Brunello CUCINELLI
The fashion designer who believes simple, communal meals feed the soul
TODAY, IF YOU VISIT BRUNELLO CUCINELLI'S COMPANY HEADQUARTERS in the medieval Italian village of Solomeo, you won’t see any of his employees hunched over salads or fast-casual bowls on their desks at lunchtime. At 1pm, everyone takes a 90-minute lunch break at the brand’s canteen, where they commune over wine and a threecourse meal typically of pasta, grilled meat, fish or eggs, and fruit prepared by local cooks with ingredients grown on his land.
Cucinelli didn’t have much growing up. On his family’s farm in Umbria, breakfast consisted of bread and milk straight from the cow, lunch was tomato sauce with homemade pasta (they couldn’t afford to buy spaghetti), and for dinner, game that they’d hunted. In his family of 13, food and company held equal importance. ‘We’d all sit around the same table, and everybody would tell a story,’ he recalls.
Now the founder and CEO is a billionaire, thanks to his namesake company built on ultraluxurious cashmere sweaters and sprezzy Italian suits, yet he still has a reverence for the Umbrian way of eating from his youth: humble meals with family. Cucinelli follows the advice of the Benedictines, some of whom lived in Umbria centuries ago. ‘In the Benedictine culture of the region, the recommendation isn’t to eat too much in the evening,’ he says. It’s a piece of wisdom modern eaters are starting to catch on to.
Cucinelli’s meals, while uncomplicated, are made with premium fresh produce from local gardens around Solomeo.
‘It’s always been said that in
Italian cuisine, every dish must contain not more than three ingredients or flavours,’ he says of his devotion to simplicity. ‘Today we grow our fruits and vegetables the way we did 50 years ago. We do it according to nature. We don’t add anything chemical. Everything happens with respect for and harmony with creation.’
Even on weekdays, he takes a short nap after lunch and encourages his employees to do the same. To Cucinelli, meals aren’t just fuel but sacred rituals, and places where great questions are debated and stories are shared. ‘Our soul needs to be fed daily too,’ he says, ‘as much as the body and the mind.’