Alessandro Borghese (born 19 November 1976) is an Italian celebrity chef, restaurateur, and television personality. Borghese began his chef career by working as a cook on cruise ships, including the MS Achille Lauro when it sank in 1994. In the early 2000s, after working in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, he returned to Italy, where he began a successful television career, in addition to his continued work in the restaurateur industry.
Borghese is the author, host, and judge of various culinary and talent shows, most notably those associated with the MasterChef format and his own shows, such as Alessandro Borghese – 4 ristoranti, Kitchen Duel, and Alessandro Borghese – Celebrity Chef. He also wrote several books, including an audiobook merging music and cuisine, and is the owner of two restaurants and of a restaurateur-based company with his wife.
Early life and family
Borghese was born on 19 November 1976 in San Francisco, California, the first son of Naples businessman Luigi Borghese (1936–2016) and German-Italian actress Barbara Bouchet (born 1943). His parents, who married in 1974 and had another children named Max, divorced in 2006. Bouchet stated in a 2009 interview that her son had become more famous than her. Borghese described his father a "role model", a "life coach, my superhero" who had many jobs, from working in the cinema industry as a producer to selling vacuum cleaners. He said that he taught him humility as he went to do door-to-door demonstrations with him. He instilled him not only a love of cooking, becoming a Sunday cook, but also a love for cars as he came from a family of racing drivers.
Borghese's first car was his mother's Renault Twingo, which he could drive at 16 due to his American license. His father taught him to drive an Autobianchi Y10, with Borghese recalling "he would take me out on Sundays and whenever I messed up the clutch, he would take me back to the garage and we would talk about going out the following Sunday. He was very strict: I had to learn to drive properly." As he lived in a private park, he could drive at 14 his father's Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione. When his father died due to leukemia, which Borghese described as "the illness of the century, a long illness", his mother was always by his side. Borghese described his father as more "down to earth" and his mother as more "clouds above clouds".
Of his childhood memories, Borghese said they are "filled with the scent of ragù filling the kitchen on Sunday mornings. I remember my father's hands and tasting the bread for breakfast. His smile, the way he described a recipe to me, and his advice, like a special gift, shaped what would gradually become my profession as a chef." Borghese had a happy childhood except for a dramatic episode he only became aware of many years later, as he told Silvia Toffanin on Verissimo in March 2019. His family began to receive kidnapping threats, and as a result his father, who also obtained a gun license, decided to send him to the United States, where he went to school and lived in San Francisco at his paternal grandmother's house, experiencing the life of the eccentric Bouchet family. He said: "My mother's family is a bit peculiar; I nicknamed them the 'Bouchetbaums,' after 'The Royal Tenenbaums.' My uncle was a bit eccentric; in the mornings, he would sip his coffee completely naked."
While Borghese had good relations with his father, his relations with his mother were more complex, especially because she was different from those of his peers for cultural reasons and because of her work in the entertainment world. For instance, Borghese recalled that he was made fun of due to his mother posing nude for magazines like Playboy. As Borghese refused to go to university and was unsure about his prospects at 18, his mother kicked him out of the house and told him, as she recalled in a February 2020 episode of the TV show Vieni da me hosted on Rai 1 by Caterina Balivo, to "start going out and seeing the world, to stand on his own two feet. It helped, it went well, right? He made a bit of an effort, but it went well." Borghese described Bouchet as a strict and absent mother, saying that she was not a "typical Italian mother, the one who makes you a little basket of croissants or tucks you in", before adding: "She fed me with a wooden spoon, pulled down my pants, and spanked me. She was always there, but I was also left alone a lot with the nannies. She and dad would often leave me at Elia's house, my longtime nanny. You could say I grew up with her and her husband."
Cruise ships cook and sinking of the Achille Lauro
After attending St. George's British International School in Rome, Borghese graduated from the American Overseas School of Rome. Following his graduation, owing to his Italian-American origins and multilingualism, Borghese embarked on cruise ships overseas, where he worked as dishwasher, kitchen assistant, and chef for three years, which he defined as his "floating gastronomic university". Borghese said that he wanted to do something different from his parents as he did not want to be an actor and instead wanted to travel the world and cook. He was 17 when he set sail for the first time. He came aboard as an au pair with a room and board, but without a salary. After eight months, he had his job confirmed with a salary of 800,000 lire (€413,17) a month. During the next three years, he traveled extensively in the Mediterranean but also in South Africa. Of this period, Borghese later said: "My father was a carpet auctioneer on ships, and with his connections he got me on board. Because I was Barbara Bouchet's son, I worked twice as hard. They looked at me like I was an alien, like the typical rich boy who lasts a week. I stayed there for three years."
Borghese was part of the crew of the Achille Lauro during this period, experiencing firsthand the shipwreck off the coast of Somalia on 30 November 1994, and remained three days in the open sea on a lifeboat in the company of other shipwrecked people. About the sinking, Borghese recalled: "The ship caught fire. The rule is that the crew disembarks last before abandoning ship. I risked my life because I went back to the dressing room to retrieve the Walkman my mom and dad had given me, which cost 300,000 lire [€154,94]. We were submerged for three days. We were off the coast of Somalia, and it took time to rescue 900 people from the middle of the sea. I wasn't afraid: I was an excited 18-year-old. My mother had called everyone, including the President of the Republic [Oscar Luigi Scalfaro], to find out what had happened to me."
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Borghese recalled the events, stating: "I have looked death in the face and I say: let's not be discouraged now." In September 2024, he again discussed this episode on Da noi...a ruota libera, a TV show on Rai 1 hosted by Francesca Fialdini, saying: "A very intense adventure. I spent three days stranded on a raft. We were rescued by a Greek tanker, the Hawaiian King, which took us back to Mombasa, Kenya, and then I set off on another cruise." Borghese said that he was a 18 years old who had been on board for about a year on a transfer cruise from Genoa to Durban, South Africa. He added that some engines in the stern exploded, creating a leak and a large fire. When asked on the show how to survive in such situations, he stated: "With a desalination plant and K rations that aren't as good as my cacio e pepe." He also recalled that his mother heard the news on TV and were only able to communicate when he boarded on the Hawaiian King.
Cooking and restaurateur career
From 1997 to 2000, Borghese worked as a cook in London, San Francisco, Copenhagen, and Paris. Returning to Italy, he attended sommelier school, then left for New York City. A few years later, Borghese once again returned to Italy, where he also started a television career, and often ranks restaurants. He said…