Angelo Conti Rossini is undoubtedly one of the most famous and celebrated Brissaghesi. He was born a century ago, on July 31, 1923. He died at the age of seventy on his bike on Sunday, 21 March 1993, in Porto Val Travaglia, crushed by a heart attack while riding around the lake.

‘My first memories of the Angel date back to when I was a child,’ says Mayor Roberto Ponti. My father was an antiquarian craftsman and had done some work for him. The Angel and his wife Miriam were family friends. In 1990, I joined the City Hall and found him as a colleague.

Ponti describes him as a dynamic man, with incredible knowledge and relationships at every level, cantonal, federal, international: “I remember one evening the Federal Council came to his restaurant in corporee. As a municipality, he had designed a network to bring gas to Brissago from Italy and had come one step closer to the goal... Thanks to his strong and exuberant personality, in the Municipality he was able to get everyone to agree. And for Brissago, well... so great a reputation had been created that he honoured and still honours our municipality.

Anarchist – as the ‘Cantiere biografico degli anarchici in Svizzera’ calls him ‘perhaps the most famous cook Ticino has ever had’ – but of socialist faith, Conti Rossini was elected to the municipality in 1988. Incidentally, his older brother, Cesarino, baker and pastry chef like his father, was mayor of Brissago for 18 years.

Son of art – his father Cesare was an innkeeper and baker, his mother Stella was a skilled cook – he was one of the greatest chefs in Ticino, if not the greatest. At the end of a long internship in prestigious kitchens he took over from his parents the Garden, the restaurant he later called Agora and which still overlooks the Wall of the Octaves. In December 1968, the Michelin Guide awarded him the 2 Stars of Good Food, an exceptional recognition that no Ticino chef has obtained since then.

Today, the two stars in Ticino have Marco Campanella – chef of Brezza, the restaurant of the Hotel Eden Roc in Ascona, but who is of Apulian origin and trained in his parents’ restaurant on Lake Constance – and Rolf Fliegauf, born in Germany, chef of Ecco, the restaurant of the Hotel Giardino, also in Ascona.

And when in the mid-eighties he moved to Ascona, bringing with him the 2 Stars, Angelo Conti Rossini landed at the Garden, which had just been inaugurated. He managed the kitchen of the Hotel for three years, then returned to his Brissago and opened the Agora. He returned to be an innkeeper, offering simpler dishes, but always characterised by the superb touch of the great chef. He also gave life to a Cooking School, where he welcomed customers and friends eager to learn the secrets of his art.

In addition to the two stars, in the 1970s the Angel also obtained the Poêle d’or of GaultMillau, the Clé d’or of the Comité National de gastronomie, and the Mérite agricole awarded to him by the French Ministry of Agriculture.

In 2018, Chef Andrea Trinca took over the management of the Agora and, having overcome the initial ‘performance anxiety’ linked to the confrontation with the Maestro – ‘which then became the pride of paying homage to him’ – decided to re-propose some of Conti Rossini’s dishes. ‘His – he explains – was the cuisine that was once made and which, in my opinion, is the best there is, an old-school French cuisine that is as heavy and tasty as I like. Now the red wine fish, the animella croquettes, the stuffed quails... I can't take them off the paper anymore. And several customers who frequented the Angel’s restaurant told me: What good memories you have aroused! And I told myself that in the end the kitchen is simple, just put a good technique and a lot of passion, but here, in this kitchen, the passion is born on its own.