Chef Valeria Piccini from Da Caino restaurant in Montemerano, Tuscany had never been to Asia when she got a call from Angelo Agliano to be the first of five female Italian chefs to cook at Tosca di Angelo at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong. She immediately accepted because she is always of the view that she can always learn something from such events. But the shock of the first few days in a new continent and a new reality was very evident. “I am not used to the chaos of the city. I come from a tiny village where there are probably more chickens than people. It is chaotic but you could say the same about Rome, Florence or any other city in the world particularly when you live in the countryside,” she tells Food and Wine Gazette. Valeria is a self-taught chef having studied sciences and has a degree in chemistry. But she was born into a family of lovers of good food, her mother and grandmother used to cook for pleasure. And it was her mother in law that gave her the opportunity to … [Read more...]

Angelo Agliano with his team at Tosca di Angelo HONG KONG: If Angelo Agliano’s parents had their way, he would not be cooking today. For five years, while he was at school he would go to work in a restaurant in the weekends and also during the evenings. “They were against me working in a restaurant but I finally won my battle because that is what I really wanted to do.” It was not his perseverance when he was young that marked his career. For that, you need to fast forward some years when at the age of 26 he was asked to cook for French legendary chef Joël Robuchon’s 60th birthday. It is an evening he still remembers very vividly and not because he had to change four times such was the stress. ‘I remember that evening when Philippe Gobert, who was director for the Robuchon group told me he was giving me this present of bringing 13 chefs who worked for Robuchon to the restaurant for a private dinner. At table, I was cooking for chefs that were responsible for around 30 Michelin … [Read more...]

Riccardo Camanini and his brother Giancarlo opened Lido 84 in Italy five years ago and it has been on my places to visit for at least three years, way before it became known. Today the secret is out about Lido 84 but till this day, the two brothers who own the restaurant, still cannot really understand the hype about their success. One thing strikes you when you enter the magical dining room of Lido 84. It is not the view of Lago Di Garda, which you would have soaked in by driving there or else walking from the car park. Neither are it the art pieces that have been very carefully selected by the Camanini brothers. It is rather a striking collection of books which even for a bookworm like me is nothing short of impressive. They are not there to add to the decor of the restaurant. They form an integral part of Riccardo Camanini’s way of working. “Saturday morning is a time of reflection for us. We wanted to create a space where our staff could take the time to read. I wanted … [Read more...]

Jordan Kahn presents Vespertine at the European Food Summit in Slovenia Like most people living in cities, Jordan Kahn, chef of Vespertine was driving around trying to avoid traffic when he spotted an empty building under construction. “That's what you do when you are in Los Angeles." He decided to stop the car and looked at ‘this thing and it was very emotional’. He had no idea what triggered his desire to stop. That evening, he finished work at his previous restaurant Red Medicine and after service, at around 3am, he went back to Culver City where today the restaurant is located. “Service had finished at 2am so it must have been around 3am. I jumped over the construction fence, broke open the hinge of the plywood door and trespassed in this empty building. I did not fully know why I was there, I did not think this was the place for a restaurant but there was this gravity pulling me. I could not shake it away,” Jordan told Food and Wine Gazette. He returned (and trespassed) … [Read more...]

Antonia Klugmann is chef of L’Argine a Venco, an acclaimed restaurant with a highly personal and unique cuisine in Venco, Fruili Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia. This is the second part of our interview with the Italian chef in the usual Q&A format. What is the best dish you’ve ever made? I hope that I still have to make it. The best dish you’ve ever eaten? I don’t know. I like so many things. Even a fruit that is perfectly matured and is eaten at its best can change your palate for ever. Do you cook at home? No. What do you like to eat when you don’t cook at home? I have been on a diet for around two years. So I like to eat soups, salad and meat but I don’t eat pasta and haven’t ate pasta for many months. This is a tragedy for me. But the way you think about your body also has an impact on how you feel. The way I eat has also impacted the way I cook in the restaurant. In my restaurant, I want to cook in a way that is healthy. For example, I … [Read more...]

Antonia Klugmann Antonia Klugmann’s cuisine is personal, so personal that when she is invited to a congress or event she closes her restaurant. Being in charge of a small operation in Venco, in Friuli Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia means she does not have the luxury of a large team that can work while she is not there. So the decision to become the first ever female judge on Masterchef Italy was huge. When she took the plunge, she decided to close the restaurant for three months. It was an experience that changed her life but one that she would do only for a year. Like others working in the creative sector, she fears losing her creativity and spending three months way from the kitchen was something completely new for her from the day she took a cooking career at 20 after three years studying law. Antonia Klugmann is chef of L’Argine a Venco, an acclaimed restaurant with a highly personal and unique cuisine that is worth putting on your bucket list. When I met … [Read more...]

Most chefs you speak have that aha moment when they realised cooking was going to be their vocation. For some it was cooking with their mother or grandmother or remembering something they had eaten which triggered that spark. Not for Alberto Landgraf, chef of Rio de Janeiro restaurant Oteque. "For me it was different because I went to London to study English and finish my studies. My mother was an English teacher and wanted me to finish my studies in England. For some reason, I ended up working in a kitchen," he told Food and Wine Gazette in an interview. The chef who is slowly but surely putting Rio de Janeiro on the food map thanks to his work at Oteque could not crack an egg when he arrived in London. He found himself working in a kitchen to be able to extend his stay and this triggered his interest. "I thought this was the best place to be because I am a very active person, have always been involved in all kinds of sports, loved adrenaline and the rush it brings to you." … [Read more...]

Things were looking bright for Dutch born chef Margot Janse just before disaster struck. Two years ago she decided to quit her job and focus on building her charity which she had set up as part of her work at one of most well known fine-dining restaurants in South Africa, The Tasting Room at the Le Quartier Francais. A change in the ownership of the hotel which housed her restaurant made her adjust her priorities in life. “I stayed to work for another year but then realised this was was no longer my world. It was time for change but the question I had was what would I do about the children I had been feeding through the charity. I thought that the new owners would keep the charity which was connected to the hotel but given my name was so closely associated with it, I feared they might change the emphasis of the project. So I decided to take it with me and started to think what I could do, how I could handle the logistics of serving 200 meals a day from a domestic kitchen and with a … [Read more...]

Go back a few years and Kobus van der Merwe would have probably been sitting close to me for an event like the World Restaurant Awards organised in Paris on Monday 18 February. Instead he walked out of the auditorium of the Palais Broignart head held high to the tune of Toto's 1980s hit song Africa as he clinched the first ever Restaurant of the Year award. The lyrics of the song with the 'drums echoing tonight' and 'blessing the rains down in Africa' never felt more apt. A former journalist and food writer, he was writing about the global restaurant scene and dealing with restaurants every day until he was 30 when one day he started to feel his real calling. He wanted to be on the other side of things and not just writing about restaurants. He had no idea how to enter that world because he never worked as a chef before and only had one year of culinary school training to vouch for which he had acquired just after high school many years back. He found an opening in 2009 when … [Read more...]