STEPHANIE CARRIER
If you are married to a chef, you will be forever known as the chef’s wife, or in my case, Maurizio Bombini’s wife. Nobody cares, even if I become the President (laughs). Not that I am complaining. We’ve been together for 11 years now. We met in Monaco at Le Méridien Beach Plaza where we both worked. Back then, he was a chef de partie and I was a junior PR executive. I think it is wonderful that we met when we were just starting out and we grew our careers together.
I first saw him when he was in a charity triathlon and I was like ‘who’s that guy’? It was a mutual attraction because I found out later that he also asked a colleague about me. We soon found out that we liked and enjoyed the same things in life. We started dating, and one time when he was at my house, he opened my fridge and saw a canned tomato sauce. He said to me, ‘You’ll never eat this again as long as you’re with me!’ Then, he taught me how make a tomato sauce from scratch. At that time, food was just a necessity for me because I worked long hours. Maurizio was the one who got me excited about food.
Due to my father’s profession as a banker, I grew up in different countries. I was born in Monaco and grew up in Norway, Singapore, Spain, and Kenya. I was an expat kid and travelling has always been part of my identity. My experience helped us a lot when we moved to Sanya, China where we had to navigate through a whole new culture. It was where we decided to get married. Then, we went to Bali for our honeymoon and an opportunity presented itself. We ended up living here. While Maurizio continued to work as a chef, I also had the opportunity to build my career in two luxurious resorts. First as the Director of Marketing and Communication for The St. Regis Bali Resort and later as The Legian Bali, Seminyak’s Regional Director of Sales and Marketing. For the last eight years, Bali has been a good home for us.
Now, Maurizio has his own restaurant and we finally built our first house. I recently decided to take a sabbatical break from work. Now, I have the opportunity to cook more at home. He rarely cooks during his days off. We usually go out to have a nice lunch or dinner together, especially now that he has more flexibility with his time.”