Costa celebrity chef cooks up a storm in China

Bruno Ruiz is local ambassador for Denia's 'Creative Culinary City' UNESCO foodie title

MARINA Alta culinary magic headed east this month with one of Dénia's top chefs showing the world what Costa cuisine is made of – and why his home town deserves its UNESCO foodie title.

As one of the 26 towns worldwide that hold the status of Creative Culinary City, Dénia has been on the guest list for the Innow ternational Culinary Forum in China for the last three years – a two-day event with cooking demonstrations, debates, workshops, meetings and networking that help to put these UNESCO gourmet gurus on the map.

Having worked and trained in Spain's number one restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, and alongside Michelinstarred chefs Martín Berasategui and Pedro Subijana in San Sebastián, Dénia-born kitchen god Bruno Ruiz is a third-generation local chef and a great ambassador for his home town at the forum in the ex-Portuguese colony of Macau on the eastern China coast.

Winner of last year's International Red Prawn Creative Cooking Contest – using one of Dénia's star ingredients – Bruno heads up local eatery Aticcook and took his recipes from the menu to Asia with him.

Alongside his assistant Claudia Sancho, Bruno whipped up a delectable dish of cod carpaccio with artichokes in a demonstration that was one of the best received of the entire event.

This year's forum specifically invited chefs aged between 18 and 40, and Dénia took part in the Erasmus 'Youth4Food' project along with its fellow UNESCO Creative Cities, Bergen (Norway), Parma (Italy), Östersund (Sweden) and Gaziantep (Turkey), as well as a brainstorming session on promoting food recycling, preventing wastage, sustainable food production and responsible consumerism.