PastryChef Isabella Potì. Today we interviewed for you the very young PastryChef Isabella Potì, as well as sous chef of the Ristorante Bros di Lecce, led by Isabella herself and her partner ,Chef Floriano Pellegrino. A young couple, but already successful. That’s right, because there were several awards received by both.
For Isabella, she received an award as Chef Sud Sud and in the Performance Award of the Year for the Espresso Guides, the inclusion on the list of the 20 best pastry chefs for Gambero Rosso, and especially the mention on Forbes, in the 30 under 30 list , the one that rewards the most talented young people in Europe.
PastryChef Isabella Potì
Isabella was formed at Claude Bosi in London and by Martin Berasategui and Paco Torreblanca, in Spain. In 2015 she returned to Italy to be part of the adventure of the Ristorante Bros. In 2017 she started again for new experiences, passing through the brigades of Mauro Colagreco in her restaurant Mirazur, and of Rasmus Kofoed at Geranium, in Denmark.
PastryChef Isabella Potì
The cuisine of Bros is based on the culinary tradition of Salento, but with an innovative touch. In their restaurant it is also possible to book the “Impossible Dinners”. During these dinners, Chef Stellati are hosted, sharing their recipes with only 30 guests.
Here are the answers to the questions we have asked Isabella Potì.
How was your passion for pastry born?
PastryChef Isabella Potì
My passion for pastry was born in the most banal and simple way possible. Since I was a child, I helped my mother and my grandmother to prepare home-made desserts for the family, I had a lot of fun and often I was left alone to experiment with desserts whose results were not always satisfactory. I grew up continuing to have fun in this way, until the moment when I realized that what was a simple passion I wanted, strongly, to become a real job.
What was your professional training path?
After attending a simple Istituto Alberghiero in Lecce, I started traveling among the most important stellar kitchens in Europe. A courageous choice that forced me to leave home and family from a very young age in order to experience the world of “great” and great chefs. The half-empty baggage with which I left, slowly began to fill with experience, knowledge and maturity. From that moment on, my training has taken a totally different breath, he has learned very important lessons: from constancy to determination, from attention to detail to extreme cleanliness, from grouping to feeling like a real family. I bring all this with me every day in my kitchen.
She is currently the Sous-Chef of the Ristorante Bros. How important is pastry in a restaurant?
PastryChef Isabella Potì
Pastry in a restaurant is absolutely essential. A restaurant like ours, allows its customers to experience a sensory and taste from the first to the last moment. Desserts can only be the logical, conclusive and explosive consequence of a journey that must necessarily end in the enthusiasm and sweetness of the palate.
Her companion , Chef Floriano Pellegrino of the Ristorante Bros in Lecce, where he works. How is it to share professional and work life at the same time?
PastryChef Isabella Potì
Floriano is my life and my work partner for several years now. We have slowly discovered all the tricks possible to try to distinguish private life from work: we have learned to differentiate roles and responsibilities, we leave out of our kitchen everything that work is not and vice versa.
The secret is also to support and stimulate each other every day.
What are your professional plans for the future?
PastryChef Isabella Potì
The plans for the future are many, as well as ideas and dreams in the drawer. We are very young and for this reason ambitious and optimistic: to achieve all the goals we set ourselves every day, we work tirelessly and do not lose sight of our focus.
We take more and more awareness of what we are, but we never stop working on ourselves to improve ourselves: I think this is the right way to realize every wish expressed !!!
So you just have to go from the Bros Restaurant in Lecce, to taste the delicacies prepared by Isabella Potì and Floriano Pellegrino.