Pastry and Chocolate International Congress

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Pastry is the worldwide International Congress of Pastry and Chocolate that shows off the different varieties and gastronomic trends. In Ecuador, it does so with the use of fine cocoa of origin.

The Ecuadorian company República del Cacao organized the first edition of the Pastry congress in our country, to which it invited renowned international chefs to share their experiences. Through lectures, the most avant-garde techniques of pastry and fine chocolate where imparted, along with workshops hand in hand with the best chefs in Latin America.

Pachi Larrea is a 34 year old chocolatier and pâtissier from Quito, who studied culinary arts in Quito, Buenos Aires and Seville. After leading his own business for four years in his hometown, he traveled to Europe to make a living out of his passion: chocolate. In Barcelona he worked together with the prestigious Chef Oriol Balaguer and become his chocolatier chef for four years. At the beginning of 2018, he traveled to Miami to become pastry chef at the Habitat restaurant in “One Hotel”. Pachi has represented Ecuador in China, Macao, Hong Kong, Spain and Australia, and continues to travel around the world.

Javier Guillen began his career when he was 14 years old as a pastry chef at Hotel Management and Tourism School in Madrid. He has worked as the Chief Pastry Chef of Oriol Balager. Javier has also worked at El Bulli with Ferran Adria, David Bouley and Pierre Herme in Paris. Today, Chef Guillen is a pastry adviser and teaches master classes around the world, teaching classes, demonstrations and exhibitions in Singapore, Mexico and Tokyo, among others; in Latin America, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Dubai and the United States hand in hand with Valrhona and República del Cacao. He also has eight fine chocolate boutiques in Brazil.

Ignacio Medina, Javier Guillén, Pachi Larrea y Santiago Cueva

Santiago Cueva, Ecuadorian chef and chocolatier, is Executive Chef at Republic of Cacao Ecuador since 2014. He has collaborated with renowned chefs and restaurants around the world, such as Tetsuyas in Sydney or Comerc 24, a Barcelona restaurant with one Michelin star. Chef Cueva specialized in pastry and sensory analysis at the Espaisucre Institute, and trained at L’école Valrhona in France and New York with Alain Chartier, Yann Duytsche and Philippe Givre, among others.

Gonzalo Chiriboga Vela y Arnaud Monmarche

Ignacio Medina, journalist and gastronomic writer, directed the event. He won the 1987 and 2009 National Gastronomy Prize, awarded by the Spanish Academy of Gastronomy. His career has more than 30 years of experience in gastronomic journalism, in which he has written for publications and newspapers such as El País, El Mundo and Panorama from Spain. He has written 80 cookbooks and is recognized as one of the most important representatives of Spanish-speaking gastronomic journalism. Based in Lima – Peru since 2011, he writes weekly columns for El País newspaper, in its versions for America and Brazil, and El Comercio newspaper in Peru.

República del Cacao, an Ecuadorian company dedicated to the production of chocolate based on fine cocoa, aimed at this event to reach professional confectioners and amateurs in this area. The goal is to lift the positioning of a Latin American gastronomic culture, through demonstrations of avant-garde techniques in chocolate and pastry presented by international referents.

The four days of Pastry Ecuador can be summarized as an extraordinary meeting of professionals, students and food fans that also included the presence of local producers in the event. In a friendly and generous environment they all shared knowledge and techniques that highlighted flavors, aromas and textures of fine cocoa. Finally, the day ended with a dinner programmed for a tasting of products that were prepared by chefs and workshop attendees.

As part of its corporate guidelines, República del Cacao seeks to position Ecuadorian fine cocoa as a product that offers the highest standards for preparations made by renowned chefs and pastry chefs of the world cuisine. “We make our chocolate locally, but it is used globally,” says Gonzalo José Chiriboga, General Manager of the Cacao Republic.

With events like Pastry the company reaffirms its commitment to promote the development of sustainable production of fine cocoa, producing and marketing high-end chocolates with a perspective of responsibility, quality and origin.

Gonzalo Chiriboga Chávez, Martín Chiriboga, Santiago Cueva, Gonzalo Chiriboga Vela, Arnaud Monmarche, Javier Guillén, Pachi Larrea, Ignacio Medina y Antonio Tolsada

About the company

República del Cacao was born in 2005, with the mission of producing the most authentic Latin American chocolate in its origin, protecting fine cocoa in a sustainable way. Today, it is much more than a brand of fine chocolate, it is a community that brings together over two thousand small producers of fine cocoa, suppliers of ingredients, chefs, entrepreneurs and consumers under an inclusive model.