Ado Campeol, known as the “father of tiramisu”, has died at the age of 93.
Campeol was the owner of the Italian restaurant “Le Beccherie” in Treviso, northern Italy, where tiramisu is widely believed to have been invented in 1969. The dessert, which contains savoy biscuits soaked in coffee covered in Italian cream cheese, mascarpone, was added to the restaurant menu in 1972, but its owners never registered the patent. It has since become synonymous with Italian cuisine and has been adopted by chefs around the world.
The dessert seems to have been created by chance, during the making of vanilla ice cream by the restaurant’s chef and co-inventor, Roberto Linguanotto, when he added a little mascarpone to the egg and sugar mixture. He himself, when he noticed the pleasant taste of the mixture, turned to Campeol’s wife, Alba. Then the two of them perfected the dessert, adding savoy dipped in coffee and sprinkling it with cocoa and christened it “Tira mi su”, which means “Pick me up”.