Riccardo Ferrarotti

I could not find the produces that I was looking for. The local Malaysian suppliers could not match my request, therefore I decided to import it by myself, as simple as that.

The long way to Kuala Lumpur #

The journey from Biella, a small mountain village between Milan and Turin, to Kuala Lumpur was not direct. Born into a restaurant family in Piedmont—his father ran his own establishment in Sandigliano—Riccardo absorbed culinary tradition before he could articulate it. His grandmother’s kitchen lessons in fresh pasta, gnocchi, and tomato passata formed the foundation. School, he would later say, teaches you only until a certain level; the rest you learn by experience, by “stealing” from other chefs.

After five years at Ippsar Trivero Caulera culinary school and apprenticeships across Italy’s regions—Venice, Rome, Sardinia—Riccardo spent two years working in Florida. The American experience taught him scale and the mechanics of high-volume service; the Middle East would teach him excellence under pressure in luxury hospitality.

At Crowne Plaza Dubai’s Al Fresco restaurant, Riccardo earned recognition that validated his training. Awards followed. But executive chef positions, however prestigious, meant executing someone else’s vision within someone else’s constraints. In 2007, he opened Frankie’s Restaurant in Shanghai—his first entrepreneurial venture—and arrived in Malaysia the following year ready to build something of his own.

When Italy wasn’t there #

When Riccardo arrived in Malaysia in March 2008 to join the Nero Group, he brought exacting Piedmontese standards to kitchens that had never encountered them. After three continents’ worth of kitchens, he had accumulated the recognition that comes with excellence. As executive chef at Nerovivo and Neroteca, he transformed both operations within two years and helped launch Nerofico and Nerodeli.

But a fundamental problem persisted: the ingredients available in Malaysia could not match what his training demanded. The olive oils lacked regional character. The aged meats did not meet Piedmontese standards. The cheeses were industrial approximations rather than artisanal products. Local suppliers, however willing, simply did not have access to the quality he required.

“I could not find the produces that I was looking for,” Riccardo later explained. “The local Malaysian suppliers could not match my request.” The frustration was technical, not emotional—a craftsman unable to practice his craft properly. Complaining would accomplish nothing. Adapting to inferior ingredients would betray his training and the family legacy that had shaped his palate since childhood.

Becoming the source #

The solution was characteristically practical: import directly from Italy. What began as sourcing for his own professional needs became Bottega Mediterranea in June 2011—a hybrid concept where imported grocery products and authentic Piedmontese dining occupied the same space at 1A Jalan Ceylon in Kuala Lumpur’s Bukit Ceylon district. If Malaysian suppliers could not source proper olive oil, Riccardo would ship it himself from specific Italian regions. If aged charcuterie was unavailable, he would establish the relationships to bring it in weekly from Italy, France, and Spain.

The name itself—“bottega” meaning “workshop” or “artisan shop” in Italian—signaled the concept’s dual identity. This was not merely a restaurant but a Mediterranean workshop where ingredients took precedence. Weekly shipments stocked shelves with products unavailable elsewhere in Malaysia, while the kitchen served family recipes that required those specific ingredients: his grandmother’s tiramisu, slow-cooked ragù, authentic carbonara made without cream.

The transition from executive chef to business owner demanded skills culinary school had not taught. “It’s a big difference, being an executive chef and running your own restaurant,” Riccardo acknowledged in a 2013 interview with The Star. “I learnt how to manage myself and others. Previously, I just had to worry about the kitchen, whether we had enough supplies and when to inform the purchasing department to make an order. Now, I have to keep track of my waitstaff, learn how to delegate jobs to others so that I can concentrate on the larger strategic picture.” The challenge was not cooking—that he had mastered across three continents—but building a sustainable business around cooking.

As simple as that #

Riccardo presents as a practical problem-solver rather than a visionary entrepreneur. His philosophy is direct: “Simple, neat and tasty. You need to be able to let the customer identify what is on their plate using their 3 senses: smell, taste, and sight. If it’s too complicated, it can spoil the whole experience.”

The same clarity applies to business decisions. Eleven years operating a single location before expansion was not strategic genius—it was the time required to build proper foundations. When the pandemic closed competitor Nerovivo permanently, Bottega survived because its hybrid grocery model created revenue streams pure restaurants lacked. The practical approach to ingredient sourcing became the practical approach to business survival.

What Biella built #

Three continents of experience—Italy, America, Middle East, Asia—led Riccardo to Malaysia, where the ingredient gap that frustrated him became the business opportunity that defined him. The chef who learned to debone Parma ham at fifteen in his father’s Sandigliano restaurant now imports that same ham for Malaysian tables. The grandmother’s tiramisu recipe appears on menus at four locations spanning Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Petaling Jaya, and Johor Bahru. The Piedmontese tradition that shaped his childhood now shapes Malaysian dining experiences.

What Riccardo built is not merely a restaurant chain but an import infrastructure that supplies his own kitchens and his competitors—other restaurants and hotels across Malaysia that rely on Bottega’s supply chain for quality Italian products unavailable through standard distributors. The frustrated chef who could not find proper ingredients became the supplier that others now depend upon.

Last updated: April 30, 2026