Niko Romito’s cooking school has opened the registrations for the next course which starts on 1 October 2018. The Professional Italian cuisine course of the Niko Romito academy is aimed to train future professionals in the restaurant world. It is aimed at those that have a diploma from a hotel school or those who are passionate and want to learn the principles and techniques of the Italian kitchen. The course lasts one year and is held at the Niko Romito academy, a cookery school that is annexed to Ristorante Reale and Casadonna, the three Michelin star restaurant and hotel of Cristiana and Niko Romito. The one year course, which ends in October 2019 allows students to study, practice and work throughout the year. Those taking part in the course will also be able to gain experience at one of Niko Romito’s Spazio restaurants which was created by the Italian chef to give his students real-life experience in a restaurant while enabling clients to learn about the chef’s cooking … [Read more...]
Young Maxime Maziers takes over Brussels institution Bruneau
Maxime Maziers, the 29-year-old chef of the one Michelin star Brussels restaurant L'Ecailler du Palais Royal has announced today that he will be taking over the legendary Brussels restaurant Bruneau. The young Belgian chef had been sous-chef at Restaurant Bruneau and worked under Jean-Pierre Bruneau for five years before moving on to clinch a star for L'Ecailler du Palais Royal. Maziers announced that he will become the chef-patron of Bruneau and will retain the name of the restaurant of previous chef who retired and closed the restaurant earlier this year on 22 January. Bruneau had said when he closed the restaurant due to retirement that he hoped that the person who took over the would be a 'chef-patron' and not just an investor looking to place a chef in the restaurant. "Today's trend, if you look at the top restaurants is that they are owned by investors who put a chef to work there. What I wanted was not an investor but someone who was passionate to start with. I am extremely … [Read more...]
Mélanie Englebin teams up with Philippe Limbourg to take Cécila on tour
Mélanie Englebin, chef of former Brussels restaurant Cécila which closed its doors in summer last year will be touring Belgium in what she is calling 'Cécila' on tour. The Brussels Gault & Millau young chef of the year 2017 has teamed up with Philippe Limbourg, former director of Gault & Millau to organise a series of events around Belgium. The first event will take place at Brussels gourmet supermarket ROB on Friday 1 June and Saturday 2 June at 8pm. Melanie Englebin will also be cooking in the Belgian province of Namur and Luxembourg as well as in Flanders during the summer months. The young chef became famous in Brussels for sending out a Brussels politician from her restaurant when the pedestrian zone threatened to kill many businesses in central Brussels. Last year she closed her restaurant not only because of the pedestrianisation of the Brussels centre but also because the kitchen was small and placed constraints on her. She told Food and Wine Gazette that … [Read more...]
Moeder Lambic to open Pasta Madre in Brussels with top Bologna pizzaiolo Francesco Oppido
Francesco Oppido in Bologna, known for his contemporary pizza and his quality beers is set to open a new pizzeria in Bologna but Italian food magazine Gambero Rosso has announced that he is currently working on his first ever project outside Italy. The team at Moeder Lambic have recently signed a deal with the new owners of a hotel, A la Grande Cloche, that was built in 1840. The owner of the hotel will be completely restoring the hotel while the restaurant will be in the hands of Francesco Oppido, in partnership with Moeder Lambic. Pasta Madre will be a pizzeria which will open in the beginning of 2019, Jean Hummler of Moeder Lambic told Food and Wine Gazette. It will also have a small kitchen which will accompany the pizza oven. Oppido is known for his doughs (he comes from a family of pizzaioli though he started his career as a pastry chef).Originally from Crotone, he has become famous in Bologna for his restaurants that are focused on his two passions, pizza and artisanal … [Read more...]
First Belgian Whisky, rum and spirits festival to be held in Brussels in June
Belgium will finally have its whisky, rum and spirits festival. This will take place on the weekend of 1 June to 3 June at the Autoworld at the Cinquantenaire (Jubelpark) in Brussels. This unique festival is open to the general public. It will celebrate whiskey, rum and gin as well as cognac, armagnac, calvados, vodka, tequila, mescal as well as sake, pisco and cachaca as well as some associated products related to the theme such as cigars, chocolate as well as a selection fo Scottish kilts. This event is intended to increase the awareness of the connoisseur, but also to arouse the curiosity of the amateur, who will undoubtedly discover many new products thanks to the range of brands presented. Hundreds of bottles from both the distillery and independent bottlers will be present. There will be around 50 exhibitors, both Belgian and international, with more than 100 stands and more than 180 brands, on more than 1,300 square meters. Throughout the duration of the event, … [Read more...]
The curious incident of the OAD European top 100+ list
When chefs gathered at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London for the launch of the Opinionated About Dining top 100+ European list, they were given a list of the top 100+ restaurants. As one would expect on such occasions, they took to social media to announce their positions and take photos of the list which they posted on their social media profiles. Little did they know that the list they had been given at the dinner was not the correct one. A quick look at the online list showed discrepancies from the 32nd place till the 62nd place. While this may have led to some moments of joy and then deception or vice versa for those concerned, luckily the error did not concern the first places of the list which would have caused the organisers of the event even greater embarrassment. The assumption, given the fact that the list was printed and distributed at "The Great Roast" dinner was that the correct list was the one that was distributed in the hall that evening. Alas this was not … [Read more...]
US chef Dave Chang launches podcast
Majordomo Media, co-founder by US chef Dave Chang has launched its first project featuring the outspoken Korean-American chef. The Dave Chang show is a new podcast that has just been released. The first five episodes feature the chef in conversation with Bill Simmons, founder of The Ringer, the producing partner of Majordomo Media about dining, anger management, living in Los Angeles and the difficulties of opening a new restaurant. Chang, who is mostly known for his award-winning Momofuku restaurant and group recently opened Majordomo, the first restaurant in Los Angeles. He recently also created and hosted a series of Netflix called Ugly Delicious as well as creating what was one of the most iconic food magazines (now defunct) Lucky Peach. He said that anyone who likes food a little bit, is stuck in traffic or sitting on a train and wants to know what really goes into running a restaurant should listen to the podcast. He said listeners may also be people who have heard him talk … [Read more...]
Andreas Caminada takes top place in 2018 OAD Top 100+ European restaurants
Opinionated About Dining this evening announced the list of the top 100+ European Restaurants for 2018. Andreas Caminada managed to top the list for the first time, surpassing last year's no 1 Alain Passard of L'Arpege in Paris who placed fourth on the list. The second placed was Magnus Nilsson of restaurant Faviken while third place was Etxebarri. Eneko Atxa of Azurmendi placed fifth while Kobe Desramaults who opened Chambre Separee last year in Gent placed 6th. Jonnie Boer from De Librije in Zwolle placed 7th. The OAD list claims to be the only restaurant ranking system that determines the experience level of the people contributing reviews to the site. Each reviewer is assigned a weight that reflects the number of restaurants he/she has visited and those restaurants’ rank on the OAD list. “While this system affords anyone who would like to participate the opportunity to do so, the final rankings reflect the opinions of reviewers who have demonstrated a higher level of … [Read more...]
‘Heroes of Oud Sluis’ to take part in 2018 Foodfest in Cadzand on 4 June
Syrco Bakker and Sergio Herman have announced that this year's Foodfest will take place on Monday June 4 in and around Strandkerk in Cadzand-Bad. This year, Syrco and Sergio have decided to invite a selection of former colleagues who worked with them at Sergio's restaurant Oud Sluis in Zeeland. They call them the 'heroes of Oud Sluis'. Most of these chefs today work in some great restaurants in the Netherlands, Belgium and even further afield such as New York and Singapore among others. Together, they will be working with beautiful Zeeland products that they had used when they worked at Oud Slouis. "We are very much looking forward to working with them on 4 June. During Foodfest, they will all make their own dish with the produce from our region," said Syrco and Sergio. 75% of the tickets for the event have already been sold out. Foodfest is a festival where in addition to art, music and inspiring talks, good food and drink takes centre stage. After two successful early … [Read more...]
City of Gastronomy festival to be held in Parma in June
Parma has announced a series of events that will be taking place this year as Italy celebrates "Year of Italian food". The main event is the City of Gastronomy Festival, an event that aims to offer a 'taste experience' and express the creativity of the region. Temporary restaurants, show cooking by chefs from all over the world and a number of meetings and discussions will be held in the heart of Parma. The event takes place in the first weekend of June. It will showcase not just the produce of Parma and the region Emilia Romagna but also those of other Italian and international cities. The festival takes place on Saturday 2 June and Sunday 3 June. The festival aims to give a 360 degrees view of the world of food focusing on traditional produce and on made in Italy with the aim of sharing knowledge and flavours. A workshop for children and young people is going to be organised in collaboration with food museums and it will be linked to food preparation, its origin and … [Read more...]