If you think Girona looks like something out of a fairytale, you’re on the right track. Its Barri Vell, or old town, is known for its cobbled lanes and beautifu
The Drinks Business
01 March 2021 By Alice Liang
Jordi Roca, the famed pastry chef of the three-Michelin-star El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, is launching a pop-up chocolate shop in Hong Kong.
Opened last year in Girona, Spain, Casa Cacao is a luxury chocolatier owned by chef Roca, who won the inaugural ‘World’s Best Pastry Chef’ award from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards in 2014.
The shop combines a chocolate factory, shop and café with the Hotel Casa Cacao on its upper floors, directed by another member of the Roca family, Anna Payet.
Adopting a bean-to-bar philosophy that echoes the farm-to-table movement, chef Roca and his team source selected cacao beans from Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, the Dominican Republic and India.
How is Nobu Matsuhisa taking the dining destination trend to new heights? Celebrity chefs Alain Ducasse, Simon Rogan and Michael Caines all have their own branded hotels already Nobu Ryokan Malibu is a Japanese-style retreat on the Californian coast. Photo: Nobu
I met chef and restaurateur Nobu Matsuhisa for the first time in 2013, just after his first Nobu Hotel opened in Las Vegas. He was talking about building many more with his business partner Robert De Niro, so I asked him why he wanted to get into the hotel business anyway. He replied in his usual jovial manner: To house my restaurants. Over the seven years since, he has opened 13 hotels, most recently in London and Warsaw, with six more due this year.