How Italian chef found his place in Michelin-star Tokyo kitchen, once he’d got over his culture shock
- Luca Fantin, chef de cuisine of Il Ristorante, in the Bulgari hotel, reveals he knew next to nothing about Japan when he first arrived in the country that was to become his home, including how to use chopsticks
How does Hong Kong differ from Tokyo? “The energy here – it is different from Tokyo, which feels more like a town, very organised, not noisy or crazy busy. In Hong Kong, people are always in a hurry, and talk to each other more with expressions, like Italians. I like to eat the Peking duck, dumplings, fried rice, barbecue pork, tapioca pudding with mango.”
What are your childhood memories of food? “My grandma and mom cooked at home and as a family we ate together every day. My hometown, Treviso [in northern Italy], is in the countryside, and we had a farm where we ate chicken, rabbit, vegetables – very healthy food. My grandma was a very good cook and made traditional Italian food. Once a week we would have baccalà, Vicentina style – salt-dried cod fish marinated in milk and cooked with onions until it becomes creamy.”
How did you become a chef? “When I was 13, I washed dishes in a pizzeria for the summer. A year later I worked as a waiter in a trattoria but I was too shy to talk to customers. The owner suggested I go into the kitchen, so I started peeling potatoes. When I was 15, I started a five-year culinary programme – three years in, I decided to become a chef.
“At 18, they sent me to Michelin two-star Al Bersagliere, in Mantua, for an internship. I didn’t know what Michelin was – I only knew about the hotel star ratings so I wondered why I was sent to a two-star hotel. I had worked for a three-star hotel and the restaurant was terrible. But here it was a different world and I fell in love with this place.
“I realised I needed to improve myself in fine dining. I didn’t have money to buy culinary books so I had to save up. To me they were fascinating because there was perfection and elegance behind each plate, explaining why you need to cook this way or cut this way. No one had explained that to me before.”
What did you learn from working for Heinz Beck, of the three-Michelin-starred La Pergola, in Rome? “He would always say, ‘Are you cooking for the customer or the chef? The customers come to your restaurant again and again. With chefs you want to impress them with a new technique or concept. This restaurant is for customers, not chefs.’”