Carluccio’s last wish: shoot me into the sky in a big firework

The Italian restaurateur Antonio Carluccio is proving to be as memorable in death as he was in life.

his h newly published will reveals he ha has asked for his ashes to be put into a huge firework and fired into the sky. A And the woman in charge of sending hi him off with a bang, the gourmand’s co companion for the last seven years of hi his life, tells me it will be done.

Speaking for the first time since Carluccio died, aged 80, in November last la year, Sabine Stevenson, a Germanborn bo archaeologist, discloses: ‘I have given gi my word that I will carry out his wishes w — he will go up in a rocket, but probably pr not over Central London.’

In the meantime, she has kept his ashes at the country home they shared in hampshire, where they pursued their love of mushroom foraging.

‘Contrary to reports, he did not die after a fall down the stairs, but from a heart attack,’ says Sabine, who was more than 20 years Carluccio’s junior. ‘It has been a year of adjustment, and things have taken time.’

Well known for his TV appearances, including in the BBC show Two Greedy Italians with chef Gennaro Contaldo, Carluccio wrote more than 20 books, helped shape the career of Jamie Oliver when the young chef worked at his Covent Garden eatery, and established a restaurant empire.

Despite three failed marriages — his third wife was designer Terence Conran’s sister, Priscilla — Carluccio was a great romantic. ‘ Sex is as important as food,’ he declared. ‘The one without the other is hard to imagine.’ Yet he was also plagued by depression, and attempted to take his life in 2008.

Such has been Sabine’s devotion to Antonio that she even put a truffle in his coffin and another in the flowers on top, to acknowledge his love of them.

She is also planning to carry out his wish to have a party of friends at his final send-off. ‘There will be a gathering,’ says Sabine, ‘for those who couldn’t come to his funeral or his memorial last month at the Italian embassy.’

The chef left a gross estate of £2,226,910 and bequeathed £500,000 to his brother Carlo and £150,000 to Sabine, who is also a founding trustee of his charity, The Antonio Carluccio Foundation.

‘ he wanted to support people who are hungry and promote learning to cook,’ says Sabine. ‘The foundation will be his legacy.’

Carluccio is by no means the first man to request his ashes are shot into the sky. In 2005, Johnny Depp reportedly spent £2.3 million firing hunter S. Thompson’s ashes from a cannon to ‘send my pal out the way he wants to go out’.