FuturFestival in Torino, Italy, redefined the festival experience with “Taverna Futurista,” a unique glass restaurant featuring Michelin-starred chefs.
“Wait, the lunch is here?” I ask. My newfound festival friend, dressed in black leather onesie, sporting rave braids and a bejeweled forehead, just laughed and pulled me inside.
We’re standing inside Taverna Futurista, a restaurant built entirely of glass, dropped into the grounds of Kappa FuturFestival at Parco Dora — a decommissioned car factory in Torino, Italy where rusted iron columns still stand like industrial ruins.
It’s an oddly perfect backdrop: half dystopian film set, half rave, with five or six stages spread across the site running everything from techno to house, each one backed by huge LED screens flashing generative visuals behind the DJs. Two of those stages flank the glass box. A third booms directly ahead.
Somewhere behind me, a chef with three Michelin stars is plating rooibos risotto behind a glass wall with the same focus you’d expect from a silent, white-tablecloth dining room — except the floor is vibrating.
This was Kappa FuturFestival’s big swing for 2026, and its very first attempt at it: over three days, five chefs rotated through the glass box, four of whom hold Michelin stars — six stars between them.
But this isn’t the first electronic-techno music fest to introduce fine dining in an unorthodox setting. Belgium’s Tomorrowland was the pioneer, running a sit-down restaurant overlooking its own Mainstage for years known as MESA, now folded into the festival simply as the Tomorrowland Mainstage Restaurant where a rotating slate of Michelin-starred chefs (Roger van Damme, Nick Bril, Thijs Meliefste, and Marcelo Ballardin cooked the 2026 edition) build a menu each year around the festival’s theme, this time “Consciencia”.
Of mainstream music festivals, Coachella was the first to introduce fine dining by partnering with Outstanding in the Field: dreamy, long communal tables in a California field more than a decade ago. But nobody attempted to squeeze so many lauded chefs into three days until Torino’s FuturFestival 2026.
The star-studded chef lineup included Davide Di Fabio, Tiziana Francoforte, Francesco Brutto, Enrico Crippa, and Dennis Panzeri.
The Bottle of Wine That Started It All
Every good Italian idea (and French, I might argue), begins over a shared bottle of wine. Jacopo Dosio, the sommelier behind the concept, runs the wine program for the restaurant group behind Piazza Duomo — the three-Michelin-star dining room near Alba, a small medieval town in the heart of the region’s wine country where chef Enrico Crippa has been quietly changing Italian cuisine for two decades. Dosio had been coming to Torino’s techno festival as a fan since 2015, long before he ever thought about bringing chefs along with him.
“We were together in Sardinia this summer with one of the co-founders of the festival, at the bottom of a bottle of wine,” he told me, politely shouting over the music to be heard, “and we said — it could be nice to bring my world into yours.”
His business partner in all this is Paolo Vizzari, a food writer who inherited both a fork and a Rolodex from his father Enzo Vizzari — one of Italy’s most respected food critics. Vizzari had spent a childhood eating in the country’s best dining rooms and years organizing food events. Between the two of them, they had the wine and the guest list connections. All they needed was a name.
Turns out, the festival already had one waiting. “I didn’t know the concept was born because of the Futurist movement,” Dosio admitted. (This food writer also had to Google “Futurist food movement”.) It was a forward-thinking concept born in the early 20th century that denounced heavy traditional foods, like pasta, and often made food into art, like the Chicken Fiat.
The name, Taverna Futurista, is a direct nod to La Taverna del Santo Palato, the actual Futurist restaurant that the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti opened in Torino back in 1931. It ran for six months, then vanished. Dosio and Vizzari simply reopened a modern version, ninety-five years later, in the middle of a rave.
So, how did they convince a few of Italy’s most famous chefs to cook at an electronic music festival? For some, it took persistence; for others, it was kismet.
“Cooking at Taverna Futurista was a dream come true,” chef Davide Di Fabio told me after his Friday lunch. “When Paolo called to tell me about this project, I didn’t hesitate for a moment to say yes.”
Right before the first lunch service, Vizzari stood at the head of the room and set the tone. “This is not just a lunch,” he told the 30 guests before service started. “I promise it’s not going to be what you expect.” He wasn’t kidding.
The lunch, kicking off Taverna Futurista, was by chef Davide Di Fabio — multiple courses, wines paired to each one, cloth napkins, handwritten place cards, silverware perched on tiny replicas of the festival’s signature rusted pillars, coordinated service, the whole production.
Di Fabio spent sixteen years as Massimo Bottura’s second-in-command at Osteria Francescana before earning his own star at Dalla Gioconda, and he opened the whole weekend with a menu built on coastal Adriatic notes, like a tomato-water reduction with bitters and black tea, sea lettuce with bottarga and sesame, and a crêpes suzette-like dessert reworked into something he called “Neola” or crisp, sweet waffle cookie popular in central Italy.
“Cooking and music have been my two greatest passions since childhood,” Di Fabio texted me later on WhatsApp. “I’d spend hours in the kitchen trying to grasp how a flavor originates, and just as many hours by the DJ booth, watching how a sound is built and an atmosphere created.”
Speaking of creating atmosphere, one plate in particular elicited collective gasps at our table: three shrimp in a bright pink beet reduction, striped with black and yellow accents. The psychedelic-looking, almost Dr. Seuss-like, dish was absolutely apropos for a house music festival.
Glass Restaurant, Human Art Installation
The restaurant, made entirely of floor-to-ceiling glass, turned out to be part of the show. The designer had made the windows reflective from the outside, so diners inside could see the crowd, but the crowd couldn’t quite see in. The effect: festival-goers would wander past, catch their own reflection, and start fixing their hair or adjusting a shirt collar — unaware a table of people mid-bite might be observing the whole thing happen. No doubt, the best people-watching at the festival was from inside the Taverna.
When the Sun Went Down, It Turned Into Happy Hour
By evening, the register at KFF’s Tavern shifted entirely. It was a standing-only, cocktail-table, passed-dish affair from 7 to 10 pm. Aperol spritzes flowed off to one side, wine pours in the middle of the room, and plates of salads, seafood, paninis, pasta, and sweets were served — often by Vizzari and Dosio themselves.
“We designed the evening flow so festival goers could pop in, grab a drink and a bite before and then come by again after a show,” explained Gianluca Brignone, one of the three festival co-founders.
The energy and crowd matched the vision — like a who’s who cocktail party. Guests ranged from celebrity DJs like Detroit-born Seth Troxler, who stopped by between sets, to festival founders, and a healthy dose of fashionable influencers like LA-based Victoria Loi, recognizing that an EDM festival paired with gourmet bites and heady Piedmont wine is as good as it gets.
Tiziana Francoforte Featured Palermo Street Food
Chef Tiziana Francoforte, who leads the kitchen at Gagini in Palermo, said joining the first Taverna Futurista at FuturFestival barely counted as a decision.
“Palermo’s street food was born in the streets, shaped by people coming together, by noise, energy, and sharing,” she said via email. “Those are the very same elements I see in FuturFestival.”
She built her Friday-night menu — titled “All About Tuna” — entirely around the crowd-favorite fish: fried tuna lattume (tuna sperm — yes really) with sweet-and-sour apricots, a carpaccio laid over watermelon and green beans with tuna bottarga shaved on top, and a plate of Scicli lettuce (a lettuce typical in Sicily) with tuna belly and salmoriglio (a southern Italy condiment of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, and herbs).
The menu closed with fusilli in tuna ragù loaded with pork ribs, ‘nduja, and ragusano caciocavallo — not exactly the “healthy fish dinner” the word tuna usually implies. Her ambition wasn’t one showstopper dish. “I want people to experience a different side of Sicily,” she said, “one that is contemporary while remaining deeply connected to its roots.”
Francesco Brutto’s Inspiration to Be a Chef Was During a Chemical Brothers Set
Every chef has an origin story of why they decided to bring their talents to such an unorthodox setting. “I actually decided to quit with university and start a chef career during a Chemical Brothers DJ set,” said Francesco Brutto, co-executive chef with chef Chiara Pavan at Venissa, a Michelin-starred restaurant located on Mazzorbo Island in Italy’s Venetian Lagoon. His Saturday lunch menu leaned hard into the sustainability angle Venissa is known for.
“A beautiful and sustainable festival needs beautiful and sustainable food,” Brutto explained poetically.
Dishes included a Brazilian kimchi toast, a Swiss chard pancake with pesto, tamarind tortellini in double cream and Angostura, and a peanut tiramisu served with artichoke coffee. Then he flipped the register entirely for dinner, bringing Venice’s bacaro culture to Torino — the wandering, wine-and-small-plates ritual built around cicchetti, which he described, laughing, as “the thing that people need to eat to not get drunk.” That spread ran through baccalà mantecato (a classic Venetian appetizer of whipped cod), polenta and cuttlefish, fried pizza, and a lukewarm lasagna in Adriatic seafood bolognese to close. As for his own festival itinerary, it was locked before the menu planning even began: “For sure I can’t wait for Four Tet, Skrillex, Carl Cox, Richie Hawtin.”
Enrico Crippa Brought the Quiet Into the Chaos
The final lunch of Taverna Futurista ended with the most lauded chef: Enrico Crippa, whose day job is three Michelin-starred at Piazza Duomo in Alba, and a garden he’d rather be tending. He was the first to admit the volume wasn’t exactly his scene. “Maybe it is a bit loud for someone like me, who prefers the quiet of the morning in my garden,” he said.
But he found his way in through rhythm.
“Electronic music is entirely about rhythm, abstraction, and hypnotic repetition,” Crippa said. “In many ways, that is exactly how I approach the structure and pacing of a dish.”
His menu opened with an “Antipasto Futurista” that featured various dishes of bright vegetables, like squash, tomatoes and onions. The solo onion dish blew my mind with flavors so elegantly delicate, not at all bracing, demanding a second helping.
It closed with a course literally titled “From Balla to Prampolini: Colors and Shapes of Futurism” — a direct nod to two actual Futurist painters — that looked like a cacophony of square, colorful thin bites of sweetness served with freshly whipped cream and cherries so perfectly balanced with sour-meets-sweet notes that they must have just been harvested.
In between the beginning and end sat his showpiece: a stripped-down rooibos-and-China-tea risotto, built to hit sweet and bitter in the same spoonful. “An immediate shock to the senses,” as he put it. His hope for where this all goes next for festivals worldwide?
“The food at festivals would become an extension of the lineup, an edible soundtrack,” says Crippa. “It wouldn’t be a break from the party; it would be part of the art.”
Later, Dennis Panzeri, who runs La Piola — Piazza Duomo’s casual, blackboard-menu trattoria sibling in Alba, supervised by Crippa — ran the cocktail party dinner. His Sunday-night menu stayed true to that trattoria spirit: a red Russian salad, chard-and-Raschera-cheese focaccia, chicken salad, and a dessert called, cheekily, “Matrix ice cream.”
What Wine To Serve at an EDM Festival in Italy
No surprise — it’s Italy after all — no matter the featured chef, the wine menu of Piedmont-royalty-of-wine list held up its end of the fine-dining deal every single service. Alta Langa D.O.C.G. and Ceretto’s 2025 Langhe Arneis Blangè opened every meal, lunch or dinner, no exceptions. The red changed with the clock: the three lunches (Di Fabio, Brutto’s Venissa service, and Crippa) got poured a 2022 Prunotto Barbaresco Bric Turot, structured enough to stand up to a full tasting menu. The three dinners (Francoforte, Brutto’s looser Venetian set, and Panzeri) got a 2023 Prunotto Langhe Nebbiolo Occhetti instead, a lighter, more food-flexible pour built for grazing rather than courses.
And the grand finale, and I do mean grand, was a six-liter bottle (wine nerd term: a Methuselah) of 2018 Prunotto Barolo. And yes, we finished it in less than an hour. How could we not? It was stunning. KFF co-founder Gigi Mazzoleni, affectionately nicknamed the unofficial mayor of Torino, stopped by during the final night to discuss his vision of Taverna Futurista. He thinks about the whole festival as a city, one where a guest should be able to indulge from every angle.
“I imagine the festival as a city where people can enjoy themselves from every perspective,” Mazzoleni said. “That’s why, beyond the classic festival burger, I wanted to offer food and wine of exceptional quality.”
Mission accomplished.
Munchietown at Porta Palazzo
Beyond the Taverna, KFF had other culinary surprises up its sleeve as well. In the VIP lounge, there was a sit-down restaurant and a pop-up DJ event with sandwiches in the center of town.
But not just any sandwiches. DJ Tennis — a FuturFestival veteran and a trained chef — brought his food platform Munchietown back to Torino, teaming up with DJ Seth Troxler for a sandwich pop-up at Porta Palazzo, Europe’s largest open-air market. Seth & Manni’s pop-up lunch counter served sandwiches like Seth’s Pulled Pork or Middle Eastern Bougie of eggplants, chickpeas, herbs, cheese and roasted pepper with a side of pickles. The crowd swarmed to get a closer look at the DJ-chefs and snag an elevated sammy on thick-crusted bread. Beats and bites, it turns out, is a perfectly viable business plan.
The next day, backstage at DJ Peggy Gou’s set, I ran into Troxler and complimented him on the mortadella and arugula sandwich (Tennis Mortazza on the menu) I had.
“Oh maaan! You didn’t try the tomato sandwich??” Troxler shouted incredulously. “That tomato sandwich is the meatiest, most insane sandwich ever… and I’m not even a vegetable guy.”
Duly noted — order the Tomato Sandwich “Turkey and the Wolf sandwich next time at FuturFestival 2027 — or perhaps at another Munchietown project, like their brick-and-mortar Ibiza restaurant, also called Seth & Manni’s, opening this summer.
Art and Techno in Torino
Elsewhere around town, the festival ran a program called Art and Techno — a paid add-on that shuttled guests around Torino midday, from museums, private art collections, and chocolate shops to the old Fiat test track at Lingotto for a rooftop gallery, guided by a local who clearly knew the city better than any app could. It meant you could dance all night (and into the wee morning hours at the after parties), take a quick nap, tour the city by day, and still make it back for cocktail hour that next night — a strange, well-oiled loop that somehow left room for all of it.
Rewind to my first afternoon in the city, hours before I’d ever laid eyes on a glass box or learned about a Futuristic food movement. On my ride from the airport, I was in a hotel shuttle with Roman Lefebvre, a Miami-based French artist on his way to rig a totemic LED video installation he’d built for the Voyager Stage, timed to Maceo Plex’s set — a ballerina dancer (Lefebvre’s wife) projected on screen.
He found out I was a food writer and asked, “What’s the most memorable meal you’ve ever had?” This question comes up a lot; I usually answer something cheeky, like my grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner because she paved the way for me being a ‘foodie’. But after three days of the dichotomy: fine dining by such passionate chefs and generous Italian hospitality, paired with thumping beats, dancing, and wild people watching, I might just have a different answer the next time someone asks what the most memorable meal I’ve ever had is.
Grandma’s Thanksgiving meal is still undefeated on nostalgia. But it never once made my chest thump.
