Chef & owner of Abba in Milan (Certosa District), open kitchen and few tables. Puglian roots, international technique, ingredients at the center: a menu evolving daily and a “no-frills” aesthetic. Previously executive years at L’Albereta–LeoneFelice.
Born and raised in Molfetta, a graduate of the “Perotti” Hospitality School in Bari, he left early: Rome (Cavalieri Hilton) and London, where he honed method and rigor in major brigades. He returned to Italy with a technical toolkit that became a personal language of precision, clarity, and clean flavor.
Key steps include The Square in London with Philip Howard; then Rome at L’Altro Mastai alongside Fabio Baldassarre. In 2011 he joined the opening of Unico in Milan as senior sous-chef; the restaurant earned a MICHELIN Star in 2012 under Baldassarre’s lead. He later served as chef at the Roof Garden of the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens.
In 2014 he moved to Franciacorta as executive of LeoneFelice at L’Albereta (Relais & Châteaux), consolidating an essential Mediterranean style focused on product, cooking precision, and restraint. That culinary direction—heir to an important legacy—won critical attention and positioned him among the region’s signature kitchens.
Summer 2024: he opens Abba in Milan, in the conversion of a former paintbrush factory at via Varesina 177, the heart of the Certosa District. A luminous space, eight tables, natural tones, an open kitchen; two tasting menus and a business lunch shaped by accessibility. The wine list is concise and curated, with a focus on artisan producers.
His culinary philosophy starts with vegetables as the compositional axis and the ripeness calendar for fruit and greens; meat and fish come from selected, sustainable supply chains. The result is a contemporary, readable cuisine in which flavor is the end point. Dishes signaled by guides include “garden” risotti, lavarello with black lentils and turmeric, and a hazelnut soufflé.
Today Abba is covered by leading trade outlets for identity, measure, and consistency: a personal project where Abbattista blends international experience, brigade discipline, and service attention, within an urban regeneration that connects cuisine, neighborhood, and Milan’s new hospitality.
In November 2025, he is awarded a Michelin star during a ceremony in Parma.
