Winner Ben's Bologna Diary!

We are delighted that Ben had a fantastic time while he was in Italy! Please see his comments from the whole experience below as he gives us his insights!

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Entering the Culinera chef of the year competition was an incredible experience. One I would highly recommend to anyone that’s after a super fun day and a friendly competition.

Winning the competition gave me the chance to choose a destination in Italy to explore. This included flights, hotel and spending money! Does it get any better?

After doing a lot of research, we decided that Bologna was the best city to visit. All our research kept leading us to go there. Our top google search being “where is the best food in Italy?”

This beautiful, red city is top of many lists of places to go for delicious food! And I’d have to agree.

Using our spending money, we decided to book a walking food and wine tour with a local.

Where we learned so much about the city. We visited the 5^th largest church in the world, drank from the fountain of Neptune and climbed the clock tower where we had panoramic views of the city in 36-degree heat.

We were taken to some hidden gems in the market at the very centre of the city.

Bologna is famous for its fresh pasta, cured meats and Bolognese, and there was plenty of everything to try, paired with some delicious local wines.

We were greeted in one shop with a huge board of cured meat and cubes of parmesan cheese drizzled with balsamic. Their cheeses were aged from 18 months to 100 months. We were also taken to a restaurant that was once someone’s home and enjoyed a bowl of tortellini served in a beautiful pork broth, tagliatelle with ragu, and more wine!

To end the tour, we were of course taken to our guides favourite place for gelato, were I decided to go for a fig and mascarpone flavour which was delicious. We kept the wine flowing throughout the night. No matter where we went, alcoholic drinks came with a platter of bar snacks!

I feel like all we did was eat, but that’s exactly what we went for. There’s so much I could talk about, from the windows of hanging meats, wheels of cheese and people making pasta right in front of us. But to summarise, I left feeling super inspired. Just the simplicity of their food where they let the basic ingredients do the talking, shows how we’ve learned to over complicate our cooking. Minimal, seasonal, fresh goodness is all a dish needs.

Thank you, Team Culinera, it was an incredible experience. And I’m so grateful to be part of such an awesome team.

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No, Ben! Thank you!!