Savino Divincenzo: From Dishwasher to the Chef Everyone in Corsica Wants to Know

One evening, he sat down at a computer, typed in a few random searches, and came across an advertisement for a dishwasher at a restaurant near Rotterdam. He applied, got the job, and packed his bags, unaware that this simple decision would lead him into a professional kitchen where he would eventually spend the rest of his life.

The Diploma He Never Earned

As he spent his days at the sink in that Dutch restaurant, Savino’s attention was drawn to a man named Giuseppe, an Italian chef running the kitchen. Giuseppe noticed something in the young man washing plates with the same seriousness he might have brought to preparing a main course: a genuine willingness to work, something that cannot be faked. He gradually began entrusting him with small tasks - first preparing meals for the staff, then teaching him basic techniques, and eventually giving him more and more space beside the stove. Savino had no idea then that he was going through the only “culinary school” he would ever attend. Everything he knows about the craft today was learned through observation, repetition, and mistakes, rather than textbooks or classroom instruction.

From 2005 to 2007, Rotterdam was only the first stop. His love of travel, as he puts it, opened doors in Greece, Sweden, England, Tunisia, and even Florida. In every kitchen, he picked up a new technique, discovered an ingredient he had never encountered before, or found another way to approach a familiar dish. He was not collecting certificates. He was collecting experience, one kitchen and one country at a time.

The Island That Made Him Stay

More than a decade ago, that journey brought him to Corsica, the French island whose cuisine, despite its place within the French state, retains a strong Mediterranean and distinctly Italian character - not entirely removed from the flavours Savino had known growing up. It was there that he finally settled. He took a position at the À Pasturela hotel-restaurant, married and raised a daughter, and gradually went from a stranger who had happened to step off a ferry to becoming one of the chefs Corsicans regularly seek out.

His speciality is ravioli, prepared with dozens of different fillings depending on what the market has to offer that day. He is equally at home with fish, whether served as carpaccio or tartare, always insisting on the day’s catch and on working with local cheese and vegetable producers with whom, he says, he has built genuine friendships. For Savino, cooking without that personal connection to the ingredient and the person who produced it is not really cooking at all - it is simply preparing food.

“Cooking is a passion for me: you either love it or you don’t,” he often says. “Without love, you are simply preparing a meal.”

Recognition He Never Sought

That philosophy brought him something he had never planned for: in 2018, he won Manghja Insieme, a culinary television competition broadcast on the French channel France 3 and dedicated to Corsican gastronomy. A self-taught chef who had never undergone formal culinary training defeated competitors who, unlike him, had come through culinary schools and traditional apprenticeships.

In the interviews he gave at the time, he made no secret of where he came from. He spoke proudly of Puglia and his hometown of Barletta, a place he says he still carries in his heart as the most beautiful place in the world, despite having spent more than a decade away from Italy.

That same combination - self-taught determination, respect for the raw ingredient, and a culinary identity that makes no distinction between Italian and Mediterranean heritage - is what Savino will bring to Banja Luka this month. From October 30 to November 7, he will appear at Don Sergio restaurant as part of the Days of Italy festival.

The man who learned his craft standing over a sink rather than in a culinary school will come to Banja Luka to show local diners what can happen when talent is not left waiting to be discovered, but is patiently built from the lowest rung of the kitchen ladder.