Fire, flavour and a rooftop warm-up: Meeting the chefs before Taste of Abu Dhabi

Detailed summary

Just ahead of the two-day event, we caught up with the chefs Add as a preferred source on Google Gino D’Acampo with Frederic Casagrande, the founder of Smoking Beards. Food…

Food festivals tend to be judged by their opening day: The queues, the noise, the first plates handed over the counter. Much of what makes them work, though, happens the night before, when the cooks meet without an audience.

Last night, on the rooftop of the WB Abu Dhabi, Curio Collection by Hilton, the chefs of Taste of Abu Dhabi had that evening to themselves. The sun went down over Yas Island, and the conversation turned to the days ahead: what they planned to cook, what they hoped to share, and who would be coming to watch.

Celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo has done this kind of event many times, and it shows in how relaxed he is. Even so, he talks about Abu Dhabi with something closer to gratitude than routine.

“Being in Abu Dhabi, where you get the best international chefs in the world, is a privilege for me,” he said. Then he gave a more practical reason he values the event. Top chefs spend most of their working lives in their own kitchens, he explained, and seldom see each other. “We don’t often get the chance to spend time with chefs who come from all over the world,” he said. “We can talk about new ideas, new food trends. I just love it.”

What he values most, though, isn’t the time with other chefs. It’s the time with the public. Television reaches millions of people, but it doesn’t let them talk back. Festivals do. “When the fans come in and chat to me, ask for pictures, ask me culinary questions, that’s the direct contact I don’t often get,” he said. For a chef whose career has largely been built on screen, that personal contact is the main draw. “Taste of Abu Dhabi,” he said, “is the perfect way to do it.”

Chef Frederic Casagrande’s way into cooking had more to do with weather than with training.

He grew up in Northern France, which he described simply: “very windy, cold, rainy.” In 2008 he moved to the UAE and found himself with something he’d never had before. “I suddenly had a backyard and 365 days of sun,” he said. “So I started grilling.”

He’s quick to add…

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