Venturini Baldini, premium Italian sparkling wine producer based in Emilia-Romagna, has announced that Riccardo Cotarella has officially joined its winemaking team as Consulting Winemaker. Riccardo Cotarella will take on the role previously held by Carlo Ferrini who has acted as Venturini Baldini’s Consulting Winemaker for the last five years. Bringing decades of wine experience and expertise in Italian winemaking, Cotarella and his team led by Pier Paolo Chiasso will work alongside the longstanding team at Venturini Baldini to produce the winery’s 100% organic Lambrusco wines. Further, Venturini Baldini is the first winery specializing in Lambrusco that Cotarella will work on as winemaker. Over the past five years, the estate that is based on a 321-acre property in the food valley of Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy has been elevated to new heights through the ownership of Julia and Giuseppe Prestia. As Lambrusco has enjoyed a recent revitalization, Venturini Baldini has … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2021
Kevin Lejeune of restaurant La Canne en Ville sets shop at Steigenberger Wiltcher’s for a month
BRUSSELS: Restaurants have been closed since the end of October and for the time being there seems to be no indication of when they will be allowed to reopen. However, a leading hotel in Brussels has teamed up with young and upcoming chef Kevin Lejeune of restaurant La Canne en Ville to offer a dining experience within the hotel throughout the month of March until Easter. The initiative is a collaboration between Steigenberger Wiltcher's and Gault and Millau young chef of the year Kevin Lejeune. The chef and his team will elevate room service to a real evening 'as if you are in a restaurant'. Many of the rooms on the first floor of the hotel have been converted into individual dining rooms so that residents of the family rooms and suites can enjoy a stay with their family or as a couple without having to dine next to their bed. The maitre d'hotel of La Canne en Ville (Kevin's restaurant) will welcome guests throughout the month. A four-course menu will be served following … [Read more...]
The time for creativity is now – David Ghysels
BRUSSELS: The phone rings. David Ghysels, the man behind Hakuna Matata, an advertising and communications agency specialised around food brings out his phone to switch it off. It is an old Nokia. One rarely seen nowadays. How can the man behind Dinner in the Sky and a communications agency use a phone like this, I wonder. He tells me without any prompting or asking that he does not like distractions and prefers to have the time to make things happen by accident. “Bring two ideas that have nothing to do with each other and that’s were creation happens. A guy working in communication and gastronomy and someone working with cranes might not have much in common but this was what led to Dinner in the Sky,” he said. “The reason I don’t have a smart phone is that I like to spend time exploring, I prefer to pick up a magazine if I am at the doctor. Same for music, I prefer to listen to the radio than to a playlist. When you leave space for creativity, you find that this is when … [Read more...]
JP McMahon launches virtual cookery school for kids
GALWAY: JP McMahon, the chef of Michelin starred restaurant Aniar as well as founder of Food on the Edge has announced he will host an eight-week cookery course for kids aged between 8 and 16 starting 10 April. The course will teach children some crowd-pleasing and family friendly food such as lasagna, pancakes, bread and even roast chicken. The classes will be held virtually via Zoom each Saturday morning from 11am to 1pm. Budding young chefs can pre-book to attend the full course that is priced at EUR 250 or choose to attend individual classes for EUR 35 per session with ingredients list and required tools shared in advance. Students have the option either to cook together with JP or else to tun into the class later and putting the learnings into practice on their own when the course has finished. With lockdown restrictions making it difficult for kids to attend their usual extra-curricular activities, JP's virtual course gives kids an entertaining, interactive and … [Read more...]
Amsterdam to host 5th edition of the Best Chef Awards in September
The city of Amsterdam will host the 5th The Best Chef Awards that will take place on September 13, 14 and 15. Under the slogan ‘Back to Live. Back to Reality’, the awards will take place after the virtual 2020 edition and the events in Warsaw in 2017, Milan in 2018 and Barcelona in 2019. “Last year didn’t stop us. We actually worked harder to adapt and provide chefs and restaurants all over the world with a platform to stay connected and share information with each other and with the public. Our big hope for this year is for our community to be able to meet in person again”, Joanna Slusarczyk, one of the creators of The Best Chef Awards said. This year’s event includes Food Meets Science, Area Talks and a few new activities which end with the grand Awards Gala that continue to honour the many talented chefs that create the best food experiences around the world. The format for the year is being changed. Starting from 25 February and for 100 days, the Best Chef will announce … [Read more...]
Eight top chefs cook with Feeding Hong Kong to highlight food insecurity in the city
HONG KONG: Eight star chefs joined Feeding Hong Kong earlier this month to discover the brutal reality faced by more than a million people in the city. With seven Michelin stars between them, the chefs learnt why food insecurity has condemned a huge swathe of the city's population to have little or nothing special to eat at Chinese New Year, a time that usually celebrates prosperity and abundance. Every day, 3,600 tonnes of food waste are sent to landfills in Hong Kong, while more than one million people live in poverty struggling to afford nutritous meals. At the Feeding Hong Kong's Yau Tong headquarters, the eight chefs taking part were Vicky Lau from TATE Dining Room, Vicky Cheng from VEA, Nate Green from Henry, Agustin Balbi from ANDO, Grégoire Michaud from Bakehouse, Jowett Yu from Ho Lee Fook, Uwe Opocensky from Petrus and Olivier Elzer from L'Envol. First they learnt how Feeding Hong Kong support the supply of 250,000 meals per month, before they then helped to pack … [Read more...]
2 cocktails for Valentine’s Day with Royal Belgian Caviar
BRUSSELS: Glen Ramaekers, chef and a fervent mixologist of Brussels restaurant Chez Pias has created two cocktails for Valentines Day in collaboration with Belgian caviar producer Royal Belgian Caviar. Royal Belgian caviar is a company that has been producing top quality caviar for the past years serving some of the best restaurants not only in Belgium but also around the world. Over the past months, the 'black gold' company has been seen as a way of supporting the local economy. " Using or serving Belgian caviar is a way of making a declaration. You are not only supporting the local economy but you are also choosing real flavour and authenticity," said Cedric Paquet, spokesman of the Belgian company. The company has been producing caviar for the past 30 years and to date they are the only Belgian producer. "The closure of the restaurant sector during the pandemic has impacted our business but we have seen an increased interest from Belgian consumers for our products which … [Read more...]
New concept BABU opens as pop-up at L.E.S.S Eatery in Bruges
BRUGES: If you are in Bruges on a Friday or Saturday during the pandemic, you would do well to visit BABU, the new pop-up bunner created by Gert de Mangeleer and Joachim Boudens. On the t'Zand at L.E.S.S. Eatery, the duo behind the former three Michelin star restaurant Hertog Jan have been busy preparing a new concept that is set to open permanently in a city in Belgium when the lockdowns are over. Despite one hand in a cast due to a mountain biking incident a few weeks ago, you can still find Gert preparing the 'bunners' as they are called. It might be the first 'bunner' in the world to sit in a one Michelin star restaurant, at least momentarily. "We want to learn the process, get feedback, use the data to gain insights for our permanent location." Babu is inspired by the creative and restless travelling mind of Gert de Mangeleer who together with Joachim Boudens are the creative minds behind the Hertog Jan *** Restaurant Group. "We took inspiration from the steamed … [Read more...]
Everything must change – a new book by Yannick Alléno
French chef Yannick Alléno has just launched a new book in French called "Tout doit changer" or Everything must change. During the past few months, the chef of the Pavillion Ledoyen in Paris and Cheval Blanc in Courchevel among other establishments has used the time to reflect on the future of fine dining restaurants and how they need to transform themselves. The result is a book that discusses the future of fine dining and gastronomy. It looks at the importance of the well-being of staff, how to run a restaurant like a modern business and how to really address the needs of customers by starting a conversation before they arrive at the restaurant. The book is written in the form of a conversation with Erik Perey. The French chef said that everything started with his ill famous comments during a congress organised by World's 50 Best in Paris when responding to a question about women in fine dining restaurants he said that many only wanted to work at noon because in the evening … [Read more...]