On 21st and 22nd June, Piazzale Fellini is playing host to a festival of culinary delicacies and products made “with hands and heart”, in which shining stars in the culinary field from all over the world will take part. Cooking shows, a market with the best local products and a lab store with craftsmen and artists: in the shade of a big top recalling Fellini, a remake of Otto e mezzo in the context of food and wine will be performed.


The best chefs from all over the world, led by Massimo Bottura, will meet up in Rimini to cook the local delicacies provided by farmers and producers. It’s about the circus-market “Al Mèni”, that is “the hands”, so called after the title of a poem by Tonino Guerra, since the basic ingredients of this new great event dealing with haute cuisine and high-quality traditional handicraft will be all things made with hands and heart.

On Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd June 2014, the heart of Marina Centro will turn into a great circus of flavours, accompanied by a market with the best local products from Emilia- Romagna – the Italian region with the highest number of products with designation of origin – as well as a lab store with the best creative handicraft.

Key players are the dishes of the 24 best chefs in the world (12 Italian and 12 international chefs), who will work from 9 in the morning to midnight in order to shape the incredible local high-quality products and show the public a unique cuisine as well as a tasteful variety of the best local handicrafts.
This leads to the first edition of what can be called Circus of flavours in Rimini. A big colourful top of 1.500 m2, set up at the roundabout of Piazzale Fellini in front of Grand Hotel, a tribute to the dreamlike spirit of the famous film director, will host Italian and international chefs led by Massimo Bottura, the Emilian cook who won the White Guide Global Gastronomy Award 2014 and was awarded three Michelin stars thanks to his restaurant in Modena. All the chefs will carry out cooking shows and tastings while making unique dishes in real time at affordable prices for everyone.
Well-known and future chefs as well as main courses from all over the world will be in the spotlight. The chefs will draw on the best products from what Mr Bottura calls “the cupboard of Emilia-Romagna” and will prepare great dishes.

Next to the circus of flavours there will be a true market with products of farmers and producers, where you can enjoy, taste, buy – thus using all the five senses – the best local products, among which cheeses, raw milk, dry sausages having been patiently prepared, genuine wines, rediscovered fruit varieties, craft beers, piadina and squacquerone, local fish species, mushrooms from the Apennine, the best scallion in the world, rice from the plains in Ferrara, to name but a few.
Local products will be offered together with art and handicrafts, which will come together in Piazzale Fellini for the special edition of the lab store called “Matrioska”. Thereby, the wealth of regional beauties and all their creators will be redefined in a creative way. Such creators have been working with hands and heart, thus capitalising on manual skills, passion and genius, some of their main peculiarities.
All those who contributed to the notoriety of made in Italy and are established along the Via Aemilia will meet up in Rimini for two days. There is no other road like this worldwide, since the Via Aemilia has been a link between ten cities of Emilia-Romagna for 2200 years. This region is a land of talents: from Verdi to Fellini, from Ferrari to Ducati, not to mention the food and wine tradition of this region, with the highest number of products with designation of origin.

A cocktail of treasures that can be found along the Via Aemilia on the occasion of the “Al Mèni” event. The Via Aemilia is a link between Piacenza and the Rimini seaside. The meeting will last two days and will take place on the seafront Tintori as far as Piazzale Boscovich, where a path of flavours will be set up involving big and small agricultural producers, wineries, local products. Meanwhile, Piazzale Fellini will be flooded with craftsmen and creative people willing to create a place rich in stories and inventions, art and originality.

Furthermore, on Sunday 22nd June, the gates of Grand Hotel will open for a special picnic: the déjeuner sur l’herbe, organised for the occasion in the gardens of the stunning Liberty-style hotel, whose retro-style décor and picnic baskets, but above all the desire to be together will create an atmosphere of luxury inspired by Fellini’s Dolce Vita.
As a matter of fact, the whole event draws inspiration from the Maestro, Federico Fellini, who acted worldwide as a spokesman of tradition, phantasy, local creativity, so that Rimini took centre stage in the international arena. Hence the idea to propose the remake of Otto e mezzo in the context of food and wine, too.

The event, in partnership with Slow Food and Chef to Chef, is part of a general rehearsal, whose aim is to project the best artistic, productive and food expressions of Rimini towards Expo Milan 2015.

Massimo Bottura is very attached to Rimini and had already made his contribution to another project, that is the conception of Rimini Street Food, the first guide to street food, which can be tasted at the stands selling the delicious piadina from Romagna.

The event is introduced by another date with the so-called signature cuisine (Italian haute cuisine). “Spessore”, a four-day event during which cooks from all over Italy will make several dishes to be served to customers who will be able to obtain a table, is scheduled from 17th to 20th June at the restaurant “Povero diavolo” in Torriana di Rimini.


“Al Mèni – so the Mayor of Rimini Andrea Gnassi – is the first event which aims to project our best productive and food expressions towards Expo Milan 2015. We want to give visibility to products arising from the inimitable anthropological DNA of a land with a soul, with its recognisable peculiarities having a strategic value not just for us, but also for Italy and the whole world. An immeasurable wealth of beauty, which draws its force from the special hearts and hands that never stop nourishing it.”