Alessia Fisichella

IGCAT Regional Chef Ambassador from
Sicily, European Region of Gastronomy candidate 2025 (Italy)

“I love cooking especially because, when I am in a kitchen, I feel free to express my creativity. I have decided to become a chef because cooking is a passion that I have always had since I was very young, especially thanks to my aunt. It is precisely from my childhood memories that I find inspiration for my dishes.”

Alessia Fisichella is the finalist who represented Sicily, European Region of Gastronomy candidate 2025 at the European Young Chef Award 2023.

Alessia is 19 years old and got her high-school diploma in Food and Wine Industry and Hospitality with a focus on Culinary Arts from Don Pino Puglisi school in Centuripe, Enna (Italy). She has recently enrolled at the University of Catania, where she is studying Food Science and Technology. Over the past year, she has also gained some work experience at Voi Hotels’ Florania Resort in Simeri (Calabria, Italy), and TH San Teodoro Liscia Eldi resort in Sardinia.

“It is a huge honour for me to have participated in the European Young Chef Award 2023, as becoming an established chef would certainly be the fulfillment of a dream and life goal of mine,” says Alessia.

Besides becoming a chef, one of Alessia’s biggest desires is to travel and especially to visit New York.

At the European Young Chef Award 2023, Alessia presented her innovative version of Busiate, a type of fresh pasta typical from the province of Trapani served with broad beans cream, Nebrodi black pig’s guanciale (pork jowls) and almonds.

“In Italy, each region has almost infinite pasta shapes. In this competition, I want to take the jury on a virtual trip to Sicily and prepare busiate, a fresh pasta similar in shape to a long macaroni,” says Alessia.

The dish owes its name to the buso, that in Sicilian dialect indicates the stem of ampelodesmos mauritanicus (Mauritanian grass), a local herb used to create bundles, and essential to give the busiate its characteristic helical appearance.