Italian and Melbourne-based chef becomes a celebrity chef on the “Little Red Book” Mandarin app

Cristian Folletti, 41enne bolognese, insegna a fare la pasta fresca sul "Piccolo Libro Rosso". Source: Cristian Folletti

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Pasta maker Cristian Folletti is looking at the Chinese market as a possible Plan B to his uncertain future in Australia.

Over 13,000 followers in just over two months. These are the numbers that are encouraging Cristian Folletti, a 41-year-old Bolognese living in Melbourne, to launch his traditional recipes on the Asian market.

Thanks to the help of his partner, who has a Chinese background and works in marketing, Cristian has started the project to launch his culinary traditions on social media.

Fangfang Chen, an Italian with a Chinese name

On the mandarin app "The Little Red Book" Cristian presents a rigorous cuisine, which follows the orthodox recipes of homemade pasta, originally from his Italian region, Emilia-Romagna.

His short videos in English, subtitled in Mandarin, are becoming viral because of his "Italianness".

My followers have never asked me to modify my recipes, they are interested in the original Italian ones.

Little Red Book in English, or Xiaohongshu in Mandarin, is a Shanghai-based e-commerce site that in 2019 had reached over 200 million registrations; its users are mainly upper-middle-class young women who live in urban contexts, are interested in international luxury brands and products, in fashion and beauty products, fitness and healthy cooking.

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The chef who is looking at the Chinese market from Australia

In Italy, Cristian Folletti managed the "Il Minestraio" restaurant, an icon of regional cuisine in the city of Bologna. But he moved to Melbourne nearly five years ago.

I sold everything and brought my tradition to Australia.

After some brief experiences in some Italian restaurants and as a waiter, which allowed him to understand "what the Australian clientele wants", the Bolognese restaurateur moved from the floors to the stove.

He soon became an icon of the Melbourne Marriott Hotel. His recipes of homemade pasta and sauces were all the rage.

But Cristian did not stop there and decided to launch himself on social media, first of all Instagram, but also the Mandarin Little Red Book.

I noticed that the Chinese market responds very well to Italian cuisine.

That's why he's planning to create a business in China.

"My idea was to stay in Australia from the beginning. In the event that I can't find a way to stay in Australia, my girlfriend and I thought we were going to China" he said.

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