Cesare Battisti hails from a milanese family of many generations. After a long period working throughout Europe, Cesare returned home to Milan where he gained valuable experience working at some of the city’s most acclaimed traditional milanese restaurants.

In September 2009 Cesare opened Ratanà Restaurant which he manages with his partner in life and sommelier Federica Fabi. The restaurant is housed in a historical building dating back to the 18 hundreds and located among the futuristic constructions of the Garibaldi and Porta Nuova district.

Cesare’s cooking is driven by a strong desire to modernise traditional Milanese cooking as he remembers it from childhood.

The philosophy that underpins Cesare’s cooking can be summarised in a few brief, but precise, points:

• emphasis on the absolute quality of produce, selected through many years of research and long standing collaborations with farmers, artisan producers and fishermen;
• fewer ingredients, cleaner flavours and particular attention to the execution of dishes;
• utmost respect for the quality and seasonality of produce as well as its sustainability and that of the producer.

Read HIS 10 MOTTOS FOR THE COOK

Cesare, by nature reserved, is a passionate and engaging conversationalist if the topic is right, clearly on matters of food or that of his other great passion, fly fishing, which he practices with the catch and release method.
Cesare’s tireless and ongoing endeavour to value quality as well as the territorial character of cooking resulted in him being chosen as one of the signees of the “protocol for the valueing of quality Italian food abroad” in march 2016, a first plan of action born of the (Italian ) Food Act.