Chiara Canzoneri was born in Caorle, into a family of fishers. She arrived in Gorizia for love, and for the love of this land she stayed—building over more than ten years a gastronomic project that is also a cultural project. Her Chincaglieria Gastronomica in Via Rastello is one of those rare spaces where food is a pretext to tell the story of a place, its history, and the people who inhabit it. Her cuisine is based on principles that are not trends but convictions: raw materials almost exclusively sourced locally, respect for seasonality, and traditional recipes carefully adapted for the present. No single-use plastic, suppliers selected one by one, and direct relationships with producers. It is not marketing—it is consistency.

When she arrived in Friuli Venezia Giulia, she did not know the local products—they did not belong to her. She had to map them out, speaking with those she met or who were recommended to her. From there, a world opened up, and everything started with listening. The meeting with Antonio Bonelli was fundamental: he placed real meat in her hands, showed her the differences up close, and taught her how to recognize them. From that moment on, she could no longer choose otherwise.

When cooking meat from ethical farming, the first thing that strikes you is the texture—a different, true musculature that tells of the animal’s movement and life. The taste changes completely, because in the flavor, you perceive what the animal has experienced. Cooking becomes the ultimate test: the meat remains intact, the fish does not fall apart. The greatest challenge, she says, is to process the product as little as possible. An animal that has lived well already possesses perfect organoleptic value—you cannot think in patterns or follow a standard recipe. You must test, accept that the product may be different every time, and tune into it. Only then does the dish become perfect.

Chiara knows the Friuli Venezia Giulia region with the depth of someone who studied it from the outside and then chose it from the inside. She knows how to read the complexity of this border region—the Central European influences, the cuisine of the sea and the mountains, the knowledge of the Slovenian, Friulian, and Julian communities—and she knows how to translate it into dishes that speak to those who eat them without the need for explanation. For the Ancestrale project, she brings something precise to the table: the ability to transform an ethical production choice into an experience of taste and meaning.

Explaining the value of an ethical choice on the plate to customers is extremely difficult, she says. There is still little knowledge, and there is the economic issue. But the price gap must be explained and narrated, not justified, by making people understand the real value for health. Her goal is for customers to leave transformed into true ambassadors—so that the awareness gained at her table does not stop at the restaurant. If an ingredient is finished, it does not depend on her decision: nature no longer makes it available. Demanding to have everything in every season generates waste and a huge environmental impact. Choosing what to put on your plate today is a truly revolutionary act.