In the summer of 2021, Tanya Colella joined the Oetker Collection as Pastry Chef at Château Saint-Martin & Spa. From the winter season, she became Sous-Chef at L’Apogée Courchevel. In 2022, she returned to Château Saint-Martin & Spa, this time as Head Pastry Chef. Today, she continues to delight the taste buds of the most discerning palates in these two Oetker Collection hotels.
A graduate of the Angelo Consoli Hotel and Catering Institute in Castellana, Tanya began her career in her native Italy. From catering to events, in bakeries and hotels, she discovered all the different facets of patisserie. Her passion for cooking was passed down to her by her mother and grandmother. They used to prepare delicious meals together, enjoying their time as a family. At the start of her career, she dedicated herself to becoming a chef. After her first job, she immediately knew that she wasn’t cut out for it. One day a colleague asked her to help with the pastry section. That was in 2015 and the experience triggered something inside her. She then knew that pastry was the way forward and continued to train in this field. During a trip to Paris, she fell in love with the capital’s bakery and patisserie shop windows and decided to return to France in 2018, joining three prestigious Parisian establishments over the seasons: 5-star Maison Breguet, 2 Michelin star L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon and 3 Michelin star Le Cinq restaurant at the Georges V Hotel. Her main objective was to work in a high-end hotel restaurant.
“I enjoy working as part of a team, training the people I work with and passing on my knowledge to others”, said Tanya Colella. Now 28, she heads up a team of 7 pastry chefs at Château Saint-Martin & Spa.
To create a dessert, she needs a moment to herself, a moment to relax – at home in Puglia in southern Italy or on a trip. She draws to visualise her ideas.
“My inspiration can come in two different ways: either from a shape that inspires me and from this shape, I use this as a basis to build my dessert, or from an ingredient and from this ingredient, I develop a shape to reflect that ingredient”.
«Saveurs de Provence» is one of her flagship desserts on the menu of the Michelin-starred Le Saint-Martin restaurant. For this dessert, Tanya started with honey. This dessert consists of a honey bavarois, grapefruit chutney, lavender cream and a honey and grapefruit sorbet. A recipe she wants to keep secret…With this dessert, she wanted to highlight Provence, the honey from Château Saint-Martin & Spa and the hotel’s lavender. The grapefruit adds a touch of acidity to the sweetness of the honey.
“I always try to find the right balance between sweet and acidic. I think it’s important to keep the bitterness to balance the flavour of the honey. This dessert is surprisingly sharp on the palate with an explosion of floral flavours, particularly lavender”.
Enjoyed by hotel guests, this dessert was born of her love of nature and her desire to respect it, highlighting local produce and products that can be harvested from the hotel. The honey from Château Saint-Martin & Spa is collected by the hotel’s beekeeper before it reopens for the summer season in April, and then three times during the season. Buckets weighing 20 kg are then collected. The «Saveurs de Provence» dessert needs 60 to 100g of honey, divided between the bavarois and the sorbet. The 4 beehives at the hotel provide the frames from which customers can collect honey themselves at breakfast. The pollen in the form of small seeds brings a very floral flavour to desserts and the honey is also used by Tanya for her dessert creations. This approach is perfectly in line with Château Saint-Martin & Spa’s CSR commitment (Corporate Social Responsibility).
Now Head Pastry Chef in a luxury hotel, Tanya Colella designs exceptional desserts. Thanks to her creativity and precision, she creates gourmet delights that are not to be missed.
