On an especially congested fall afternoon in New York, Massimo Bottura, Italy’s most famous avant-garde chef, is stuck in gridlock en route to his new project in Harlem. He’d spent the morning at the United Nations, meeting with government ministers as a Goodwill Ambassador for the Environment Program.

“It was crazy being there with [Volodymyr] Zelensky standing so close," Bottura says when he finally makes it uptown from U.N. headquarters, strolling through the doors of the Emanuel AME Church on 119th Street with a suitcase in tow. In a few hours he’ll catch a flight home to Italy, arriving back in Emilia-Romagna just in time for the grand opening of a new restaurant, Al Gatto Verde, focused on live-fire cooking, on the grounds of his country hotel, Casa Maria Luigia.