Cristian Marino is now in the Maldives
Dear friends, this update is for those who have been following my blog for a long time. I arrived in the Maldives in September 2021 and planned to stay for a while. I had always wanted to experience the islands more closely, so beginning a new professional chapter on an atoll not far from Malé felt both exciting and meaningful.
The resort where I was working was one of the larger and long-established resorts in the Maldives. My goal was simple: to contribute to its success while gaining another important personal and professional experience in a destination very different from those where I had worked before.
Island life also fitted naturally with some of the changes I had already made in my lifestyle. Fruit, vegetables and fish were part of my daily routine, and I had greatly reduced alcohol, something I had also written about in The “Recipes” of my Smile. The Maldives gave those choices a new setting and, over time, would become much more important in my personal story than I could have known when I wrote this first update.
A career snapshot from 2021
For readers who were discovering the blog at that time, I also included a short summary of my career. I was 39, born in Milan in February 1982 and raised largely in Calabria, where I first learned about restaurant life through my parents’ business.
At 17, I left southern Italy and returned north to study at the E. Maggia hospitality school in Stresa, on the shores of Lake Maggiore. During those years, I also worked evenings and extra shifts in hotels and restaurants, sometimes in the kitchen and sometimes as a waiter.
Before building an international career, I worked in different parts of Italy — including Calabria, Abruzzo, Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta and Lombardy — learning how much regional culture, ingredients and traditions can change within the same country.
My career then took me through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. I worked in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Indonesia and Dubai, and I travelled through many more countries while working at sea with Silversea. Over the years, I held Executive Chef positions with international hotel groups including Radisson Blu and InterContinental, and from 2019 to 2020 I worked as Complex Executive Chef for two Marriott pre-opening hotels in East Java, Indonesia.
Along the way, I received professional recognition connected with Italian hospitality, including the Golden Q from Ospitalità Italiana in restaurants where I worked and a Silver Plate following a themed dinner organised with a representative of the Italian Academy of Cuisine.
By 2021, I was continuing to move between Executive Chef and consulting assignments, while writing books and using this blog to document the places, food and professional experiences that shaped my work.
The “Recipes” of my Smile was my first book and, at the time of this post, was available in English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Thank you, as always, for following the journey.
Cristian Marino
Originally published on 24 November 2021. This Journal archive edition has been lightly edited for language, chronology and presentation while preserving the original context, photograph and publication date.
About the Author
