“I love to cook. I spend 24 hours a day thinking about it,” Maxime Fanton says. “The food, the restaurants, the waitresses. All of it!”

Now the executive chef at Restaurant Martin, the 26 year old has spent almost half of his life in a professional kitchen. Never one for books and studying, he fought his way out of traditional education at age 14, enrolling in a hotel school in Bologna far from his family. “At the beginning I liked cooking, of course. But it was also about independence for me,” he says. “It was a kind of freedom."

The job quickly became a passion and, four years after graduating, the budding chef received the opportunity of a lifetime. Tired of his job at a food factory, he sent his resume far and wide, finally hearing back from Martin Berasategui, the seven Michelin star chef known worldwide for his inventive Basque cuisine.

At the chef’s eponymous restaurant, Fanton took over for the chef de partie of the fish station, then worked his way up the line. He rewrote his culinary philosophy with new ingredients and techniques from the famous chef.

“He taught me to respect the product,” Fanton says. “Berasategui touches a potato like it’s expensive seafood.”

After two years, Fanton was ready to move on to the next challenge, but Berasategui wasn’t giving him up without a fight and asked him to move to Shanghai to open up the chef’s first restaurant venture outside of Spain, a huge responsibility that Fanton couldn’t resist. The head of his own kitchen now, Fanton has to deal with the sourcing headaches and typical restaurant frustrations, but working in China has changed him – he thinks for the better.

“Before I came to China I was a black chef. You know, the type who threw out the sauce and yelled. In Europe, we are mercenaries,” he says. “Chinese people are different and I respect that. Now I’m kind of a clown. When I go in the kitchen, I just try to entertain my staff.” 

And the repertoire clearly works. Staff pop in and out of the dining room, ribbing with the chef who dishes it out and takes it in equal measure. No matter how much fun they have in kitchen, they still take the food seriously.

As Fanton himself says, “I believe in food. After all, people always have to eat!”