From architecture to a discipline that did not exist.

Architecture at the Politecnico di Milano from 1985 to 1990 — the structural, systemic way of thinking that would later be turned on food. In 1993 an Industrial Design degree from The International College of Arts and Sciences formalised the object-design side of the practice.

Then, deliberately, the palate: qualification as a Sommelier with AIS (Associazione Italiana Sommelier) — the full third-level diploma, awarded in Milan in April 2005 — with sensory specialisation, and technical training at CAST Alimenti in 2001, in both food technology and cooking techniques. Unusual for a designer — and the reason the later work is credible in a professional kitchen rather than only on paper.

In 2002 he sets out the argument — against considerable resistance — that food design is neither styling nor cooking, but the strategic and structural design of food systems, formats and rituals. He writes the first manifesto on the subject.

He opens his own practice in Milan to prove it in the field, working as strategic design consultant to large multinational food brands, concept creator for retail formats, exhibition curator and creative director. The two decades of work that follow are the backbone of everything after.

In January 2006 he is the official food designer of Team Italy at the Gelato World Cup in Rimini — the first national team to bring a designer into an international competition — and Italy takes the title. A discipline only exists once it is taught: from 2006 he lectures on the Food Experience Design master at Politecnico di Milano — Poli.Design, and does so for every edition until the move to Doha. The same year he becomes a founding associate of i Food Designer, the group of experts who established food design in Italy.

The competition work continues. At the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie 2007 in Lyon he designs for two national teams at once: Switzerland, with Eliseo Tonti, and Italy, with Fabrizio Galla, Fabrizio Donatone and Angelo Di Masso, coached by Luigi Biasetto, Paolo Mannori and Rolando Beduschi — and Italy finishes third, winning the prize for Best Dessert. At the Gelato World Cup 2012 he is the designer of Team Germany, alongside Urs Regli. In chocolate, he designs the presentation of master chocolatier Carmelo Sciampagna at the World Chocolate Masters 2007 in Paris, where Italy takes third place, and later works on competitions with Silvio Bessone. Designing supports, lighting and service choreography for national teams, under competition rules and timing, is the field experience from which he later develops his own innovative gelato method, Coolella.

From 2007 he writes: columns, essays, books, and eventually his own title — founder and scientific director of Food Design Magazine (La progettazione alimentare). In parallel he serves as concept design consultant to Italy's major trade fairs, Macef and Tuttofood at Fieramilano, and in 2010 edits Picnic 2.0 with DDN — a format that travelled from the Superstudio roof garden at Milan Design Week to Macef, EIMA and the Bologna Motor Show.

In 2010 he opens Food Design Advisory & Management, the consulting arm still active today.

The academic work deepens: from March 2014 he coordinates the master in Hospitality Design & Management — Strategies for Tourism, Food and Wine at IED Florence, and in 2015 and 2016 teaches on the Master of Food Design at SPD/IULM in Milan. He lectures at SDA Bocconi, the University of Genoa, ALMA, ISIA Florence, IED Rome and São Paulo.

In June 2016 the field's highest Italian authority signs off on the work: an Honourable Mention at the XXIV Compasso d'Oro, awarded by ADI, for Espresso al Quadrato designed for Caffè Morettino.

In May 2016 he is the official designer of Team Italy at the Bocuse d'Or Europe in Budapest, with chef Marco Acquaroli. His competition tray — steel, copper and tin, made by Mepra in just two pieces and crowned by a cloche that pays homage to Brunelleschi's dome in Florence — is awarded Best Tray of that edition.