Executive Chef Alberto Fol from The Westin Europa & Regina is visiting The Westin Beijing Financial Street for a special culinary exchange.

Beijing has become a popular spot for foreign chefs to visit and to also feature their creations at many of the city's high-end restaurants. Many foreign chefs have even set up their own restaurants here, hoping to use Beijing's exploding culinary scene to build a reputation. On Thursday night at the Westin Financial Street, however, the emphasis was on culinary exchange and new experiences.

Executive Chef Alberto Fol from La Cusina restaurant at The Westin Europa & Regina celebrated his special week-long Venetian menu with an evening tasting event. "Beijing is like a city of challenges to improve the experience of Italian food," he said.

Venetian cuisine may be a foreign taste to most locals, but Alberto Fol is optimistic about its success, mostly due to the similarities in ingredients between the two cultures and the breadth of the Chinese diet. "The palates of Italian people and Chinese people are almost the same, because we're used to eating pork, beef, veal, fish, duck, just like Chinese people," he said. "For us, it's great because we don't have limits in our preparation."

Venetian cuisine has strong ties to the sea and traditionally employs simple preparation techniques. Alberto Fol feels a strong commitment to traditional Venetian food, but he is also strongly influenced by his hometown. Some of his new techniques incorporate French and Japanese influences, including barely-cooked fish and tempura.

Alberto Fol's ideas about simple, fresh cuisine were evident in the evening's main dishes, which included Mediterranean Sea Bass and a juicy Mustard Grain Beef Tenderloin, alongside pasta and risottos in light, delicate sauces with vegetables.

A local chef serves paccheri pasta with crab, cherry tomato, olives and zucchini.

The event also paid homage to traditional Venetian cicchetterias, which are traditional taverns where locals can stop after work for a small glass of wine and a small bite of antipasti. Servers passed small dishes of various creations from fried calamari and vegetables, beef carpaccio, prawn and polenta, cuttle fish stew, and grilled vegetables. Meanwhile, regional wines and cocktails were on hand to wash down the delicious ciccetti.

Thursday's meal ended with two live dessert stations- one serving mascarpone sabayon and another with profiterole, chantilly and chocolate sauce. Finger desserts and tartlets were also passed at the event, presented by Executive Pastry Chef Herwig Knapen.

Many guests were left hankering for a trip to Italy after the evening's scrumptious dinner, but one of them will go sooner than expected. The hotel held a drawing for a grand prize of a three-night stay at The Westin Euorpa & Regina in Venice, where Alberto Fol works. Yu Tiefeng from the Bank of Dalian won the prize.

The event effectively promoted cultural exchange with guests given the chance to taste so many different kinds of food from Venice. "Everyone who eats something like this becomes an explorer," according to Antonello de'Medici, the Venice area Managing Director for Starwood Hotels. "This is creating a common platform for understanding each other using food as the ambassador."

Ilias Tzanetoulakos, Director of Food and Beverage at The Westin Beijing Financial Street, noted that the hotel's local talent also benefited from the exchange by learning new techniques and approaches to cooking. "It's a great way to leverage our resources," he said of the Starwood network's worldwide reach.

He added that the hotel is in the process of planning a culinary promotion for one of the local Chinese chefs in Venice.

The Venetian culinary event appeared to be a success, as the servers had no trouble finding guests to try each item on offer. "Italian food is so special for Chinese people," said Air Wang, and attendee at the event. "It feels great to be here."

Mediterranean Sea Bass is one of the evening's main dishes.

Executive Chef Alberto Fol and Venice and managing director for Starwood Hotels Antonello de'Medici pose with Yu Tiefeng, who won a three-night stay at The Westin Europa & Regina in Venice