Ettore Bugatti is usually noted for building championship-winning cars, such as the Type 35, but his interests extended far beyond the automotive industry. He developed airplanes, he sketched boats, and he experimented with various gadgets, including a pasta machine he designed himself. He seemed to be a great cook, and Bugatti has cracked open its archives department to talk about some of its founder’s favorite recipes.
When he wasn’t in his workshop, or selling electric runabouts to the world’s elite, Bugatti liked to spend amount of time in his kitchen fine-tuning recipes. He tested different ingredients, and that he also mapped out the exact way each meal’s table must be set; he notably replaced flowers with baskets of expensive imported fruits, and that he created his own cutlery set. Highly accurate sketches (pictured) were passed out to members of his staff to convey his instructions.
He served the folks he invited for Christmas exactly the same dinner every year: minestrone as a starter, blazed duck breast with truffle purée and cassis sauce as a main course, and strawberry gratin for dessert. Bugatti listed the components and the instructions in a post published on its media site. It’s definitely not a quick and simple meal to create novice cooks, but it’s a lot faster and simpler than building a Chiron, that takes several weeks.
Enthusiasts who want to dive deeper into Bugatti’s ties to food have to travel to the Alsace region of France, the company’s historic home. Although he never operated his own restaurant, he convinced three of his friends to create a business called Clos Saint Odile in Obernai, a picturesque town about Fifteen minutes from Molsheim and surrounded by vineyards, to ensure that his customers would have a suitably upmarket spot to dine in. It still exists today, though it’s called La Fourchette des Ducs, and it was awarded two stars within the Michelin Guide.
Keep your ears peeled. You might hear a W16 engine roaring alive within the nearby Atelier.
