Pastry Chef Isabella Potì

Pastrychef Isabella Potì

Today we interviewed for you the very young PastryChef Isabella Potì, as well as sous chef of the Bros Restaurant in Lecce, led by Isabella herself and her partner and Chef Floriano Pellegrino. A young but already successful couple. That's right, because the awards received by both of them were different. Performance of the year for the Espresso Guides, the inclusion in the list of 20 best pastry chefs for Gambero Rosso, and above all the mention on Forbes, in the 30 under 30 list, the one that rewards the most talented young people of Europe.

PastryChef Isabella Potì trained with Claude Bosi in London and with Martin Berasategui and Paco Torreblanca, Spain. In 2015 she returned to Italy to be part of the adventure of the Bros Restaurant. In 2017 she left again for new experiences, joining the brigades of Mauro Colagreco in his 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 “Impossible Dinners”. During these dinners, Starred Chefs are hosted, who share their recipes with only 30 guests.

Below are the answers to the questions we asked pastrychef Isabella Potì.

How did your passion for pastry born?

My passion for pastry was born in the most banal and simple way possible. Ever since I was a little girl, I helped my mother and grandmother prepare homemade desserts for the family, I had a lot of fun and was often 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 in which I understood that what was a simple passion I strongly wanted to become a real profession.

Qual was your professional training path?

After attending a simple Hotel Institute in Lecce, I started traveling among the most important starred kitchens in Europe. A courageous choice that forced me to leave home and family at a very young age in order to experience the world of "grown-ups" and great chefs. The half-empty baggage with which I started, slowly began to fill with experience, knowledge and maturity.

From that moment on, my training took on a totally different flavor and drew very important lessons from it: from perseverance to determination, from attention to detail to extreme cleanliness, from being a group to feeling like a real family. I carry all this with me every day in my kitchen.

You are currently the Sous-Chef of the Bros Restaurant. How important is the pastry shop within a restaurant?

The pastry shop within a restaurant is absolutely fundamental. A restaurant like ours allows its customers to live a sensorial and gustatory experience 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.

She is the partner of Chef Floriano Pellegrino of the Bros Restaurant in Lecce, where she works. What is it like to share professional and work life at the same time?

Floriano has been my life and work partner for several years now. We have gradually discovered all the possible tricks to try to distinguish private life from working life: we have learned to differentiate roles and responsibilities, we leave everything that is not work out of our kitchen and vice versa.

The secret also lies in supporting and stimulating each other every day.

What are your professional plans for the future?

There are many plans for the future, as are the ideas and dreams in the drawer.We are very young and therefore super 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 become increasingly aware of who we are without however ever stopping working on ourselves to improve ourselves: I believe that this is the right way to realize every wish expressed!!!

Don't worry about it. so all that remains is to stop by the Bros restaurant in Lecce, to taste the delicacies prepared by the pastry chef Isabella Potì and Floriano Pellegrino.