<B>The secret recipe </B>

Putting emphasis on quality, this Italian chef believes in the Mauritian smile. He considers it an aspect of our hospitality trade that should be preserved.

“When I was a teenager, I followed the example of my father in the kitchen as if it was just a game.” But what was a natural skill and hobby for young Fabio has turned into a passion for cooking. A passion which has never faded.

Overseeing his staff, our Italian chef consultant at Le Victoria Hotel, Pointe-aux-Piments, loves the kitchen too much to let a bad mood interfere with its smooth running! “You need psychology to make someone understand he can improve himself. In that way you may hope to obtain results in the long-term.” Fabio himself was an apprentice to leading chefs in prestigious Italian kitchens like those of the Rome-based Hotel Eden Méridienne, whose chef worked for the White House, Lady Diana, or Ristorante Perbellini in Verona, until he came to Mauritius in 1998.

After graduating from culinary school in Venice and spending 16 years in catering, this son of a pastry-cook in the renowned ski station of Cortina d’Ampezzo, in Venetia, is involved in a constant search for creative recipes and quality meals. “Today, it is a must to provide safe food, good food. Part of my work at Beachcomber is to apply a policy of safe quality food. Prices may be high in Mauritius. But we give value for money.”

Yet Fabio, who shared his expertise in Dubai from 2000 to 2002 and was invited to show his talents at the opening of Hotel Sainte-Anne Resorts SPA, Seychelles, in 2002, was a bit disappointed when he came back in June : “It is sad to say but Mauritians are losing their smile which has always been most precious for tourists and foreigners. I worked in Dubai for four restaurants in the City, catering for 2,500 persons, but that unique hospitality and smile, I found only here.”

Fabio is an advocate of service. “There are other destinations with beaches and comparable resorts. But, having travelled a lot, I can say that they just do not stand comparison with the high level Mauritius has reached.”

Fabio has mixed with different people. Fortunately, he is gifted for languages. His French was limited to a few words like “mirepoix” or “concassée”, a couple of years ago. Now he speaks it fluently. At 18, he left his parents to try his luck in London - “I pretended I had got a job there so they would let me go. I didn’t speak a word of English.” Yet he learnt painstakingly and mastered the language that is now his main means of communication.

His meeting with Feline at Sainte-Anne Hotel in Seychelles was also blessed by the language of Shakespeare… Feline who, before becoming Mrs De Poli, was a nurse at… another Sainte-Anne, the famous psychiatric hospital in Paris! On this, Fabio comments : “I told her there’s no great difference: we are all working like madmen”. After all, creative cooking is like life; it needs its own grain de folie to flourish!