‘Hong Kong is the best place to be a chef,’ says Fabiano Palombini, although he doesn’t like Chinese desserts
- The executive chef of Castellana, a Piedmontese restaurant in Causeway Bay, talks about falling in love with food
- He moved to the city in 2018 and admires the culture and tradition of Chinese cuisine
Tell us some of your childhood memories of food. “I grew up by the sea near Rome. Since I was a child, I have always been inside the kitchen. My grandmother was always baking and my mother cooking. Every Sunday I was in the kitchen making bread, pizza, cookies and pastry dough. Taking out the pie and bread from the oven, there was this beautiful smell, something I always remember. I look for the same feeling even now; it connects me with my roots.
“When I went to culinary school, from 1990 to 1995, it was easy and super fun, as cooking is something I love to do. Up until that point I had cooked with my mother and grandmother, but I didn’t know the techniques, the chemical reactions going on. It was interesting to know the cooking process from a technical perspective and how everything connected together.”
What do you love about cooking? “Everything. When I am cooking I feel free. I don’t think about anything else and I feel creative. For me the best feeling is being the first person to arrive in the kitchen and nobody is there and you are alone with your food, and the smells from products like truffles.”
Why did you go to the United States? “Around 2006, I went to New York for a few months to work in some small restaurants, as well as at Eleven Madison Park. Then I went to Chicago, for an internship at the Alinea Group, and learned molecular cuisine. Afterwards, I went back to Europe, to Oslo. My mother is from Norway and my father from Italy. They met when my mother was in Italy on vacation.”
What do you like about Nordic food? “Norway has great food, among the best in Europe. I was there in 2010 and again in 2015. Nordic-style food has lots of vegetables, like beetroot, as well as meat and fish. It is one of the most complete cuisines. It’s also traditional in that they preserve and pickle food because of the seasons, especially in the winter when you cannot find fresh food, so you eat preserved food.”