The menus he has created for La Sosta del Cavaliere, in the medieval village of Torri near Siena, are sophisticated and elaborate and at the same time direct and sincere, because they always begin with the finest raw ingredients set against the most modern cooking techniques.
I describe my cooking as built on the raw ingredients of the land I am in, but worked through my own way of thinking — as signature dishes, which lead me to use whatever technique I judge necessary for that ingredient at that moment.
Leonardo Fiorenzani
Where he comes from
The passion began as a child, within the walls of home. It is the origin, not the destination: what you eat in Torri today does not resemble what was cooked in that house, and it should not.
But the path was anything but straight. When Leonardo was very small his parents separated, and he went to live with his paternal grandmother, Loriana. She was a housewife of another era, the kind who started cooking first thing in the morning.
The scents, the aromas were wonderful. She taught me to cook the traditional dishes of our land. One person might turn up for lunch, or ten guests all at once.
Leonardo Fiorenzani
An athlete’s discipline
From nine to twenty-two he gave himself to athletics with absolute concentration: the javelin throw. Thirteen years of a single repeated gesture, measured to the centimetre, where the difference between one throw and the next lies in details no spectator ever sees.
It is the same attention he now brings to the kitchen, and the reason why a service of fifteen covers is not a limitation but a choice: fifteen plates can be checked one by one.
From barn to fine dining
In 2013 he took over the old barn of a Tuscan farmyard, at the foot of the medieval village of Torri. In December 2019 he completed the full renovation that turned the osteria into a fine dining restaurant. Then came Covid, and with it some eighteen months of closure.
Today he is a Jeunes Restaurateurs d’Europe chef, an Ambassador of Taste and a teacher at the CESCOT school in Siena. The garden behind the dining room is still his to tend.
Beyond the restaurant
Leonardo Fiorenzani’s path extends beyond the kitchen of La Sosta del Cavaliere. The research and experience gathered over the years led him to teach at CESCOT Siena, where he covers contemporary cooking, experimentation and new techniques applied to the restaurant trade.
Alongside that he consults for restaurants, new openings and gastronomic projects, working on culinary identity, kitchen organisation, brigade training and the development of new formats.
Food broadcasting has taken him to television as well: he appears in Parola di Chef on Gambero Rosso TV and in I Custodi del Gusto on Canale 3 Toscana, and takes part in national and international events across the restaurant world.
With Michela Bigio he is also the creator of Gusto Lovers, a format devoted to fine gastronomy that brings together chefs, producers, companies and food & beverage professionals.
He sits on the board of the DMO Terre di Siena, which promotes the tourism, gastronomy and culture of the Siena area.
Different experiences, held together by one idea: cooking not only as a profession, but as a means of research, teaching, culture and sharing.
Thirteen years of javelinSince two thousand thirteenJRE chefFifteen seats