Renee Conrad
Chef-proprietor of Conrad’s Il Ristorante, Nueva Andalucia, Marbella.
His Story
Born in 1965, at the age of just 13 he left home and went to Paris and found work in bars and kitchens pot washing, eventually he found an employer who offered him the possibility of a ‘day release’ three year course in catering which he jumped at. After finishing the course, he decided to join the military and studied computer technology, but he realised that his true calling was in the kitchen, so after serving for four years he left the forces and went to Cologne and was engaged as a chef in a Michelin stared restaurant, Rino Casati.
Some years later he moved to Hamburg to an Italian restaurant, Il Ristorante, learning the art of pasta making, eventually becoming the pasta chef. In 1996 he moved to Wuppertal to a small hotel/restaurant Scarpati, it was here that he met Sabine who also worked there, and they married in 2000. The temptation to move to Berlin became too great and as head chef he went to the Hotel Mandala restaurant, Facil, where in 2002 they were awarded a Michelin Star. To run your own restaurant is a dream of most chefs, and his old boss in Wuppertal wanted to retire and offered him the possibility of doing just that.
What transpired then was far from his dream as his old boss didn’t want to let go of the reins, so after six months he went back to Berlin as head chef at the Grand Hotel Esplanade, and then to the Vivo hotel where a second Michelin star was gained. In 2005 Sabine came to Spain to be with her family who then ran El Gaucho in Puerto Banus. After Renee joined her they searched and then found an empty restaurant in La Campana, and promptly opened it up as Il Ristorante. They built the business up to a stage that the dining room became too small and in 2014 they moved to much larger premises in Nueva Andalucía that they called after their family name “Conrad’s”
