. It’s an ordinary Thursday morning, 10 a.m. Twice a week – or so he told me to write, although, in the interest of journalistic accuracy, it would be fairer to say once, but with enough sweat to count for two – the chef of L’Erba del Re, who has held a Michelin star since 2008, comes here to train. Usually with his wife, Antonella. They met at university and celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary last year. At the time, Marchini was studying Business and Economics, a Tuscan who had moved to Emilia at an early age, to what others have called the land of fast cars and slow food. He was planning to become an accountant. One wonders whether Antonella already sensed it back then. With all those frying pans scattered around the house, perhaps she understood that the young man with the gentle voice and remarkably deep eyes would never be content with simply inviting friends over for dinner on Saturday nights and that a desk and a ledger would never be enough to contain him.

I told you Luca Marchini hadn’t said a word and that he hadn’t been entirely truthful. When we arrived for this early morning workout, I had been told we were here for a rehabilitation session. Fortunately, in thirty years of life I’ve never had to go through one, though I have a fair idea of what it involves. Luca’s joke falls flat with me: I happen to be the daughter of a physiotherapist. The moment I spot the machines, the decidedly not-so-light weights, the resistance bands, I realize I’ve been had. Call it a full-body workout, if you like. The rehabilitation phase is long behind him, and Luca is in remarkably good shape. It must be that blood from Arezzo running through his veins, no true Emilian would ever have thought of pulling a prank like that.

There are a few steps to retrace before we arrive here. Luca Marchini was born in Arezzo in 1971 His childhood unfolded across Italy as his family moved from one city to another following his father’s career in banking. Modena would be their final destination. He never quite picked up the local accent, but only in speech. The true language of that corner of Emilia – its food, its dishes, its extraordinary produce – he learned fluently. By studying, by listening, by showing respect. He worked relentlessly, with an ethic and a quiet perseverance that still surface every time he talks about the path that shaped him and led him to where he is today.