Chef Roy

For more than 20 years, Roy Shvartzapel has traveled the globe, working for and learning from some of the most important gastronomic figures of our time, including Pierre Hermé, Ferran Adrià, and Thomas Keller. His career took him through celebrated Michelin-starred kitchens in Europe and the United States, but it was an encounter with legendary Italian pastry master Iginio Massari that would ultimately alter the course of his life.

Under Massari’s mentorship, Roy discovered panettone not as the mass-produced holiday bread familiar to most, but as one of the most technically demanding and expressive forms in the baker’s repertoire. What began as fascination became obsession.

In 2015, Roy founded From Roy with a simple, if improbable, ambition: to reimagine panettone for a new generation. Drawing on the rigor of his classical training and the creative freedom of contemporary gastronomy, he began treating panettone as a canvas—pairing naturally leavened dough with flavors, ingredients, and ideas rarely associated with the centuries-old tradition.

Over the past eleven years, Roy’s work has helped ignite a global reimagining of panettone, with the influence of his distinctive approach now visible throughout the international artisan panettone world.

Writing about his work, legendary food writer Ruth Reichl described the experience as “almost psychedelic in its intensity”—“feather-light,” with each “gossamer layer seeming to evaporate in your mouth.”