Oriol Balaguer

Is there a techno-emotional pastry science? Oriol Balaguer is quite convinced about that: «Techno-emotional is not molecular cuisine, it’s one step further. Techno-emotional happens when a chef tends to excite a person eating finished food. The chef is the one who distills emotions from a technical effect». Torreblanca, Rovira, Butron, Albert Adrià and many others: the sweet half of gastronomy didn’t hesitate while the El Bulli genius rebelde was revolutionizing cuisine.

Born in 1971, Oriol has never doubt about his pastry destiny: he inherited the calling from his father, pastry chef and chocolatier, since he was a kid, when he used to stare at those artistic pieces.
After studying in Barcelona, the vanguard virus immediately catches him at work in restaurants just before being finally sick in his personal shop: he spent his apprenticeship in Lasarte’s Martin Berasategui, a talent fabric with no comparisons, and 7 years in the court of Ferran Adrià, epicenter of the world epidemic.

We can meet 3 phases in Oriol’s career: before, during and after El Bulli. In 2002 he starts his lonely adventure opening the Estudi de Xocolata i Pastisseria, an industrious laboratory in the city center of Barcelona, in the heart of world cuisine innovation.
Techique, aesthetics, experimentations running beside high cuisine (see the cd with chocolate boxes and the hightechocolate, strong influences from architecture and signature design (Oriol studied Belle Arti, that somebody defined “The Bauhaus of pastry”): every year he signs 2 exclusive collections, doubled in the Tokyo twin pastryshop.