11 TALENT, PASSION, CREATIVITY Annalisa Borella isn’t just a pastry chef, she’s a creative artist. For her pastry is more than a job, it’s a form of expression. She’s a woman who has embarked on a journey that - if you’re always on the lookout for the beautiful and the good - never ends. Born in Brescia in 1984, she boasts a truly prestigious curriculum. Since she was a teenager she has been attracted to art and its ability to express energy and freedom. So to meet her parents’ expectations without denying her penchant for art, she graduated from a scientific high school with an artistic focus. After moving to Rome, she chose dance as her form of creative expression. She is attracted to movement, to the plasticity of bodies that are freed from all constraints. She became a professional dancer, all the while exploring a new passion, cooking for herself and friends. Important milestones The desire for a child and diminishing opportunities to work drove her to follow her love for sweets, becoming a cake designer. She achieved great success and so decided to perfect her technique by enrolling at the Les Chef Blancs school directed by Igles Corelli. Here she learned from Loretta Fanella and Andrea De Bellis, sharing By Monica Viani ideas and passions. It was her first encounter with modern pastry. A true breakthrough. From Andrea De Bellis she learned the latest trends of international pastry, while Loretta Fanella guided her on an exploration of plated desserts. After returning to Brescia, she applied to work as a pastry chef at the best restaurants. One of these was Albereta, at that time directed by Gualtiero Marchesi, the Master of Italian cuisine. Her application was accepted and so she had the chance to work with a man who Annalisa describes as “a personality beyond classification, brilliant, capable of expressing himself in a thousand ways”. On a technical level the job taught her simplicity, while on a human level she learned how to create something to give to others. Annalisa followed Marchesi to Marchesino, but soon she felt the need to gain experience abroad, and so she participated in an internship with the Roca brothers. For her it meant rethinking her education, calling into question all the rules she’d learned. Jordi Roca is a pastry chef who expresses himself with ex-
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