{"id":126340,"date":"2026-01-21T12:56:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126340\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T12:56:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T12:56:18","slug":"pastry-chef-stefania-martucci-chefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/126340\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastry Chef Stefania Martucci | Chefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"StefaniaStefani Martucci is the pastry chef at Kool Beanz Cafe. Photography by Alicia Osborne.<\/p>\n

Consider the bunet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you grew up in northwestern Italy like Stefania Martucci, a mere mention of the sweet custard dish stirs childhood memories of family meals destined to conclude with the irresistible treat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the quintessential Piedmont dessert,\u201d Martucci says, \u201cand it\u2019s the perfect blend of chocolate and amaretto crumble. Traditionally, it\u2019s the ideal end for a meal of agnolotti (three-meat ravioli) and brasato al Barolo (roasted beef in Barolo wine). Mine follows my family\u2019s recipe, and the hardest thing is to bake it perfectly\u2014the texture has to be silky and decadent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a kid, Martucci would skip those epic Sunday entrees to save room for the bunet. Now that she has her own kids, it\u2019s their favorite too. As the new pastry chef at Kool Beanz Cafe<\/a>, one of Tallahassee\u2019s most popular dining spots for the past three decades, Martucci calls it her signature dish. In a certain way, the bunet has led Martucci to where she is right now\u2014dressed in black slacks and a matching chef\u2019s shirt bearing her initials, focused and excited to bring her European swerve to Southern palettes nurtured on banana pudding and sweet potato pie.<\/p>\n

Martucci moved from Turin, Italy, to the Panhandle in 2021, after her husband had started working as a Classics professor at Florida State University. Over the past few years, Martucci cultivated a fanbase at the Frenchtown Farmers Market in a historic Black neighborhood in Tallahassee, where she sold her homemade specialties like those bunets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople loved it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s something unexpected. Something that is so traditional in my hometown, here is seen as exotic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A passion for food may simply be part of the Italian DNA, with centuries of cultural heritage bubbling in every pot of marinara. \u201cFood is always central to any Italian person,\u201d Martucci says. \u201cFrom my mom\u2019s side, all of my family cooked very well.\u201d But she wasn\u2019t born into her career. Martucci\u2019s businessman father happened to own a restaurant, but she worked in the family\u2019s construction firm. In 2014, however, a moment of self-discovery led her to sign up for classes at a Turin culinary academy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"bunet\"Martucci plates a piece of bunet. Photography by Alicia Osborne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had this desire to develop my art,\u201d she says. \u201cAt some point, I decided food was my thing and was my only real interest\u2014the thing that always makes me feel enthusiastic.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martucci spent three summers visiting her brother on the Spanish island of Ibiza, a notorious party destination, working as a seasonal pastry chef in an Italian restaurant. She also got to indulge her love for gelato, which isn\u2019t simply Italian for \u201cice cream\u201d but its very own type of ice cream. \u201cI just had my second kid,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was a gelato store close by, and they gave me the chance to go there to practice, so I was in the lab. I decided that gelato is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

She brought all those experiences when she moved to Tallahassee with two of her children (a third is now grown up). \u201cWhen I moved here, I felt so lucky that I could start again my life from zero,\u201d Martucci says. The family became fans of Kool Beanz, with its vivid decor and freewheeling American cuisine informed by everything from the nearby Gulf Coast to a host of global cultures. When Martucci\u2019s husband glimpsed a post seeking a new pastry chef on the restaurant\u2019s Facebook page, she went for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At her audition, \u201cShe knocked it out of the park,\u201d says Keith Baxter, owner and founder of Kool Beanz.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, her desserts are very different than anything you get in Tallahassee,\u201d he continues, \u201cand our sales are proving that they\u2019re very well accepted. She has professionalism. She has dedication. She has passion \u2026 and it shows every day. She\u2019s a department of one. Only she can do what she can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefania Martucci shared her recipe for the perfect pavolova.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"pavlova\"Martucci\u2019s pavlova is a local favorite at Kool Beanz Cafe. Photography by Alicia Osborne.<\/p>\n

While Martucci excels in shaking up expectations, successful menus tend to offer at least a classic or two\u2014crowd-pleasing dishes that can entertain a broad demographic of customers. In the world of Italian cuisine, there\u2019s one famous dessert that rises above the rest\u2014a fixture as common as red-and-white checkered tablecloths at spaghetti joints nationwide, with a flavor so well-known the taste can come as a total afterthought. Presto: tiramisu.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s the first time that I try to make a tiramisu (at Kool Beanz),\u201d Martucci says. \u201cI have so many ideas that it\u2019s not necessary to make tiramisu, right? But I have at least 10 ways to make it.\u201d Just a week before, Martucci was making a traditional French profiterole. \u201cThe people loved it so much, I was thinking, Why not change the flavor? And I made it like it\u2019s a tiramisu.\u201d She starts with eclair dough, \u201cfilled with a coffee cream and glazed with mascarpone, with powdered cocoa on top, and things like that. The flavor is the one of tiramisu. The consistency is something different, more personal.\u201d Martucci\u2019s elevated version abandons the practice of soaking a ladyfinger in coffee. \u201cIt\u2019s better because this coffee pastry cream is a little more intense, so the coffee is more strong. And if I eat tiramisu, I want to taste the coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

That creative pursuit of flavor and sensory satisfactions was perhaps first driven by the rich resources available to Martucci in her native Turin. She raves about the hazelnuts\u2014an essential element of the bunet\u2014the quality of which she sometimes struggles to find here. On the other hand, she has a wider range of ingredients to choose from. \u201cI can try more things, like Asian influences,\u201d says Martucci, who is a fan of local Asian and Middle Eastern markets. \u201cProbably in Italy, we are a little too traditional. Here in the United States \u2026 there are influences from other kinds of cultures that are very interesting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you cook, you can use a lot of creativity\u2014you can taste, and say something needs more salt, or it\u2019s a little spicy. In pastry, you have to follow rules.
\u2014Stefania Martucci<\/p>\n

One particular delight is the mango. The fruit surely doesn\u2019t grow in the Piedmont under the shadow of the Alps. Florida\u2019s tropical climate, however, turns mango orchards as vivid as neon with the sticky, pulpy fruit. \u201cTo be honest, when you buy a mango in my country, it\u2019s always so bad,\u201d Martucci laments. \u201cYou have to use the professional puree. But here, they\u2019re amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mango provides a burst of sweetness to Martucci\u2019s passion fruit and vanilla layer cake, which she calls \u201ca pure exercise of fantasy.\u201d The dish is particularly effective because of the way Martucci utilizes sugar. There\u2019s none of that coma-inducing overload promised by the gooey peach cobbler at your
favorite meat-and-three. \u201cEuropean pastry uses less sugar than the American,\u201d the chef explains. \u201cThis is something I always try to keep in my desserts. If I make a strawberry dessert, I want to feel the strawberry\u2014it doesn\u2019t have to be covered by too much sugar. I try to elevate the flavor of the ingredient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martucci gives play to a delightful palette of colors in her desserts and loves to introduce surprising contrasts in texture or flavor. There is, literally, no sweet without some sour. \u201cEspecially, a restaurant dessert has to have it, because it\u2019s the end of the meal,\u201d she says. \u201cUsually, people have saved not so much room. It\u2019s important that it\u2019s not too sweet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"KoolKool Beanz Cafe has been a Tallahassee mainstay since 1996. Illustration by Jules Ozaeta.<\/p>\n

In the end, crafting Italian desserts comes down to science. \u201cWhen you cook, you can use a lot of creativity\u2014you can taste, and say something needs more salt, or it\u2019s a little spicy. In pastry, you have to follow rules,\u201d Martucci says. It\u2019s math, not mood. \u201cIf you think to change something because you are in a hurry, you get it wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she speaks, Martucci projects a genuine zest for what she\u2019s doing, the abiding thrill of someone who has landed exactly in the place she wanted to be, with no reason to suspect a year ago that she\u2019d be right here, dreaming up her ideal desserts, inspired by European authenticity and a taste for innovation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are super, super open-minded with me,\u201d she says of Kool Beanz, reflecting on her requests for exactly the right component to turn a new idea into a diner\u2019s perfect final bite, \u201cwhen I drive them crazy that I want this ingredient, or, (ask) \u2018Where do you find it?\u2019 Sometimes you have to be flexible. You try to make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, of course, the joy of cooking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about all these new ingredients, new techniques that you can learn every day,\u201d Martucci says. \u201cIt\u2019s a continuous evolution, pastry. Every month, you learn something new: a new technique, a new ingredient that can help you to make the texture better, and things like that. It\u2019s something that gives me so much satisfaction. I have a friend that once told me, \u2018Find your passion, and look for someone who pays for it, and this is the reason for happiness.\u2019 And that\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more Florida chefs, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Steve, a Tallahassee native and Flamingo contributor since 2017, has written about film, music, art and other popular culture for publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, GQ, and The Los Angeles Times. He is the artistic director for the Tallahassee Film Festival and writes a monthly film newsletter for Flamingo, Dollar Matinee.<\/p>\n