The founder of the renowned global food chain Eataly, an Italian entrepreneur, expressed admiration for the significant potential of Turkish cuisine, highlighting its lack of international recognition during an event.
"Turkish cuisine offers incredible possibilities in terms of potential,” Oscar Farinetti told a group of Turkish and Italian businesspeople in Istanbul during a meeting titled MeeTurkItaly organized by the Italian Embassy.
Despite this potential, Turkish cuisine has not received the recognition it deserves, added the 68-year-old businessperson.
Pointing to the importance of culinary training, he said: "You need to educate the generation ... explain the excellence of Turkish cuisine.”
While for Italian cuisine, pizza is a well-known cliche, for Turkish dishes it is the döner kebab, he added.
Founded in Turin in 2007, Eataly’s "goal is to introduce a new way of distributing high-quality agricultural products, inspired by leitmotifs as such as sustainability, responsibility, and sharing,” according to its website.
Founder Farinetti reportedly got the inspiration for the concept from Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar during one of his visits to the city in the 2000s. There are several Eataly locations across the world, from Paris to London and Canada to South Korea.
Wednesday's meeting was the fourth of the MeeTurkItaly events, which began being organized by the Italian Embassy last year to strengthen Turkish-Italian relations.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Italy's Ambassador to Türkiye Giorgio Marrapodi said the event is meant "to foster better knowledge between the two countries.”
The diplomat said that as Türkiye and Italy "already have a very intensive relationship on everything ... we should keep building our relationship, to cherish (it).”
Saying that bringing members of "the high-level segments of the industry could be of inspiration” for people, he added that the next MeeTurkItaly event is expected to be held in September and will feature a senior Italian journalist.
