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Edoardo Raspelli was born in Milan on the 19th june 1949. He has been tagged as “the sternest food critic in Italy”. He has been sued for its slashing reviews and articles more than twenty times in half the courts of Italy by the restaurants patrons, hotel managers and wine producers , he has always been absolved “for having carried out in a correct manner the right/duty to information and criticism”. His last discharge dates to june 2007, he was sued by Giorgio Rosolino, patron of the renowned restaurant La Cantinella, in Naples, and uncle of the world swimming champion Massimiliano Rosolino.
He started writing for the Corriere della Sera when he was still a boy in 1971. Giovanni Spadolini (who edited the paper at that time) took him on to work for the Corriere d'Informazione (the afternoon edition) and he became a professional journalist in 1973. At first he dealt prevalently with news, reporting on the most important events of the anni di piombo, or "years of lead" (bullets), the years of terrorism in Milan. On the second floor in Via Solferino 28, Edoardo Raspelli worked side by side with Walter Tobagi, Vittorio Feltri, Ferruccio De Bortoli, Massimo Donelli, Gigi Moncalvo, Gian Antonio Stella, Gianni Mura, Francesco Cevasco…
Then he specialised in gastronomy and consumer protection/defense. In his family there are some important restaurateurs and hoteliers. One of his uncles worked at Rome's Excelsior and at Saint Moritz's Kulm and Souvretta. Other relatives owned the Grand Hôtel Savoy di Gardone Riviera, requisitioned by General Karl Wolff, an important Nazi commander, and used as the major headquarters of the Italian Social Republic.
He best defines himself as a food reporter and less as a food critic
On October 10th 1975 the Corriere d'Informazione's director, Cesare Lanza, asked him to produce the so-called “Faccino Nero” a weekly feature in which Raspelli had to report and comment on the worst restaurants he surveyed.
From 1977, for four years, he co-edited with Gault and Millau the Guida d'italia published by L'espresso. He was the editor of the Gambero Rosso page on restaurants which was then a supplement of the daily Il Manifesto.
On TV he started as a consultant for Che fai, mangi ? on RAI 2 (co-hosted by Carla Bartolini and Carla Urban, later presented by Enza Sampò). He co-presented La Buona Tavola (The good table) with Anna Bartolini on Odeon TV and on RAI 2 with Carla Urban the programme on food education Star bene a tavola created by Nichi Stefi. He also collaborated with RAI 3 on Leda Zaccagnini's Il buongiorno di RADIO 2 and of the daily feature of the TG 2 (the RAI 2 news) Eat Parade (presented by Bruno Gambacorta). He co-presented Piacere RAI 1 with Simona Marchini, Piero Badaloni and Saffran de Mistura. He has taken part in the programme Fenomeni, early Sunday evening on RAI 2, co-hosted by Piero Chiambretti, Aldo Busi and Giampiero Mughini.
One of his most bizarre feats was that he managed to get hired as a waiter in a hotel on the Riviera Romagnola. He worked there and remained…incognito!
From 1996 to the 2001 edition he was the editor and supervisor of L'Espresso Restaurant Guide and also wrote personally the regular column Il Goloso (the gourmand).
Edoardo Raspelli has coined the slogan of the three T's, that is Terra (Land), Territorio (Territory) and Tradizione (Tradition)
His critical reviews on restaurants and hotels are featured in a column in La Stampa every Thursday. Once in a week he presents Melaverde matched with a full page spread in Onda TV (as a supplement to Il Giorno) and TeleSecolo (TV magazine supplement of Genoa's Il Secolo XIX).
He is the author of Il Raspelli, a collection of short articles first published in La Stampa.
He is the author of Italiagolosa, published by Mondadori in 2004, another collection of articles
From 1998 every Sunday on Rete 4 he has been co-hosting with Gabriella Carlucci Melaverde, the brainchild of agronomist Giacomo Tiraboschi, one of the channel's most successful hits with an average audience share this season of over 13% over 1,800,000 viewers (with peaks of over 2,300,000 with 15,15% average audience share). Total viewers reach up to 6 millions.
In the late summer of 2003 he co-presented a follow-up of the successful TV programme called Melaverde 3T, Terra, Tradizione, Territorio, Montagna e Acqua, with Paola Rota and Marina della Fonte. This was a series of six instalmens focused on Italian mountains. This carefully structured programme was a hit in terms of audience turnover, the first part of Melaverde 3T was record-breaking and got a stellar 20-22% average audience share
Since 1995 his name has appeared in Who's who in Italy. He is among the 5062 “notable Italians” to be listed in the “Catalogo dei Viventi” edited by Giorgio Dell'Arti and Massimo Parrini.
He has stipulated a policy with the Reale Mutua Assicurazioni which is unique in the world , Raspelli's taste buds and nose are covered for 500,000 € making him “the man with the golden palate”.
First appointed by Minister Alfonso Pecorario Scanio he was later confirmed by Minister Gianni Alemanno, as consultant to the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and member of the committee for the protection of Italy's food heritage.
Hired by Paolo De Castro, the current Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, as member of the Science Committee of Qualivita, a public body valorising all PDO and PGI products (together with Paolo Massobrio, Giorgio Calabrese, Massimo Montanari, Carlo Cambi).
McDonald's sued him for his comments on its food and asked him to pay the damages setting down the parameters by pointing out that in 2002 it spent $25m on publicity in Italy, (€21.5m) (£42m). The question had a vast media coverage in Italy, but abroad the coverage was even larger. Paolo Massobrio came to Raspelli's defense with a editorial on Rome's IL TEMPO's front page, followed suit by columns written by Marco Gatti and Cesare Lanza on LIBERO. Carlin Petrini, president of the Slow Food movement, had his say on LA STAMPA as well as the various contributions by Gianni Mura (LA REPUBBLICA), Allan Bay (IL DIARIO). Radio Padania and LA PADANIA with a full page spread, LINEA QUOTIDIANO, TV 7, the Corriere della Sera's TV magazine, gossip webzines like DAGOSPIA, la Mescolanza, and major radio and TV channels like RADIO RAI, GR2, Caterpillar, RAI Televideo, Radio Montecarlo, Bella...
The TG2 (8.30 pm news) opennd with an editorial by Bruno Gambacorta. The dispute gained even more prominence in the international press. In an editorial column with a full title in Italian ”LA VITA non DOLCE”, Theall Street Journal claimed that . Mostly negative comments on the fast-food empire and in support of the Italin food critic appeared in the second page of The Observer; The Guardian has devoted a page and a half to the whole controversy; The Phildelphia Inquirer has even placed it in the front page...
Reuters gave full coverage to the controversial issue which was thus given a conspicuous and widespread publicity which included Fortune, CNN , BBC, New York Times, Time,Sunday Times, Washingtonpost,Washington Times, Daily Record, National Public Radio (the major radio in Chicago, the McDò city, boasting an audience of 20 millions), Globo (di Rio de Janeiro), The Times of India, The Barhein Daily News, The Taipei Times, The New Zealand Herald, from Moscow to Perth and Singapore...
