Across China, Bombana is Italian for truffle

Chef from Bergamo in northern Italy has built his fine dining establishments in Hong Kong and Shanghai around the pungent fungal delicacy

It has been less than a decade since truffles became widely popular among fine diners in China, and a 52-year-old Bergamo native from northern Italy can largely be credited with the development.

Chef and restaurateur Umberto Bombana, who opened the 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana restaurant in Hong Kong's Central in 2010, made his name a virtual synonym for truffles in Hong Kong starting in the 1990s.

The restaurant's name is, in part, a tribute to Bombana's favorite Italian film director Federico Fellini's 1963 autobiographical movie 8 1/2. Within two years, the restaurant earned three Michelin stars, becoming the first Italian restaurant outside Italy to win three stars.

After almost 20 years in Asia, Bombana made his first appearance in the Chinese mainland, opening the 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana Shanghai in the northern portion of the historic Bund.

On March 12, Bombana hosted this year's version of what has become one of the premier gastronomic events for Shanghai's beautiful (and wealthy) people. The chef offered a one-night, five-course dinner with black truffles from France appearing from the appetizer to the dessert.

The dinner, 1,688 yuan ($272; 253 euros) plus 10 percent per person, was sold out one month before the dinner.

The 105 guests who reserved a seat that night had slices of fragrant truffle shaved a la minute tableside by Bombana.

"Truffle is amazing, and they (Chinese people) know how to enjoy it," he said before the night of the dinner.

Bombana arrived in Hong Kong in 1993 at the invitation of the former Ritz Carlton to run its Italian restaurant, Toscana, which featured refined central Italian cooking. It became a favorite of expatriate bankers and "anyone who had a penchant for genuine Italian cuisines", Bombana says.

By 2008, the five-star hotel was closed and its site, in the center of Hong Kong's business district, was converted to office space. After working on other projects, he opened his first 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in the same district where he previously worked.

Bombana compared running a restaurant of his own to driving a Ferrari, while partnering with a hotel feels more like driving a bus.

His timing would appear to create many challenges. Hundreds of new restaurants are opening every year in the financial capital of the country. And perhaps most critically, since the end of 2012, months after Bombana's Shanghai restaurant opened, the Chinese government has vigorously pursued a frugality campaign, strictly banning any form of "extravagant spending or dining" with public money.

At his Shanghai restaurant, the average cost per person of a three-course meal is about 1,200 yuan, while the minimum monthly wage in the city is 1,820 yuan.

Chef Bombana's solution was to keep his standards high, refusing to compromise the Italian identity of his fare.

"I don't change the style because we are in Shanghai or Beijing. I do my best, and people come to me for the best Italian food," he says.

"If it tastes beautiful, it tastes beautiful for everyone," he adds.

A man of few words, Bombana colloquially uses the word "beautiful" to show appreciation for almost everything in his kitchen and restaurant: beautiful vegetables, beautiful olive oil, beautiful taste and a beautiful meal.

Furnished with fluffy carpet, broken mirror mosaic ceilings and a glass-walled wine cellar, his Shanghai location enjoys a majestic view of Huangpu River and the city's soaring skyline across the river in the Pudong New Area.

"Many of our people dined in our restaurant in Hong Kong last week, and this week in Shanghai. The crowd here is always on the move, and they come to my place for nothing but Italian cuisine," he says.

The chef opened a restaurant in Beijing, Opera Bombana, in March 2013 at the Parkview Green Fang Cao Di shopping mall.

In China, culinary traditions go back thousands of years, leaving its people with a well-informed palate, Bombana notes.

Take the truffle, a subterranean fungus usually found alongside tree roots. Many might frown over its strong initial smell, "like leaked gas" at first bite, but most Chinese diners appreciate and enjoy it, he says.

Bombana was awarded the Best Italian Chef in Asia by the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners in 2002 and then Worldwide Ambassador of the White Truffle in 2006 by the Piedmontese regional Enoteca Cavour in Italy, according to the restaurant's website.

xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 04/03/2015 page30)