Davide Comaschi

It is not true that only opposites attract. What is true in physics (and, they say, in love) finds little foundation in the concreteness of work where the law of attraction is revolutionised by bringing excellence closer together. This is demonstrated by chocolate champion Davide Comaschi who, since 2021, has united his name with another recognised excellence, that of the Cerea brothers, by taking 'possession' of the chocolate laboratory specially set up at the DaV Pastry Lab in Albano Sant'Alessandro, five minutes from the Cerea headquarters in Brusaporto.

'For six years, we have been discussing a collaboration project that has now become a reality,' says Comaschi, an accomplished chocolatier and all-round pastry chef. Born in 1980, he realised at an early age that he wanted to work with sugar and flour: as a child, he was already modelling the shortcrust pastry generously bestowed by his mother Rosa when she made tarts and biscuits at home. At 13, when the time came to choose what to study after middle school, he enrolled in the pastry school at Capac in Milan. What made him fall irreversibly in love with the art of confectionery, however, was his meeting with Enzo Santoro, the 'boss' of Pasticceria Martesana, who welcomed him as a teenager as an intern, training him and introducing him to chocolate-making, which, from that moment on, became a permanent fixture. In 2007, after five years of trying to set up his own business, Santoro again opened the doors of his workshop to him and helped him lay the foundations of his present: he welcomed him back to Martesana as head pastry chef and encouraged him to specialise. He did not hesitate. Within a few years, he became a member of the Accademia Maestri Pasticceri Italiani (Academy of Italian Master Pastry Chefs), wore the Italian colours and in 2011 came second at the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie in a team with Domenico Longo and Emmanuele Forcone. Two years later, in Paris, he was definitively consecrated among the world's best chocolatiers arriving first at the World Chocolate Masters in Paris and writing his name in the competition's roll of honour.

From then on, it was his turn to transfer his knowledge to others to make many more people happy. He became a trainer for Barry Callebaut and designed and ran the Chocolate Academy in Milan for them. He moved to Belgium to become the Global Innovation Creative Lead of the same company as pastry chef and chocolate designer. Finally, his family and a new role as father led him to return to Italy and collaborate with the Cerea family. He is also a member of Apei.