Trifles with truffles

Chef Umberto Bombama with a monster black truffle: "I wanted to bring it here to Beijing to show everybody because it's very beautiful."

But the 50-year-old Bombana is not a fly-by celebrity, sprinkling his fairy dust in a top Chinese kitchen for a few weeks and then winging back to preferred climes in Europe.

Opera Bombana is his own restaurant - his third in China - and he has been cooking up Tuscan wonders for Chinese palates since he arrived in Hong Kong in 1993.

"Good food is something everybody enjoys; it's a simple as that," he says, shaving slices of truffle over roasted veal at our table to release a sublime, earthy scent.

"People want to experience it, have a wonderful dish. So of course I am confident about what I am doing here. If you do something well, that's well-prepared and very flavorful, everybody likes it, from a child to a grandfather."

Hong Kong, where his Toscano restaurant in the Ritz-Carlton hotel won accolades for 15 years, was easier to break into 20 years ago because it's such an international city.

"You have a lot of people there who travel, they have been dining in New York and Milan, so they know great food and they expect great food."

But he thinks a long history has given all Chinese "a great palate".

"They have many special techniques and everything tastes quite nice," he says.

"So if you do prepare something well, they appreciate it."

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