Peter Brunel

We still don’t know yet if restaurant scene from Trento region will ever be able to take flight to the gastronomy of the future. But, if it succeeds that will be thanks to Peter Brunel, the Fassa valley eagle.

He’s 34 years old but he’s already lots of things to tell. As a teenager he used to work as a «a chef-assistant of the chef-assistant of the chef-assistant inside his native valley hotels just to buy himself a Vespa Special. Then he attended the hotel management school in Fiemme valley and later ran into his first decisive job experiences: from 1996 to 1998, along with Giorgio Nardelli at Laurin’s in Bolzano and later in Chioggia’s Etoile Academy under the teaching of great maestros such as Sergio Mei and Fabio Tacchella. As he ended some “starred” stages in France and Malga Panna again in Trento, he left to Garda lake: ambitious plans in Riva’s Villa Negri< entrap him for a while. The chef grasped new cooking technologies and silver trays and cloche earned him 3 years later, in 2003, an unexpected Michelin star. But Peter had already made a deal with Villa Cimbrone in Ravello, on the Amalfi Coast, one of the most beautiful place in the world and so he couldn’t enjoy his award.

Again, the recall of his native heights soon prevailed over the stunning Villa’s “Infinity terrace”. No way to reject the job pro position offered by restaurant Chiesa in Trento, where Brunel is given carte blanche. The eagle bended and removed some feathers to lighten her flight: «no more expensive raw materials; instead let’s turn down to the poor products of my beloved land». We’ll never forget his Marinated trout refined with rhododendron honey and served into beeswax. That’s because it’s a real mirror of the chef identity, playing between the past and the future: the beeswax pouring is an unpublished great technique but the natural vacuum-packed system has a very long history behind. A great game, developed with a minimized irony. That rapacious Brunel will try to perpetuate in 2010, on his new and spacious net to be discovered.

The chef leaves Florence in early 2019 to return to Trentino.