Chef Enrico Bartolini on his menu for Sepa in Mid-Levels

"When I was three years old, I cooked my first biscuit alone. It wasn't a true pastry: it was flour, sugar and eggs, blended together and put in the oven. But that [culinary] instinct drives me. My original plan was to make shoes with my father - he was a shoemaker. He asked me not to continue into his profession because he didn't think the business could survive. So I chose to be a cook. I went to a culinary school near Florence and finished my diploma when I was 18. My first job was with Mark Page at the Royal Commonwealth Club, in London. I'm from Tuscany but for the past 15 years I've been living in London, France and now Milan. When I started my first restaurant, I was 25 years old."

"I like elegance of flavours and we try to give our guests a nice ambience. In the kitchen, we're looking for each ingredient's history, quality and balance. My most famous dish is a risotto with a beetroot and gorgonzola sauce, although I don't think it's the best. My best changes every day."

"The ideas are similar: both are modern restaurants serving classic recipes with traditional flavours. But Devero is fine dining whereas at Sepa we offer a casual experience. The menu at Sepa is based on traditional recipes from Venice but we reinterpret them in a contemporary way. Sepa serves cicheti [small dishes to be shared] and the idea of a bacaro is to give a bite size of different specialties from the Venetian culinary landscape. It's our philosophy: the dishes are big enough to share but not too big."

"For Giacomo [Marzotto, co-owner of Sepa with Catalunya's Gerald Li], the smoked eel pasta drives him nuts. For me, I love the chicken. Because it's unusual to eat the bird in Italy, it surprises me when the skin is perfectly crispy and the meat very moist.

"The most important dish here is our slow-cooked sepa ["cuttlefish", in the Venetian dialect] with black ink and served with potato in an emulsion with olive oil. We call the restaurant Sepa because it's a common ingredient in both Cantonese and Venetian gastronomy."

"I never cook at home. I'm at the restaurant from 8am till midnight, but occasionally I love to make simple things like anchovies, butter and bread, or pasta with tomato."