SWEET LIKE CHOCOLATE

My family is Colombian and I grew up in Venezuela, where you can find some of the world’s finest cocoa beans. Growing up, I remember drinking warm liquid chocolate mixed with different ingredients.

Chocolate is my childhood.

Fortunately, my job requires me to travel a lot. While visiting different countries, I get to sample local food or ingredients, and this triggers fresh ideas for my creations.

I remember once creating a dessert using 70 per cent dark chocolate with nori (seaweed) and guava. All three have very different flavour profiles but they complemented one another well on a plate. That was quite an exciting creation for me.

I drink way too much coffee!

I would love to go to Peru. I think there are a lot of amazing food and flavours to discover there.

If there’s one thing the Italians know, it’s good food. It’s therefore only natural for the Roman house of Bulgari to release a refined coffee-table book on the chef of the eponymous II Ristorante Luca Fantin at The Bulgari Ginza Tower in Tokyo. The book, La Cucina di Luca Fantin, is a compendium of recipes by the Michelin-star chef who artfully brings together flavours of the Mediterranean with those of the Land of The Rising Sun in menus for Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. The book also offers an insight into the thought processes and stories behind each creation, from the smoked scallop with celeriac to homemade tagliatelle with raw lobster. http://gourmet.bulgari.com