Chef Max Mariola: the motorbike-loving chef who drove the web crazy. The motorbike interview!
Chef Max Mariola, a very popular public figure on social media but also a great and unexpected motorbike enthusiast. In this video interview, Max tells us how his passion for motorbikes came about, his first love on two wheels and what, in his opinion, links motors and cooking. There is something more: we did the interview on a motorbike, on two BMW M 1000s with more than 200 hp.
Max Mariola, you may have met him on social media: he is one of the most popular chefs in Italy, if not the most followed, and has conquered more than 5 million users on social media with his slogan ‘The sound of love’. In this appointment of the Motofestival MY 2025 we offer you a rather special interview. We interviewed our guest directly on our battlefield, riding two motorbikes, and what motorbikes!
Max, Roman by birth and Milanese by adoption, is a multifaceted character. As well as being a master of the kitchen, as demonstrated by his recent success with the restaurant in Milan, he is also a passionate motorcyclist. He has had several motorbikes in his career, starting with a Honda NSR 125, then moving on to Ducati and BMW, but always maintaining his passion for two-cylinder machines. But in this video, Max is surprised with two exclusive motorbikes that are definitely out of his usual tastes: the BMW M 1000 XR and the BMW M 1000 R, two 200-plus horsepower beasts that almost seem to intimidate the chef at first. ‘They look like villains,’ says Max, before being won over by the handling and explosive power of these two four-cylinders.
But it is not just the motorbikes that are the protagonists: the interview winds its way through life stories, anecdotes about early motorcycling adventures and memories of exciting trips, such as the one to Passo del Furlo in Umbria, where Max and his motorcycling friends found themselves having to deal with snow, warming up with a memorable feast. Motorbikes, according to Mariola, are a pretext for discovering territories and sharing convivial moments, just as happens at the table. There is no lack of reflection on the close connection between the two passions: motorbikes and cooking. Because for Max, every motorbike trip must end with the discovery of local flavours, confirming the link between the road and food.
Max is a chef with a refined palate, and a gastronomic digression is a must: for each type of motorbike, from the Sportiva to the Naked to the Maxi Enduro, Max creates (live) a dish that reflects the soul of the two-wheeler. We go from light and protein-packed dishes for the sport bikes, to succulent and full-bodied sandwiches for the Naked, to rustic and comforting dishes for the Maxi Enduro. We even made a recipe for Pecco Bagnaia!
Between the roar of the four-cylinder BMW, jokes and recipes, this episode manages to connect two worlds that apparently have nothing in common: cooking and motorbikes . An invitation to discover that, after all, as Max says, ‘motorbikes are a passion that, like cooking, gets into your blood and makes your heart race’.
