Behind every dish there is a territory.

A round table with experts, trade associations, and restaurateurs to discuss “The Taste of Places”: this is the title of the meeting organized by Slow Food Trentino in Folgaria, on the initiative of Apt Alpe Cimbra, on the occasion of the fifth edition of the Dispensa dell’Alpe. A moment of dialogue with many voices about the connection between local productions, catering, and hospitality, analyzed both from a tourism point of view and as a living relationship with the economic and social fabric that inhabits the territories 365 days a year.The voice of Monica Basile, head of marketing and research for Asat, highlighted how, from the analysis of reviews and studies on tourist satisfaction, Trentino’s facilities already show a good level of attention to territorial quality. “It is a constantly growing market trend: enhancing local specialties makes an experience unique and increases its value, consequently influencing the price the customer is willing to recognize.”A process that passes through training, as emphasized by Mara Denardi, head of training at Seac Cefor – Trentino Restaurateurs Association: “Making sure that the tourist returns to one’s establishment is one of the goals of every entrepreneur, the main road to making the numbers work. The dining room staff are the first encounter the tourist has with the establishment and play a key role, but more and more often these collaborators come from other areas: even more reason they must be trained to know the products and geography of the area where they welcome the guest. They must contribute to a narrative that cannot be only social media or external advertising, but that finds concreteness in the story of the dish, in order to enhance local productions.”Training, therefore, as a strategic investment. An example is the experience of Nicola Masa, now together with Fabio Ferro, owner of the historic Osteria Morelli. In his account, he emphasized the importance of having met, during his training as a maître, several masters, and in particular a cook, Fiorenzo Varesco, a deep connoisseur not only of cooking techniques but also of small-scale producers, gatherers of wild herbs, hunters, and fishermen. “Days off were wonderful trips with Fiorenzo: we went to meet these supplier-friends, visiting their farms, accompanying them in their activities, meeting their families. Without realizing it, I was laying the foundations to take over the restaurant after his retirement. It was on-the-job training that allowed me to build a deep culture of the territory and to feed my passion for a cuisine made of traditional recipes and local raw materials.”This direct knowledge of the supply chains, which must be consciously conveyed to the guest sitting at the table, is also the basis of the work of the Alliance Chefs, professionals coordinated by Paolo Betti in Trentino-Alto Adige. “Our training is based on friendship and relationships,” he explains. “We work in synergy with small-scale producers, with colleagues, and with the stimuli that come from Slow Food. We need the product of small artisans, and they need us cooks. With them, for example, timing and quantities must be planned: it’s not just a matter of setting a price and a date to pay the invoice. It’s a path built together, with cooks who almost become co-producers.”Values confirmed by Alessandro Bellingeri, chef-owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant Osteria Acquarol in Appiano: “We have an immense gastronomic and biodiversity heritage; it’s also up to us chefs to protect it, making it live in our menus. Losing it would mean giving up a part of our culture and identity, as well as an enormous value for tourism and environmental stewardship. In our cuisine we offer a journey: it starts from the plain, with the vegetables from our garden and our farmers, then passes to the lake, and from there goes up to the mountain. All this serves to keep a small fire burning — that of our producers. It’s like preserving the knowledge of a grandmother who once made tortellini at home, a knowledge that today, little by little, risks disappearing.”Aurora Endrici, communication consultant in the wine and wellness sector, spoke to place these reflections in a broader context of corporate strategy and culture: “The various souls of a hospitality reality — the kitchen and the dining room, but also the reception and wellness area — must communicate. The experience of hospitality is a whole; only in this way is value given to being entrepreneurs in tourism, and this value is also reflected on the territory.”These are current issues on which Trentino is called to reflect in order to find its own interpretation of quality tourism. Precisely for this reason, the round table was sponsored by trade associations that brought their experiences and visions.For the Trentino Restaurateurs Association, Giancarlo Cipriani, president of the Vallagarina section, spoke, presenting concrete experiences such as the Kilometre of Taste in Rovereto. For the Association of Hoteliers and Tourist Enterprises, after the greeting by the president of the Folgaria section, William Gatti, a speech followed by the person in charge of food and wine, Mauro Nardelli, reiterated the strategic role of the wine tourism experience in thinking about a type of tourism in which “the taste of places and local productions become strategic tools. No longer just ingredients of a menu, but narratives of the territory, part of the story that binds those who host and those who travel.”