Buongiorno!
Anna cooks
It sounds simple, and yet it is so much more. Anna pares cooking back to its essentials: fresh ingredients, honest craft and soul — that union of feeling, mind and experience that reaches for perfection and wants to find its expression in a personal signature.
Anna draws her joy from discovering the things others dismiss as small. She has no wish to keep reinventing seemingly new wheels. Hers is not a kitchen of grand, loud gestures, but one of insight, humility and respect at the sensitive point where people and produce meet.
An ever-happy union in which recognisable ingredients grace the plate, nourish her guests and give them great pleasure.
Career
Anna Sgroi comes from Alcamo in Sicily and grew up in Milan. Her cooking is an expression of those roots: Italian at heart, clear, honest and devoted to the produce. An early, formative encounter with the great Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan left its mark.
In 1989 she opened the restaurant Anna e Sebastiano in Hamburg, and in 1990 she became the first Italian woman chef in Germany to be awarded a Michelin star — which she held until 1998. From 2002 to 2012 she ran her own restaurant, Sgroi, in Hamburg-St. Georg, which held a Michelin star from 2004 to 2012. In 2013 came the restaurant Anna Sgroi in Hamburg-Rotherbaum, once again awarded a star (2014–2016).
Entirely self-taught, Anna cooked her own way to the top. Her style and her recipes are gathered in her cookbook »Typisch Anna! La vera cucina italiana«.
Alcamo, Sicily, Milan, South of France, India, Sannyasin, Sebastiano, Hamburg, Gualtiero Marchesi, St. Georg, Guide Michelin, Pöseldorf, Liguria, bon appétit.
Contact
For select occasions, Anna still cooks in person. If you would like to meet her or simply start a conversation, an email is the best way: