Fabrizio Fiorani of Il Ristorante Luca Fantin, Tokyo, wins Asia's Best Pastry Chef Award
Acclaimed Italian chef Fabrizio Fiorani of Il Ristorante Luca Fantin in Tokyo is the 2019 recipient of the Asia’s Best Pastry Chef Award, sponsored by Valrhona. Fiorani was announced as this year’s winner at the awards ceremony for Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019, sponsored by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna, on Tuesday 26th March in Macao
William Drew, Group Editor of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, said: “Fabrizio Fiorani’s inspired creations reflect the chef’s upbringing and his experiences working in Italy and Japan, two countries with celebrated food cultures. His innovative desserts showcase the traditions of Italian cooking and the delicate artistry of Japanese cuisine.”
Growing up in Rome, Fiorani’s interest in desserts began as a teenager working at one of the city’s artisan gelato shops. He later developed his pastry skills in the Michelin-starred kitchens of five-star hotels, including Il Pellicano in Tuscany, and such celebrated restaurants as La Pergola in his home town and Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence. Expanding his horizons in 2013, he launched restaurants at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, and in Algarve, Portugal, for La Pergola, before moving to Tokyo.
Appointed pastry chef at Bulgari Hotels & Resorts in Tokyo and Osaka in 2015, Fiorani creates desserts for Il Ristorante Luca Fantin and the hotels’ other outlets. Artful and refined, Fiorani’s desserts seamlessly
complement chef Luca Fantin’s contemporary Italian tasting menu. Using local ingredients, Fiorani’s delicate creations play with contrasting textures and Japanese flavours. His celebrated dessert, Latte, uses raw Hokkaido milk, while Lampone 1.1 combines 11 different textures of raspberry, and he is also renowned as a chocolatier of the highest order.
Marrying striking presentations – as in the Upside Down Apple Pie or the Tiramisu Glasses – with balanced flavours that enhance the natural sweetness of a product or seek to reimagine traditional desserts through a contemporary lens, Fiorani’s dishes provide a memorable conclusion to a meal at Il Ristorante Luca Fantin.
A member of the Accademia Maestri Pasticceri Italiani (Academy of Italian Pastry Masters), Fiorani’s first cookbook, Tra L’Onirico e Il Reale (Between Dreams and Reality), was published in 2018. Featuring 60 recipes, the collection reveals his aesthetic vision, creativity and inspirations.
About the Asia’s Best Pastry Chef Award and Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants
The Asia’s Best Pastry Chef Award, sponsored by Valrhona, is voted for by the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, an influential group of over 300 leaders in the restaurant industry across Asia, each selected for their expert opinion of Asia’s restaurant scene. The Academy is also the body that creates the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants. The panel in each of the six regions is made up of food writers and critics, chefs, restaurateurs and highly regarded ‘gastronomes’. Members list their choices in order of preference, based on their best restaurant experiences of the previous 18 months. There is no pre-determined checklist of criteria, but there are strict voting rules.
For the 2019 edition, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants is again working with professional services consultancy Deloitte as its official independent adjudication partner. The adjudication by Deloitte ensures that the
integrity and authenticity of the voting process and the resulting list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants are protected. To see more details on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants voting process, visit http://www.theworlds50best.com/asia/en/our-manifesto.html
28th March 2019
