When he was 23, Giacomo Perletti came across old photos of the Contrada Bricconi farmhouse in Bergamo, Lombardy, its 15th-century buildings abandoned on the side of a mountain. Despite his youth, and not yet having completed his agricultural studies, Perletti knew immediately he wanted to take it on. “My desire was guided by a very specific purpose: to give a completely new meaning to the figure of a farmer,” he says.

Perletti says that at the time he felt like an outlier in Italian agriculture: a young man pursuing a modern vision for farming. But now, aged 37 and owner of a thriving business producing cheese, cured meat and vegetables – all used in his Michelin green star restaurant (an award highlighting culinary sustainability) – Perletti is in danger of being considered an old man in his chosen field.