Chilean confectioner Camila Fiol is known for her delicious yet surprising sweets and desserts, all made without artificial flavours or colourings. The recently crowned winner of the Latin America’s Best Pastry Chef Award, sponsored by República del Cacao, talks cheese, chocolate and the serendipitous accident that changed her life
Camila Fiol likes to do things differently. At her hit confectionery shop, Dulcería Fiol in Santiago, you won’t find vanilla ice cream or plain chocolate truffles. You will, however, find chocolate brownie cookies with passionfruit, and ice cream made from Andean lucuma fruit in a vegan cone, topped with black sesame seeds and confit ginger.
“I’ve always liked to get outside my comfort zone,” says Fiol, who was voted the region’s premier pastry chef as part of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants in Rio de Janeiro in November 2024. “I do the opposite of what everyone else does. If everyone is making bonbons, I won’t make bonbons. Marshmallows are usually square, so we make ours round, with fillings.”
Camila Fiol aims to be unconventional with her pastry creations
At Dulcería Fiol, the marshmallows might be flavoured with matcha tea and filled with yuzu and grapefruit, while macarons come in varieties such as cacao nibs, bitter chocolate ganache, coconut paste and pineapple marmalade. The macarons themselves are made with almond flour, peanut flour and other alternatives.
Instead of using artificial colours and flavourings, everything is natural, with bright colours coming from unusual fruits and products from all over Chile. This makes both the process and the end result highly creative. In a recent sweet and sour ice cream, Fiol used wood sorrel, savoury Chilean rhubarb and raspberry, each giving its own unique colour, flavour and texture to the dessert.
Exploring Chilean produce
Fiol always knew she wanted to be a chef and was frequently cooking and baking as a child. In Chile, culinary schools require students to study both savoury and pastry, but the sweet side left her uninspired. “There was so much dough!” she says, explaining that the emphasis was more on cakes than on the sorts of sweets and ice creams she makes now.
An accident forced Fiol to switch from savoury to sweet while working at Boragó
After working as a savoury chef in a hotel then a restaurant, she joined Boragó, the spot that would go on to be named The Best Restaurant in Chile in every single edition of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants over the last decade. When she joined in 2010, Boragó was still serving products like foie gras and truffle, but it was during Fiol’s tenure that chef-owner Rodolfo Guzmán made the transition to using only Chilean ingredients.
It was a period of discovery as the whole team explored lesser-known produce from up and down the world’s longest country. The learning curve was steep: they would receive a kilo of a certain type of mushrooms or fruits and would have to create a dish that might only be served for a day or two, before the menu would change again.
Then Fiol had an accident that damaged her hand and left her unable to use a knife. After a period in hospital, she asked to be transferred to the pastry section, where she was unhindered by her injury. Her passion for sweets was reignited, and she soon worked her way up to head pastry chef at Boragó. “Even if I hadn’t had the accident, I’d have ended up working in pastry somehow,” she says.
Turning cheese into dessert
When she left Boragó in 2012 to open Dulcería Fiol, the chef continued exploring lesser-used Chilean ingredients. With a few exceptions like yuzu and tonka bean, she works primarily with local produce and loves to let her customers discover their country’s bounty.
Savoury ingredients, such as cheeses, are a regular features in Fiol's desserts
Fiol is also a big fan of using cheese in desserts: we’re talking macarons with nuts, white chocolate, blue cheese and pear, or an ice cream sandwich with blue cheese and raspberry marmalade. The store also sells a cookie combining milk chocolate, vanilla, salt and Grana Padano.
“I use a lot of blue cheese, goat’s cheese, brie, ricotta, camembert,” she says. “It’s partly from my savoury chef side: I love putting sweet together with savoury. We always put chocolate with salt. It creates umami.”
The shop sells mini praline bars and other chocolate creations, often using República del Cacao. For a recent wine festival, Fiol even made a special edition white chocolate featuring dehydrated wine turned into powder. There is also a trompe l’oeil dish featuring white chocolate and corn that is made to look like baby corn.
Inspiring the next generation
After opening Dulcería Fiol to critical acclaim, the chef wanted to keep furthering her knowledge, so she went to Spain to study a master’s degree in pastry at the Basque Culinary Center in San Sebastián. She ended up taking on a permanent role as a pastry teacher at the prestigious school, before eventually moving back to Santiago.
In 2022, Fiol was recognised on the inaugural 50 Next list of people under the age of 35 shaping the future of gastronomy, for her work as a pastry chef, entrepreneur and educator inspiring young generations of confectioners and dessert makers.
Fiol was recognised on stage at the awards ceremony in Rio de Janeiro
Now she works for two months every year at the Cordon Bleu school in the Chilean capital, teaching modern pastry techniques including spherification and the use of liquid nitrogen. She also teaches confectionery and ice cream making internationally on an ad hoc basis and has created desserts as part of pop-ups at different restaurants around the world, including at El Chato in Bogotá with chef Alvaro Clavijo.
Last year saw the opening of the second branch of Dulcería Fiol in the Chilean capital. One day, Fiol says she’d love to take her creations further afield by opening a shop overseas, where she would cook with the local produce. In the meantime, she plans to travel more and, of course, design more of her unusual but delicious desserts.
Watch the video exploring Fiol's inventive creations:
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