From the outside, ROOTS looks like any other restaurant: an open door, tables, and a menu. Then you sit down and realize it's more than just the food. Because here, every dish is also a stepping stone: learning to work in the dining room, managing the pace of a team, and building professional experience that can become a stable career.
The project was born in Modena with AIW (Association for the Integration of Women) and takes shape around a simple idea: the kitchen as a space where immigrant women can transform personal knowledge into recognized skills and, therefore, autonomy.
A Restaurant, But Above All, a Social Project
ROOTS was born from the Association for the Integration of Women (AIW), founded by Caroline Caporossi in 2020 with the aim of supporting immigrant women on their journey to social and employment integration. But it's not just a "social" project: Jessica Rosval, a chef who helped develop method, organization, and quality, also contributed to making it solid from a professional standpoint . Here, there are no "folkloristic" events: the work is real, with real skills and the pace of a restaurant open to the city.
The idea is both simple and powerful: to enhance skills, stories, and cultures that often remain invisible, bringing them to light in a context where they become a resource. In a city accustomed to measuring value through cuisine, ROOTS has chosen food as the key to opening doors.
"Roots" As Identity and New Beginnings
The name ROOTS immediately evokes the concept of "roots," but here it's not just a cultural or symbolic reference: it's a way to describe a concrete situation. The women involved in the project come from diverse countries, with diverse experiences, often with lives shattered and rebuilt multiple times. They bring with them a heritage of memories, traditions, language, and flavors.
ROOTS starts from a clear belief: integration shouldn't erase what a person has been, but should give them the tools to become who they want to be. And roots, in this sense, aren't something that holds them back, but something that supports them.
What sets ROOTS apart from many "nice-to-talk-about" initiatives is that it doesn't just organize events or multi-ethnic dinners: here, you actually work, and you actually learn. The project offers training and internships in the restaurant industry: cooking skills, organization, hygiene and sanitation, room management, and the pace and responsibilities of daily work. It's a program that aims to empower participants and make them available for employment, not to keep them stuck in a temporary experience. In essence, ROOTS doesn't create a stage: it creates a profession.
A Menu That Changes, Just as Stories Change
ROOTS kitchen is where everything comes together. Because it's here that stories become tangible: ingredients, techniques, gestures repeated a thousand times, recipes passed down or reinvented. The menus change over time and reflect the origins and journeys of the women involved: Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan, Morocco, and other countries enter the kitchen without asking permission, bringing flavors often far removed from the Modena tradition, but capable of making themselves understood at first taste. And this is precisely the interesting point: it's not "ethnic folklore," nor an adapted cuisine, but something that recounts a past and, at the same time, is constantly evolving, just like the identities of the people who work here.
Furthermore, ROOTS isn't conceived as a self-contained project: it's a place that wants to be within the city, and engage with it. That's why cultural activities, meetings, training sessions, and community initiatives are being developed alongside the restaurant.
An International Recognition That Says a Lot
In 2024, ROOTS received the Champions of Change Award from The World's 50 Best Restaurants, an award that recognizes businesses capable of bringing about concrete change in the world of hospitality.
It's an important recognition because it confirms one thing: ROOTS isn't just a nice idea. It's a model that works, and it can be replicated. It works as a restaurant, it works as an educational program, it works as a social initiative within a region that (also thanks to food) can afford to be more open and intelligent.
Ultimately, ROOTS tells a simple truth: food doesn't solve everything, but it can change a lot, because it can become work, independence, dignity. It can create relationships without forcing them. It can bring out skills that would otherwise remain submerged. And in a city like Modena, where cuisine is both tradition and future, ROOTS demonstrates that roots aren't just those that come from afar: they're also those that are built here, day after day, between a busy kitchen and a packed dining room.
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