Chef brings three-star Michelin experience to Vancouver fundraiser

Umberto Bombana owner-chef of 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Italian restaurants in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Macau — with three, two, and one Michelin stars

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It’s a big ask to cross an ocean and cook for 100 people to the exacting standards of a three-star Michelin restaurant. Chef Umberto Bombana did that recently.

Bombana is owner-chef of 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Italian restaurants in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Macau — with three, two, and one Michelin stars, respectively— as well as a number of other restaurants. The Hong Kong 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo is the only Italian restaurant outside of Italy awarded three stars.

He was in Vancouver recently to cook an eight-course dinner for an Arthritis Society of Canada fundraiser.  With his star power, the organization raised $1.35 million, blasting past a hoped-for target amount that goes into research and programs for childhood arthritis.

Asked how he fared parachuting into the event at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel, juggling a thousand details, enlisting unfamiliar cooks and kitchen staff with a total of three days on the ground, Bombana seems to have breezed through it. In a morning-after phone interview from YVR, he’s unruffled and sweet.

He’d brought two of his chefs and some of the ingredients, such as stock for sauces and abalone in his check-in baggage (not the chefs, just the ingredients).  “They asked us to declare fruits and vegetables. We didn’t have any,” he said.

His flagship restaurant namesake is the 1963 Fellini movie 8 1/2 (otto e mezzo). Why? “It was a good moment for Italy, financially and creatively. The movie is about crisis and creativity, and in life, crisis is what makes us change.”

The differences between his one, two, and three-Michelin starred Otto e Mezzo restaurants, he says, is that the three-star restaurant in Hong Kong benefits from easy access to the best products from around the world, without import tax. “We can get the best products quickly. It’s really central. We can get seafood from Japan in five hours, and products from Europe, Australia, the U.S. in 10, 12 hours.”

Maintaining the three stars since 2012 has been challenging and stressful, he says, but stimulating and positive. “It’s like a race to get there every year but it gives me so much pleasure to have people love to come in.”

The Arthritis Society fundraising dinner had a blizzard of black truffles showered down in four of eight dishes. No surprise, given how truffles rule in his restaurants. Dubbed the King of White Truffles, Bombana was declared the World Ambassador for White Truffles by the Piedmontese Regional Enoteca Cavour in 2006, thanks to the mountainous quantities he sells in Hong Kong.

A secret to selecting the best white truffles, he says, is the snail test. If there’s a small snail bite mark, it’s a sign of great flavour. “That’s what the experts told me,” he says. As for the black truffles we had, “you want them very firm and when you squeeze, they should go right back to their natural form. If it doesn’t, it’s not fresh.”

Abalone carpaccio
Abalone carpaccio. Mia Stainsby photo.

Bombana ordered five kilos of the black gold, costing US$10,000. The wines, from Marchesi di Barolo, selected by the chef himself, were also from the Piedmont region of Italy.

The first course, confit abalone carpaccio, was a beautiful medley of flavours, textures, and colours, with bell pepper and tomato concasse, abalone liver sauce, lemon olive oil, and Oscietra caviar. “I have to find just the right balance of everything,” he says, of this signature dish on his Otto e Mezzo menu.

Braised Jerusalem artichoke (topinambur, on the menu) doubled up on its earthy flavour with shavings of black truffle topping the dish. The versatile Jerusalem artichoke (also known as sunchoke) was done three ways — as a diced salad, poached in truffle stock, and pureed with egg yolk. “I focus on ingredients without messing up the flavour. We are the servants of nature. We don’t need to make crazy combinations,” he says.

Cavatelli shellfish ragout with sea urchins, another Otto e Mezzo dish, was hand-shaped and had a satisfying chew. Local sea urchins added buttery umami.

A risotto with black truffles transformed in the mouth, cooked with poultry, veal, and beef stock but then  black truffles melted into a complementary secondary sauce.

Roasted East Coast lobster and artichoke came with spiced lobster sauce, spiked with vermouth. “It was so important not to overcook this beautiful lobster from the East Coast,” Bombana said. And he didn’t.

Beef tenderloins were paired with short ribs, and were succulent. They were served with red wine and plum sauce, whipped potatoes, and more black truffles. “Tenderloin is so expensive so I combine it with the beautiful taste of the other cut and most of the time, people prefer the shortribs,” he says.

For the desserts, roasted pear with mascarpone ice cream was nestled in black truffles. I can’t say it was the best use of the truffles but hey, maybe the end was nigh with many truffles to spare.

Chocolate hazelnut tart.
Chocolate hazelnut tart. Mia Stainsby photo

The truffles might have been a better fit with the hazelnut chocolate tart with chocolate crumble and hazelnut gelato. (Don’t truffles have a symbiotic relationship with the roots of hazelnut trees?)

The evening, sponsored by Serein Properties development company, was visually stunning, courtesy of Normal Studio (Beyond Van Gogh, Beyond Monet, Beyond King Tut) and its immersive multimedia technology. Clifton Murray (The Tenors, film, TV) lent his uplifting voice to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

The Arthritis Society of Canada reminds us that about 20 per cent of Canadians suffer from arthritis, the chronic disease that’s more common than diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke and dementia, combined, yet the most misunderstood and underfunded of diseases.

Bombana put meaning to the evening, saying: “Food is not just nourishment; it is comfort and healing for the soul.”

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