Remo Ruffini

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1:00at washablesofas.com. Authors are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair. If you find yourself on a freezing mountain and you need a ski jacket, if you're going to a party and want something beautiful to wear, or if you're in Paris or Milan and craving perfectly cooked fish, the man to meet is our guest today, Remo Ruffini, CEO and Chairman of Montclair, co-owner of Languisteria restaurants and cities all over the world. Remo is dynamic, elegant, and a visionary person. Taking over Montclair, he transformed it into one of the world's most distinctive fashion companies, launching the Montclair Genius Project, a platform for creativity across the arts and sports.

1:49He puts sustainability at the heart of the company with his Born to Protect initiative. Remo's leadership is a manifestation of Montclair's ethos, dreaming big and bringing those dreams to life. Today I'm in Milan for Design Week. Montclair has taken over the central train station to launch its latest campaign, Invitation to Dream, curated by Jefferson Hack. I'm here with Remo Ruffini to celebrate fashion, innovation, inspiration, and most of all, daring to dream. Grazie. Grazie. So we are here to dream. Before we start into the food, tell me what you were doing with Daring to Dream. The station was a project that I have in mind since ever, you know, because I love dream, I dream every day.

2:40Do you? Yes, I try to be consistent. That's what I said. Did you see my quote? I said that every day I went to school and I thought, what am I going to daydream today? That was... Yeah, your quote. That's what I said. Tell me about your dreams. You know, in my life and my job, uniqueness is very important. And to give food for thought to the uniqueness, I think dream is very, very important. You know, I think I try to dream every day, every night, you know, and always, I always say after the dream, I say, yes, this is a dream. But I honestly must be very consistent on that. Otherwise, remain too high, you know, remain in a dream.

3:22My dream, I think, is helping me a lot to give me the possibility to make the next step, especially in my job. When you say you dream of food, do you think of what you're going to eat that day, what you're going to cook that day? Unfortunately, I dream of food too much. No. I love every food. I love every kitchen. I love every, you know, all around the world I travel a lot. and very curious to understand the culture in every country. But I don't want to be spoiled, but when I'm back home, when I'm back in Italy, I always find the best raw material, you know, and I want to talk about this receipt about tomato later.

4:05And I think, you know, when I talk about raw material, especially in Saudi Italy, you know, you can make something very easy, cook something very easy with really few ingredients. but thanks to the raw material we can find here is, you know, the spaghetto pomodoro is amazing, you know. But having said that, I love the kitchen from the food from South America. I love Japan. I love China. I love everywhere. But back to Italy, I feel much more comfort, let's say. Well, what I say about Italian food is that if you cook with very few ingredients, those ingredients have to be so good if you're making ingredients and we love it like you i love complexity i love french food with a when you get a fish with hollandaise sauce or you get a beef that's been cooked in wine for hours and hours but that the it changes in the cooking whereas if you grill a piece of fish in in lasco or in the south of italy where we love or you make a pasta with just tomatoes the tomatoes have to be ripe the basil has to be from the summer when the sun hits it and the fish has to be from the sea, doesn't it?

5:18And then it's very important. I learn a lot in South Italy because, for example, I love spaghetti with yellow tomato, the small yellow tomato. But you can have only this yellow tomato in a certain period of the year because they must be very dry. Very dry means they wait to take it when it is really dry, ready for make the best spaghetti pomodoro. That is not obvious. You know, normally you go to buy in the store, in the shopping, but this is make the big difference. That's why I think the raw material is everything. Having said that, I love many other food, you know, also slow cooking that we're talking before.

5:56I love a lot slow cooking in terms of cook, especially the meat. I don't, I'm not a fan of meat, but, you know, I eat mostly slow food cooked meat, you know, because there you can have. I go often in Morocco, you know, and then... The tagine. Tagine, and we have lamb shoulder, you know, cook 18 hours. That's interesting to me that you grew up in this region, in Milan and Lake Como, and yet the food you talk about quite often is from the south. No, I think there is very interesting food also in Lombardia, in the area of Milano, Como. It's very wintry food. is very heavy, let's say. We have a cazzuola.

6:42What is that? It's a mix of vegetables, it's a mix of part of meat, all cooked together. Very, very, you know, wintry, very wintry. Milano is very popular for the trippa. Trippa as well is very heavy. But we have many. Ossobuco, Ossobuco with yellow rice. Bolito Misto is more Bologna. Bolito Vito is more bologna, my love. I love, you know, do you love? I love. Mostarda di Cremona. Yeah, fantastic. You know, there is a lot of food here, very, very interesting in my area, but really for winter, I think it's very, because we are very close to the mountain, you know, the influence is really from, more for the mountain.

7:28But do you think the regionalism of Italy is very strong? I think so. You know, you can eat Italian all around the world now, Now you find amazing restaurant, you know, amazing food in terms of cooking. It was really last week in the middle of nowhere. Let's say it was close to Santa Barbara in this Italian restaurant. What was it called? Do you remember? Massimo, the chef, for sure. Of course, yeah, Massimo. I don't remember the name of the restaurant. It was inside this place, Montecito. Yeah, Montecito. Montecito, there is an hotel. There's a big hotel there. Yes, Rosewood. Rosewood. Owned by these guys from Los Angeles, Rick Caruso, invite me at this Italian restaurant.

8:13Actually, the menu was, you know, huge, I say. I say, no, I say, Massimo, come here. I have to understand it's really Italian cuisine. I like to have a touch of carbonara and a touch of cacio e pepe. Like this, I can understand really if you make good Italian food. liked to have been massimo at that moment poor massimo but the cacio epe and carbonara was very good it was very good in london we they used to say that in and i think probably in america as well that a lot of restaurants were open not by chefs but by managers or waiters who'd come over and so they cooked the kind of food that we all had the vision of you know quite heavy yeah and certainly where I grew up in New York, the idea of Italian-American food was very...

9:04Too many products inside. Too many things. Too many things. And then I came to Florida. Carbonara is very easy. Eggs, cheese, or cacio e pepe is pecorino and pepper. Do you make it? Not much in the last 20 years, but I used to cook a lot. And now sometimes. I love to cook vegetables. I try to really copy the receipt from the South Italy, you know, especially when you have eggplant with tomato and so on, or fave with onions, you know, this kind of special receipt from South Italy, I think I like to cook. And the lemons are so amazing, aren't they, in the South? The mouthy lemons may have. It's another interesting thing, yes.

9:48But can you get Southern Italian food here, or do you wait until you go to? You can have rare. You know, there is a few places that have daily delivery, but mostly you have to go, for me, much better in Naples than in Sicily. In Sicily, they used to have good food. I think now in Naples, in the area, you know, it's much better. Again, in Sicily, they're too much. You know, they put too many ingredients in every receipt. I think Naples is the best. I like habanata. Do you like habanata? But I like it with very little in it. But sometimes people put too much in the caponata. You just want the eggplant and the raisins and a few pine nuts.

10:30Yeah, I think caponata is good when it is the real Sicilian number one that is without pepper. I agree. Then make to make confusion. I agree. It's more simple it is, I think, as well. Caponata is good, I think. And tomatoes. So maybe what we should do is read the recipe as we're talking about tomatoes, tomatoes, pomodori from the South. Shall we read the recipe that you chose to get? Yes, I think this is a very simple recipe that I like very much because it's based on two ingredients, you know. But normally when the recipe is so simple, it's very difficult to make it. I always say it's like architecture, you know.

11:13You feel the minimalism is easy to design. No, minimalism is very difficult to design, you know, because it's only a question of a few details, and everybody can say the few details. So I try to easily read my receipt because I think it's interesting to understand to mix this very simple slow-roasted tomato with basil. For six people, normally we have 12 tomatoes cut in two, sea salt and black pepper, extra virgin oil for sure. We suggest six tablespoons, two cloves of garlic, finely sliced, and 24 basil leaves. Cooking this on a very low heat maker, the tomatoes, sweetener, and it adds more flour.

12:05Perhaps the oven to be 110 degrees. Put the tomatoes on baking tray side by side. Season them with salt, pepper, and add some olive oil. Top each tomato with a piece of garlic and a basil leaf. Roasted for 2 hours, 30 minutes, that is quite a lot, but I think... Yeah, that's a bit of an exaggeration. Yeah, I think they need, I think they need. Every 30 minutes, gently press the tomato with a spoon. Carefully remove from the oven and finish the dish with some olive oil on top and serve at room temperature. Very good. Yeah? Yeah, exactly. I think it's a few things, but not difficult to make it. But you have to be very careful.

12:57The most important thing here is the raw material. So you would make this in the summer? You would only make this in the summer? That's what we do. We sometimes have people coming in from New York or somewhere to the River Cafe in January, and they say, I'd like a tomato salad. And we say, we don't have tomatoes. And they go, come on. You know, you're an Italian restaurant. Where are the tomatoes? And we could because you can get good tomatoes. Actually, they have winter tomatoes from Sicily. Have you had those? Yeah. They're very hard ones that you get in the winter. But otherwise, it's good to wait until the – and also with the basil, I think, don't you, that in the summer when you have the heat of the basil, of the sun.

13:33This is a perfect receipt for a boat. Very light, we're in the boat, you have this tomato. I'll tell Renzo, no. But also I think what I'm reading this recipe, and I haven't read it for a while, is I think when I tell the chefs it's important to press the water out of the tomato. Because tomatoes, I keep saying tomato, tomato, it has a lot of water in it, doesn't it? And you need to kind of sort of just very gently flatten it so the juice comes out and then you're left with the... This is very, very tight because I try an alternative in French. They call it tomate provençal. That is more or less the same.

14:11But again, they put a lot of herbs, a lot of things, that is not as good as this if you have a very good material. Do you cook on your boat? Yes, sometimes. Sometimes, yes. And you sail in the south? I use the boat only on the weekend. I start from, let me say, Portofino. I go down to Corsica, Sardinia. I love Ponza, that is incredible, Procida, that's an incredible place. I love all the Costiera Malfitana, stay a lot there, not too much because I increase weight. It means I eat too much. When you travel, do you think about what you're going to eat? Do you think very often about when you go to a country that you don't know or a city you don't know, do you research before you go about what you're going to eat?

14:56Yes, I research, but I really love to discover, you know, when I'm in the boat, I go every morning to make shopping, just to understand the product, just to understand the culture. It tells you a lot, doesn't it? Yes, it's very important. Sometimes we go in special restaurants in the night just to understand the local cuisine. For example, last year we went in Turkey. That's good. Yes, the food was actually very good. You go in a very simple trattoriae. They have this kind of mezze. What did you eat there, do you remember? Oh, many, many things. They have good aubergine, don't they? Aubergine is very good.

15:34Smoked aubergine is very, very good. A lot of vegetables, starter, they're called medze. I think they are quite, not all, but a few are quite interesting. I like much more this kind of medze approach.

15:55The River Cafe is excited. We're opening the River Cafe Cafe. Come for a morning brioche and cappuccino, a plate of seasonal antipasti on the terrace, or an ice cream or aperitivo in the sun. We can't wait to open and we cannot wait to welcome you.

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17:49You can also dive into the authentic Amish culture by visiting markets and sampling the homemade treats. How delightful. Lancaster County offers the perfect balance of cozy and adventurous, ensuring a memorable escape. If you're planning a fall getaway, start at discoverlancaster.com forward slash soul sessions. Growing up, can we talk about what it was like to grow up in your household? because you grew up here with your mother and your father, brothers and sisters. Do you have a big family? I have one brother. We were born, everybody, in Como. In Como. On the lake. And I was there since a few years ago, still back and forth, but mostly now in Milano.

18:35I grew in Como. My father and my mother, they had a clothing company at that time, very similar to my job, different style, very similar to my job. Then I love Como. I don't want to move from Como. No reason to move. But what was the food like in your house? Did your mother and father cook or did you have so much to cook for you? Not much, not much because they work a lot. You know, they travel a lot. Did you love food from an early age? Was it important to you? Not much, you know, because there is not, we didn't have the culture at that time to, you know, quality, to have the best product. It was more, when I was 15, 14, 16, it was more what we call junk food, you know, to go open McDonald's in Milano.

19:16Everybody wants to go to McDonald's in Milano. You know, this was the approach at that time. But, you know, in Como, the food is not very interesting. What do they eat? What is the region? It's not Piedmont, is it? No, no, it's Lombardia. It's Lombardia. It's the region of Milano. It's 45 minutes from Milano. The food is okay, I would say. They love the lake fish that I'm not a fan at all. and there is pesche persico, I don't know in English, fried with rice, you know, that is pesche persico, I don't know. We have like three, four fish that honestly today I don't eat at all. When I was kids, especially on Friday, we used to use this kind of misseltini, this kind of fish.

20:04Would your parents entertain? Would they have dinners and parties? Did you wear it growing up? Because there was more, very in fashion at that moment, you know, because fashion was super important in Italy. It was the beginning of fashion because we're talking about the 70s, you know. Then my father moved to the United States in the late 60s, 68 or 69. Why did he do that? Because he had a company in Italy, and he was much more successful in the United States. Actually, 90 % of the business was in the United States, and 10 % was in Europe. He decided to move to New York. With the family? No, we stayed with my mom.

20:44Oh, I see. He moved. He moves alone, basically. I was living in Greenwich, Connecticut, very close to New York, back and forth. The office was in New York, and he never came back. Was it when you would visit him, would you go to eat American food? In his house was Italian food. Always Italian food, yes. and a lot of vegetable, I remember, very Italian, very Italian approach. And then when we go out, it was a different restaurant. And mostly we stay because I was visiting him in Greenwich. I mostly stay in Greenwich because he went back and forth to work. In Greenwich, there was a couple of very small restaurants, very nice, very interesting, very East Coast, very you know yeah waspy yeah waspy exactly I love the did you like the food did you like it yes okay very American you know in general I love the atmosphere more than the food in all the west coast you can find some place very nice I love I love all the New England area you know starting from upper New York state going to Rhode Island you know good lobster did you have lobster Maine Maine Maine is very strong for lobsters.

22:07I love all the area of Iena Sport, Martha's Vinian, you know, Nantucket Island. All this area I think is super, super interesting. Then when I'm back from the United States, my first company I found when I was 20 years old. The name was New England because I was so in love with this area that I called my clothing company New England. Does it still exist? No, no, it does not exist because I sold the company in 2000. The people they bought, they're not very successful. That's very young to form a company at age 20. Yes, very young. Did you have backing from your family to do that? No, no, honestly no.

22:49I tried to make everything alone because my mother said, you have to come work in my company. My father said, you have to come work in my company. He said, no, I want to make my own. I want to make a startup. You know, I want to make step-by-step, very, very little step, especially at the beginning because I was a lonely company. The only employee was me. I didn't have the money to hire other people. And then step-by-step, I built the company. When you say that you dream of food or you go, you're looking for food in other cultures, was this something that came later or do you think you always had that?

23:25After a few years, yes, food became very, very important. You know, now I'm all research all around the world. I'm very curious about food. You know, I always research something new, a new place to have a good experience. I think it's a mix between food and experience. You know, I think a good food in a sad place, I'm not very interested. You know, I think the balance between experience and food, I think, is super important. Also, I think for the future, it will be a key to have a great experience in a place with a good food mix, the two elements. So tell me about L 'Angusteria. I have to tell you that two years ago, I was in Milan to meet, I was on my way to Venice, to the Biennale.

24:12And somebody said there's only one restaurant to go to in Milan, and it was L 'Angusteria. It was the one, I think you have several, but it was the one on the water. There's a little canal. Yeah, and it was the best meal I've had in a very, very long time. So tell me about how you started. This was an acquisition. We did not find in Langosteria. It was an acquisition from our family office because we have a division we want to invest in experience, more experience, food, hospitality, food and beverage, and this kind of thing. This actually was the first acquisition. It was only a small restaurant, a couple of doors they have in Milano.

24:47Very nice, but I tried to went there. I was not very familiar, honestly. I went there a couple of times, you know, and then I started talking with the owner, and I think the food and the service was very curated. You know, the raw material was imported from Naples, Sicily, you know, the best place to have this kind of fish or the other fish. I think it was very curated. Also, the culture they had was very interesting. We buy a steak, you know, and now we are partners since five, six years, and we developed, we redesigned the restaurant in Milano. In Milano now we have four restaurants. Four? Yes.

25:26Are they different from each other? Different experience? Different experience, exactly. In what way? The food is on our line, more or less this is the food, but we have different products, different quality, always the best quality we try to have. but sometimes at the bistro you find Polipo and in Langosteria you find Carabinero just to give you an example, different level of food. Then we open in Portofino. Yes, I've been to that one too. In Paragi, very, very nice on the beach. Then we open on the last floor of Cheval Blanc in Paris. That is, the view is incredible. You know, there the experience is very nice because you have these terrors, you know, you see all Paris, including Touré Fell in front of you.

26:17I think it's super, super nice. Then we have a couple of projects in the pipeline, you know, one I think in London and one maybe in Miami. But we don't want to rush, you know, we want to go step by step, you know, because, as you know, it's not easy to run a place far from your house. Sorry, we opened a fantastic place two years ago in St. Moritz on the Sloops. fantastic really it's the best one for me why is it the best? because it's a small chalet all in wood and the difference of the culture between mountain chalet and eating fish it's the only fish restaurant in St. Moritz I think it's very interesting we have a couple of two, three receipts more mountain we have polenta with the seafood we have soup with the seafood We try to have something special for the mountain.

27:13Mostly it's the same menu that we have in Milano. But the experience there is very interesting. It's interesting that you say polenta with fish because when I went to Venice, they do polenta with scallops, with capesante. They do scallop with langoustine. And it was kind of a mindset to suddenly have polenta with fish. Typical from Venice. They used to have mostly polenta with cod. Yes, yeah. They used to have polenta with cod. Bacala. Bacala, exactly. Polenta, bacala is the typical dish from... In Angostria, we make it totally different. We make very soft polenta with frutti di mare, you know, clams, shrimp, gambas.

27:58And it's very, very nice, very nice. We went to, in Padua or Verona, I can't remember, years ago when I was there with Richard, a restaurant that actually Renzo recommended. And we discovered a pasta which we now make in the River Cafe, which is like carbonara, but it is with langoustine. And it's really breaking all the rules. We do it with mezza, the kind of small rigatoni, or you can do it with penne. And then we do the langoustine, pecorino, and parmesan and butter. And actually the sweetness of the langoustine with the pecorino, it's very good. Very good. Yeah. It looks amazing. It is good.

28:38So the thing that I'm interested in, you know, we have one restaurant. I know. And Wolfgang Puck came to the restaurant and I said, Wolfgang, I want to be like you and have 40 restaurants. And he said, Ruthie, I want to be like you and have one. But I think the reason I tell this is that how do you control? I think there are very few restaurants that have multiplied all over the world that actually keep the control. and I think I've been to the one you've done here, the one in Paris I went to, and the one in Portofino, and all of them were excellent. But how do you control that? It's really a question of organization.