Riccardo Belalera, one of the world’s world stars and a world -class pastry shop, is revolutionizing the pastry in coastal cruises with its sensational desserts. As one of the best pastry chefs and Italian pastry ambassador (Apei), it represents the highest quality and has received numerous awards. Discover with him the world pastry trends: Interview and analysis! He learned from the television star and the most famous pastry team in Italy, Iginio Massari. As Corporate Pastry and Bakery Chef of Costa Cruises, it ensures that more than 12,000 of its excellent creations leave floating pastries every day. Their desserts represent high world -class pastry in high seas. I interviewed Riccardo Belalera about pastry trends:
Riccardo, what fascinates you of the pastry chef and what is your philosophy?
It’s fantastic to be a pastry chef! You put a smile on everyone’s face. A dessert is the gold brooch of each meal. Each meal ends with something sweet and beautiful. We pastors try to pamper everyone and sweeten their world. That is wonderful, right? My philosophy is to transmit emotions. A good dessert is magical, he plays with flavors and evokes beautiful feelings and memories. My curiosity is the driving force behind my creativity. I am in constant search for innovations, studying and researching raw materials to combine aesthetics and flavor, from traditional desserts to the most innovative creations. The presentation and final composition of a dessert is not only a matter of creativity, but above all of the balance between texture, softness and acidity. For me the pastry is precision, ingenuity and creativity, even art.
“A good dessert is magical, he plays with flavors and evokes beautiful feelings and memories,” says Maestro Riccardo Belalera. PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: MATTEO LINARELLO
Flavors and appearance: Maestro Riccardo Belalera perfectly dominates the art of pastry! PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: MATTEO LINARELLO
Innovation and tradition are the main ingredients of your dessert creations. I have noticed that you prefer the first to tradition, or is it just my impression?
That is true, and it is a fact that excess innovation shows that there is still dissatisfaction in the bases with what has been achieved. Innovation is only innovation when a successful product is achieved and tradition does not represent an insurmountable obstacle, but the origin and history from which it can be left for a development that takes into account technological and nutritional changes. I believe that excess innovation creates an inner imbalance and represents a lack of personal balance and satisfaction, similar to a person who breaks several times because he looks for an ideal couple that he will never find.
Without tradition there is no innovation. PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: MATTEO LINARELLO
The television star and the most famous pastry teacher in Italy, Iginio Massari, was Riccardo Belalera’s mentor and remains his partner until today. PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: Miguel Ángel Ingroso, Apei
What trends are there in style, design and ingredients?
There is no innovation without tradition: the new bakery must be able to combine the exotic with the traditional/regional, transforming traditional recipes into an authentic explosion of completely new flavors. The pastry is consolidating as the most creative and dynamic scope of the international culinary landscape.
What are the new Trends of Taste in Pastry?
Two flavor trends are currently conquering the world of desserts: Chocolate Ruby and Yuzu. High pastry has been working with both for a long time. They have currently become an indispensable part of desserts. The variety of “Rubí” chocolate is a special cocoa grain that grows in Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana and Ivory Coast. However, the unusual is not the origin but the color. Ruby is a new type of chocolate along with black chocolate, with milk and white. Although it seems that white chocolate has been artificially colored, Callebaut has invented an innovation with Ruby. Ruby chocolate has an intense fruity aroma and combines harmoniously with a slightly acidic note. It is comparable to a soft raspberry flavor. Yuzu is also very fashionable. Yuzu’s taste experience is unmistakable. Often the citrus fruit with lemon or tangerine is associated, but it is not. Yuzu has an acidic and fresh note that reminds of lemons, but the taste of the fruit tends more towards grapefruit or grapefruit. There is always an acid or bitter component. This variety of fruit flavors makes Yuzo trend.
For Belara, precision is one of the important components in the bakery.
Belalera desserts and cakes: A dream both in appearance and flavor!
What taste experiences, in addition to new flavors, are shaping the pastry scene?
Art consists in developing new taste experiences from traditions and family dishes and combining them in harmony. A dessert must surprise and delight. A good bakery pleases all tastes and skillfully mixing different flavors. Diversity instead of homogeneity. Sweet and salty components are mixed. The tendency of sweet and spicy taste becomes “sweet +”! Different cultures and traditions are mixed, even on the dessert dish. The Umami has reached the bakery. At this point everyone knows the sweet and salty components. The next step is to recreate herbs and vegetables in unique forms. The sensory trip of enjoyment is currently being reinterpreted, and only begins with the aromas.
So are flavors just a part of a good dessert? What else makes a dessert good?
Various sensory experiences! The perfect harmony of the different flavors determines the taste experience. The sensory experience of a dessert must please the palate and the soul equally … and surprise! A good dessert perfectly balances the soft and crispy elements and harmonizes flavors with sweetness and acidity.
Yes, of course, if you follow the rules! Because if the rules are written but they are not read, you will not get an excellent result in response. You know, when we talk about a “technological” product we rely on numbers, and those numbers, we have to meet not only the first two, but all, until the end.
What is behind the “Newsalgia” trend?
Reversion! Memories of favorite childhood desserts are unique and transmit a feeling of familiarity and security. Today, connoisseurs seek family desserts that, in combination with innovative flavor components, offer a special trip to their own past and emotions. We love the flavors of our childhood, we want to feel and savor memories again and surprise ourselves with traditional recipes.
“Ricordo d’Efanzia” is the name of this dessert of Belalera and embodies memories of childhood. PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS: MATTEO LINARELLO
Is there a sensitivity towards sustainability in the bakery and, above all, how is it changing or needs to change your work so that the entire production process is more sustainable?
Sustainability is a great challenge for all companies, not only of the retail and environmental sector: with the aim of creating value for people, but also for those who have an economic interest in the company, we are committed today to respect the processing of raw materials, reduce waste and avoid plastic.
How do the same road and chefs go today?
To a certain extent they go hand in hand, then of course they separate because they have different origins: the dessert is the “reward food”, the other, in terms of their needs, is the “food” whose purpose is to nourish us. Of course, the eye also eats, and who only eats to satisfy their hunger will never experience certain pleasures. The pastry is very suitable for elegant presentations that are not always possible in the kitchen, although current kitchens have taken great steps in this regard. If an apprentice were first pastry chef and then cook, he would be able to innovation. The ability to cook well, on the other hand, is innate, and it is essential Underline that what is proven today and is true can be questioned in the future. This will increasingly influence our diet. Let us think, for example, that some additives that thirty years ago were prohibited today are used in medicine. Nutrition is the first medicine that a person receives since it is born, and if he eats according to the right patterns and in the appropriate amounts, he can live better in the future.
“The magic of the good desserts resides above all to understand and know the raw material and then try to understand people, which is something much more complex.”
What do you think of communication in your “new thousand forms”, considering your presence in social networks and mass media?
Communication always serves and always serves, today is used to communicate who you are and what you want to be, and also in our sector … if you claim that you know how to make excellent desserts but the public rejects you, here it is more than evident that the statements do not correspond to reality.
What is the magic of desserts?
Magic is above all to understand and know raw materials and then try to understand people, which is something much more complex. I try not to do what I like except what others like.
One last question, Riccardo: Which of your desserts best shows your skills and therefore has a special personal touch?
That does not exist because I always put the same amount of me in each new dessert creation. I always use everything I have learned over the years.
Riccardo, thank you very much for this interview.
Whoever wants to know the World Pastry Star and its extraordinary creations will be able to try their desserts aboard Costa Cruises. Special culinary cruises are also periodically performed.
The Sicilian Riccardo Belalera constantly creates new lines of top quality desserts. Informative puzzle about the teacher Riccardo Bellarariccardo Belalera, born in 1972 in Modica, Sicilia, is the corporate chef Paiser and Chef Panadero de Costa Cociera. His career, characterized by passion, crafts and meetings with pastry teachers such as Iginio Massari, took him to the cruises in 2001 and Costa Crociere Spa since 2012. Awarded multiple times and World Pastry Star, he is revolutionizing the pastry on the high seas, raising it to the level of high pastry and delighting thousands of guests every day in ten ships. With a dedicated team of more than 300 employees, the best Italian ingredients and tireless creativity, Belalera produces desserts of the highest level. His perfection and visible passion in each of his creations make each dessert a unique culinary experience.
This article was reproduced with authorization from the author.
Photographs credit: Miguel Ángel Ingroso, Apei
Tanja Neumann is a journalist based on Krefeld (Germany) “in the middle between Italy and Austria” as she defines, and writes about her passions in her blog, Vielweib on Tour, where she has achieved a vast number of followers and in which she recounts in detail her select journeys that join pleasure, culinary delights, cruises, walks through the city, luxury, luxury experience extraordinary, wellness, breaks, and even tours of road convertible.
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