Sculpture is a matter of good taste

Published on Saturday 4 October 2008 11:04

THERE'S something about Sebastian Kobelt that might just make him a bit of a hit with the girls.

Could it be his dashing looks and that manly voice laced with a gentle hint of German accent? Maybe it's his talent in the kitchen, after all with a chef from a Michelin star restaurant at home, you'd never be stuck for something tasty for tea.

Or could it be something to do with the 4ft tall lump of finest Belgian chocolate he has stashed away in his workshop? Oh and the fact that he's about to lovingly mould it into a breathtaking sculpture depicting many a girl's other great love – haute couture?

Oh yep, that ought to do it . . . After all, once Sebastian has unveiled his towering haute couture calorific showpiece to the judges at the UK heat of the World Chocolate Masters competition next week, it would be such a terrible shame to let it go to waste.

Sadly, that crashing sound is a nation of chocoholics' hearts breaking as Sebastian, pastry chef at one of the Capital's leading Michelin-starred restaurants, reveals his chocolate creation is not actually destined for human consumption – and certainly not by a lone human in a single calorific sitting while watching back to back Sex and the City repeats.

"Oh I imagine it'll be melted down," he shrugs. "That's the price you pay when you do what I do. You make what you hope are beautiful things and eventually someone comes along, says it looks lovely and then destroys it."

He breaks into a hearty laugh, which may well be a touch of hysteria brought on by the fact that by the time he reaches the London showdown to battle it out against four other leading pastry chefs and chocolate experts from across the land, he'll have slaved over his confectionery creation for more hours than he can even bear to guess.

"Too long! Much too long," he shudders. "If I counted how long it's taking to do, then I'd never ever do it.

"The theme for the piece is 'haute couture', which we are free to interpret as we wish," he continues. "The only real requirement is that it has to be taller than one metre and entirely made from chocolate. So I have white chocolate, hand carved to look like a model walking along the catwalk and I have some carvings designed around fabric patterns.

"It's like working in a restaurant, you're looking for the 'wow' factor, you want people to talk about it, you want people to be impressed.

"You don't even question what happens to it at the end."

Sebastian, 34, chisels away at his chocolate mountain in preparation for Thursday's finals between hectic shifts at The Kitchin in Leith, where since the start of the year he has been increasing the calorie intake of diners with delicate, scrumptious

Creating confectionary perfection with a chocolate fashion statement

offerings such as Edinburgh Fog – a poached meringue replacing the typical mountain of double cream – or honey ice cream with pickled plums and his feathery apple souffl with cinnamon ice.

It's his first stint in a Michelin-starred establishment in a remarkable career that has taken him to kitchens around the globe – and already earned him a Chocolate Master title. Last time around he flew the flag for his native Germany, snatching the national title and going on to compete against the best in the world at the international event.

The top prize eluded him, but with a year to prepare between the UK final and the global event, there's plenty of time to hone his skills for his second attempt.

Yet expert as he is these days with a sieve and a souffl, growing up on the outskirts of Berlin with a baker for a grandfather, he admits he didn't always seem destined to reach the peak of success in the pastry section.

"I had a very cunning grandfather," he grins. "He would invite me over during the school holidays but it soon became clear that our free time would be in the bakery. Not that I minded much – I did get to lick the bowls, which wasn't too bad!

"The trouble was, I liked to sleep and I was never an early bird. When he told me that as a bakerman you have to get up early – say at 3am – to work, I thought no way is that going to happen to me.

"But he had two girls who worked as pastry chefs. And they didn't have to get up until 4am, maybe five. So that didn't seem nearly as bad!"

He left Germany nine years ago after pinning down the role of head pastry chef for the Hilton Group in the country. There followed stints on cruise liners and at a leading upmarket hotel in Kuwait – which he describes as close to "slavery" – before he arrived in Scotland, initially at the prestigious Dalhousie Castle Hotel in Bonnyrigg.

He's now living in Winchburgh, still single, and hooked on a nation where traditionally the choices of dessert swing between whisky-laced Crannachan and saturated fat soaked deep fried Mars Bars.

"Well it must have been a brilliant mind that thought of dipping a Mars bar in batter and frying it," he says diplomatically. "I have tried it – I even went on German television to talk about it. But it's too sweet for me."

Coming from a man immersed at the sweet end of the menu card who is currently staring at a chest high block of Belgium's finest chocolate, that's got to be quite an achievement for the Scots delicacy. Yet Sebastian insists he's more likely to be found raiding nature's larder for fresh seasonal fruits and light tweaks on classic dishes for the discerning customers of his award-winning boss, Tom Kitchin, than over-indulging in the sugar bowl.

And when he's not at his pastry station or poring over the most lavish, artistic and show-stopping block of chocolate imaginable, he's probably working off the side-effects of his job by pounding the streets around his home.

Exercise, it seems, is the downside of spending every day in chocolate and pudding heaven. "Well of course you need a sweet tooth to do my job – I couldn't do it without tasting my food," he insists.

"The key is not to over-indulge, not to be too greedy." It might not be what a nation of sweet-toothed chocoholics want to hear – we each pack away an average of 7oz of chocolate every week, contributing to a 3.5 billion UK chocolate industry.

"Unfortunately," grins Sebastian, "in the middle of it all, there has got to be balance."

Sample Sebastian Kobelt's desserts at The Kitchin, Commercial Quay, Leith, 0131 - 555 1755, [e-mail] or www.thekitchin.com