Refettorio Felix in London was opened by Massimo Bottura to bring dignity back to the table: world-renowned chefs cook surplus food that is served to those most in need.
A canteen that offers meals to those most in need using food from surplus waste: behind Refettorio Felix in London, opened in June 2017, lies the commitment of acclaimed chef Massimo Bottura and his non-profit organisation Food for Soul, together with The Felix Project, a London-based charity. The project unites ethics and aesthetics because this is not a simple soup kitchen, but a place designed to restore a sense of dignity — and, wherever possible, a sense of familiarity — for its guests. The beauty of design meets that of ideas with a shared purpose: the fight against waste.
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Food for Soul has a very specific and by no means obvious purpose: to recreate a sense of dignity at the table in the spirit of social inclusion and individual wellbeing. The meals prepared Monday to Friday at Refettorio Felix, in the Earl's Court area of west London, are offered to homeless people and the most vulnerable, and are made using ingredients sourced from food surplus. What would otherwise be destined for landfill is instead recovered by volunteers from The Felix Project — an organisation founded in 2016 that grew rapidly from the outset — which collects surplus food from local suppliers and thereby distributes one million meals a year across the British capital.
Many chefs responded to Bottura's call, among them Alain Ducasse and Alberto Crisci of the non-profit The Clink Charity, who took to the stoves of the refectory and committed to transforming surplus ingredients into healthy and nutritious three-course menus. "Chefs have now become celebrities," Bottura said. "I believe the moment has come for all of us to turn these spotlights onto the most urgent issues facing our society. Cooking is a call to action."
This is the chef's second international project, following the success of the refectories created in Milan and Rio de Janeiro, during Expo 2015 and the 2016 Olympics respectively. The Milan experience also gave rise to a documentary film now available on Netflix entitled Theatre of life, which takes its name from the Teatro della vita, a disused theatre in the Greco neighbourhood of Milan that was the home of the first Refettorio Ambrosiano by Food for Soul, inaugurated in 2015.
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Refettorio Felix presents itself as a space with a carefully considered aesthetic, thanks to the interiors designed by Studioilse with the contribution of architect Charles Wainwright. The choice of quality crockery and cutlery, and restaurant-style service, are elements that draw guests and volunteers towards a holistic relationship with nourishment — one that engages both body and soul. Indeed, in Bottura's own words, "a delicious meal shared with others is much more than the sum of its ingredients. It is a gesture of love."
The chef, known for having founded one of the world's most celebrated restaurants, Osteria Francescana in Modena, has been involved for years in socially focused projects through his NGO, and was also a guest at the 2017 edition of Seed&Chips, the food and innovation summit held in Milan from 8 to 11 May. On that occasion, interviewed by LifeGate journalist Tommaso Perrone, the chef remarked that "it's not a question of producing more, but of wasting less. Knowing how to look to the future is fundamental: that is why the project — which is not a charity project but a cultural one — needs great chefs and their knowledge. Culture, conscience, knowledge and a sense of responsibility are the hallmarks of the chef of the future."
Refettorio Felix, launched the previous year during London Food Month — the festival celebrating the diversity of British food culture — has remained active and continues to provide thousands of meals thanks to the work of in-house cooks assisted by a guest chef each month. The community canteen's spaces are used to host events and social enterprise programmes aimed at engaging the local community in the fight against food waste.
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More than ten tonnes of food are thrown away in the United Kingdom every year, and at the same time food poverty is an increasingly pressing problem: one in ten children lives with parents who struggle to put food on the table every day, as shown by 2016–2017 data published in a government report. This means that approximately 870,000 children go to bed hungry every day because their family is unable to provide the meals they need. "Given the extraordinary quality and quantity of food surplus available in this city," commented Justin Byam Shaw, founder of The Felix Project, regarding the Refettorio Felix project, "all marginalised Londoners should be able to eat what the rest of us take for granted: a hot, nutritious meal." "The kitchen of the future must not be made for an elite, it will not be in the service of aesthetics, but we will create dishes that carry an extraordinary ethical significance," — this is how Bottura describes his vision, revealing the chef's desire to revolutionise the way we eat, ever more so.