Italian chef puts Chinese caviar in the spotlight

Cepe restaurant's chef Fabio Nompleggio developed his passion for food watching his grandmother cook in the family's Rome kitchen. Since then, gigs in prestigious restaurants from Milan to Singapore have shaped his embrace of fine dining - which this month shines in a savory caviar menu.

Caviar, the "soft gold" with a history of more than 2,000 years, is gaining acceptance in China, where immense farms like the Hangzhou Qiandaohu Xunlong Sci-tech Company facility on Qiandao Lake now rank among the world's top producers. In that vast manmade lake developed for hydro power near Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, the company says it produces 60 tons of fish roe annually - about 30 percent of the global caviar business.

Caviar from China?