Meet Chef Enrico Signorelli, Mumbai’s Most Popular Tiramisu Chef

Put a finger down if you know someone who left their whole life behind to pursue a wild dream, prompted by the city of their favourite book, and the loveliest memory of their childhood? Sorry for the oddly specific scenario, but such goes the story of Chef Enrico Signorelli, the man who made Mumbai fall in love with tiramisu with the city’s most-loved tiramisu shop, MAMI. 

When I asked him about the tiramisu-led magic he has worked across the city and its people, he said, “To be honest, I never expected this to happen. Every morning, I wake up to think of how wild and crazy everything has turned out to be.” According to him, his ten-month-old passion project has done much better than his expectations.  

No less than a social media star, Chef Signorelli’s reels, made solely for tiramisu and MAMI, have reached audiences across India and the world, turning him into a name that’s almost synonymous with tiramisu. “People stop me on the streets to take photos with me. They call me a celebrity, and I am left thinking what I have done to receive so much love. I only make tiramisu!” the chef said.

The Italian chef’s story sounds like a dream story whipped to perfection like his mascarpone. As a corporate hustler navigating his way in the quaint town of Bergamo, Italy, life was soft, quiet and peaceful. And then he decided to shift base to one of “the most hectic cities in the world,” complete with torrential monsoons, more people than there is space, life-threatening traffic, and no concept of sleep. But what he got from the move was a very life-changing story, and we got the most delicious tiramisu in Mumbai. As Chef Signorelli put it best himself, every day is a new kind of story for him. 

The Story Of MAMI: From Bergamo To Bombay

After spending just over a year navigating around the many quirks that define the peculiarity of Mumbai, it’s safe to say that the chef has slowly (but surely) grasped the city’s culture. How much Hindi has he learnt? “Bhaiya! Seedha seedha! Bas bas! Chalo chalo!” (Brother! Go straight! Stop! Let’s go!) pretty much sums up the breadth of his dictionary. 

Chef Signorelli was always fascinated by Mumbai, inspired primarily because it served as the setting of his favourite book, Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. His love for the book first brought him to the city, and the sheer passion, opportunity, and, perhaps, the lack of tiramisu led him to stay.

During one of his long visits to Mumbai, the chef was missing some good old Italian food. “There is only a little masala that my tummy could handle,” he laughed. As he scooped into a tiramisu, he wanted to do something better. “I had always wanted to create something of my own, so I thought maybe I’d quit my job and see where it goes—worst comes to worst, I’ll just fly back home,” he added. 

“Fortunately or unfortunately, it’s been a year, and I’m still here!”

The name MAMI translates into ‘mommy’ in Italian, and Enrico’s inspiration for it remains deeply rooted in his mother and her wonderful tiramisu. After spending over four months perfecting the recipe of his classic tiramisu in the shadow of his mother’s expertise, the chef finally decided that the taste of MAMI, Bombay, was ready for the masses. “We were making tiramisu every single day in these four months, to the point where my dad even said that he never wants to look at one again. But when some people in India finally tried my end product, they loved it,” said Chef Signorelli. The rest, as they say, is history.

With ingredients sourced from Italy and locally, MAMI’s tiramisu has now become a cultural phenomenon in the city. Housed right behind Veronica’s in Bandra’s Ranwar Village, MAMI is not only located in one of the most sought-after pincodes in Mumbai, but is also on most tourists’ (and locals alike) must-check-off lists when dining out. But what goes behind such success is always the dream to dare. According to the chef, “the toughest part is always interacting with local vendors, when they don’t speak in English but Hindi.”

From a one-man army, Chef Signorelli’s team has now grown to almost 10 people. And to think that just a few years ago, he was living a very different life in Italy, working a corporate job as an enterprise account manager at Deliveroo. “If you told me two years ago that one day I’d be running a tiramisu pastry shop in one of India’s biggest cities, I’d have said, ‘Are you kidding me or what?’” 

Who is Enrico Signorelli, Beyond his Tiramisu?

Chef Enrico’s tryst with tiramisu began long before the seed of MAMI was born. In fact, it began during his ripe years as a kid growing up in Bergamo, Italy.

He fondly recalls family dinners, festive gatherings, and potlucks, with Italian offerings of every kind, but especially a giant tray full of tiramisu. His favourite way to relish the sweet treat? With his finger, of course! On more than one occasion, he would help his mother make tiramisu and then lick the entire bowl clean with his brothers and sisters. “One day per week, four of us would sit in a circle and devour a 1.2kg bowl of tiramisu, all on our own. That will never leave me!” he says.

Away from the queues outside his Bandra store and the viral videos on social media, Enrico Signorelli is still trying to wrap his head around the life he has built in Mumbai, which has turned out to be an adventure that constantly surprises him. Coming from Bergamo—a quieter, village-like city in northern Italy—the pace of India’s financial capital has been a jolt. “India is a totally different world,” he says candidly. “It’s not easy to shift from a place like Bergamo…the culture alone can be difficult to get used to!”

There are days when he feels he’s figured it out, and others when the chaos still overwhelms him. “Some days I succeed, some days I fail. But I think it’s part of the process.” Despite the culture shock—and the inevitable homesickness for family, friends, and the life he left behind—he remains grateful for the leap he took. “It’s been my choice,” he says simply. “And I would do it again and again and again. Better to fail than to live with the regret of not trying, right?” he questions.

What makes the experience worthwhile, he explains, is the sheer joy he finds in doing the work itself, to the point where it doesn’t even feel like work. After years in the corporate world, running a dessert brand feels liberating. “Sometimes I pause and think about what I’m doing, and it makes me laugh,” he says. “I’m like… what the hell?” Yet his disbelief always comes hand in hand with genuine contentment. “I don’t feel like going to work. For me, it’s just pure joy. My job is my biggest passion, which is the best part. Every day starts with the satisfaction of waking up excited for what’s ahead,” he shares. And isn’t that what life’s really all about? 

And while tiramisu may be what people know him for, his personal tastes are rooted in the simplest comforts of Italian cooking. Like a true-blue Italian, he swears by pasta as what his dreams are made of. “I cook pasta every day as a good Italian,” he says, brushing aside the myth that it’s unhealthy. His go-to meal is uncomplicated and classic: “Everyday spaghetti with tomato sauce and grana padano or parmesan—that’s literally the basis of my life.” It’s a reminder that, beyond the hype, the queues, and of course, the virality of his tiramis’s fame, Signorelli’s culinary philosophy remains close to the food he grew up with; close to home. 

And behind all the tiramisu? Enrico enjoys fitness every day (even on weekends), be it at the gym, running, playing football, or even paddle. In the city, he finds himself most attracted to South Bombay. While he’s still struggling to find a breath of peace and fresh air in the city—since those are concepts somewhat unknown in the most fast-paced city in India—he enjoys the sprawling food scene and culture that’s rampant across the city. ‘I love South Bombay, absolutely love it, but  I haven’t found that spot where I can go every time and just enjoy in peace,” he says. And as far as travel is concerned, Enrico’s waiting to visit Kerala for a much-needed meditative retreat, away from the chaos of running a business in Mumbai.

Secrets to Success (and the Tiramisu of Your Dreams)!

“A magician never reveals his tricks,” the chef wittily claims, as I asked him for his personal tips on perfecting tiramisu. However, a word of advice he shares is that the perfect tiramisu constitutes an unwavering desire to keep eating. “You know, there are some very good desserts, but after one too many spoons, you’ve already had enough of it. For me, the best tiramisu is one where you want just to keep going, keep going, keep going…” In simpler words, sugar must be controlled and calculated with precision, lest you want just another cloyingly sweet cake-like pastry.

And of course, as a maestro of the sweet treat, Enrico believes in maintaining the recipe exactly the way it’s supposed to be. This means that eggless and flavoured variants, while they exist, are simply “fake tiramisus” because the real thing is made precisely the Italian way. 

“Yes, we do limited, seasonal flavours like strawberry and Nutella, but I’ll always say that these are fake tiramisus (as they are rightly named), because the real thing for us is the classic, untouched recipe. Nothing hits the same,” he proclaims. As far as the original, authentic Italian tiramisu is concerned, it’s a simple, no-bake dessert composed of six main ingredients without whipped cream and even alcohol. But of course, it keeps evolving forms from family to family, and chef to chef. 

“If you go to Rome, for example, they just use egg yolks. Some people add egg whites to give more airiness. Others add fresh cream. Some people even add in some Marsala wine to give that alcohol kick. So the more you see around Italy, the more the number of variations in how it’s made,” he explains. 

While this may have been the chef’s clever way of escaping the infamous ‘what makes your tiramisu so good?’ question, he hints at a very commonly debated issue: where does the tiramisu originate after all? As he argues, “There’s this dispute between where tiramisu was born. Some people say around the Treviso and Venice area, while some people claim Rome.” Sources on the internet, however, claim both. However, Enrico raises a fair point: “I honestly don’t care where it comes from, just make a good Tiramisu, and I’m gonna be happy with that!” As long as it’s good, what does it really matter?

MAMI’s entry into Mumbai’s food scene has birthed a newfound love for tiramisu in the city. So much so that at this point, we’d better call it a culture, a cult-following of its own. Chef Enrico’s secret ingredient to this success? Well, it begins with expecting none of it.

“I think that people don’t just love the product, but also love the story behind it. And that’s why they engage a lot with the brand, because they see we have come up from basically nothing. When we started, we just wanted to serve good tiramisu—this success was never part of the plan!” he exclaims. In a time when most new businesses (and, in fact, even old ones) rely heavily on social media, Enrico and his team seem to have mastered the art of creating an engaging narrative on MAMI’s Instagram and keeping people coming back for more. From traversing the streets of Mumbai and sharing bits of his personal life to collaborating with some of the city’s most popular spaces and using an outsider’s perspective to navigate it, the people of Mumbai seem to be loving MAMI’s Instagram A-game. 

“I think that it’s very important for brands to be very authentic, and I try just to be myself and tell my story and my journey, and I think that’s why people love it and connect with it,” he says.

The future for MAMI Bombay looks lush, green, and promising, with a pan-India expansion in the works. “We obviously started with the intention to build something long-lasting, and growth is the plan, but without compromising at any cost. I think we’ll start closer to home and see where that takes us from there,” he concludes. 

Read more: Chef Dhruv Oberoi On His Tryst With Spain And A Remarkable Cooking Journey

Also read: Chef Brinda Bose On Bringing East Bengal’s Authentic Flavours To Mumbai