There’s no adrenalin rush like the one a chef gets from cooking in front of thousands of food lovers.

It’s what Livio Ferigo discovered this last month at Good, a food and wine festival in Udine, Italy.

“It’s amazing because you’re right there and talking to thousands of people,” said the 41-year-old owner of Bella Vista Bar & Grill.

He was one of four Italian chefs living abroad who took part in the festival. About 5,000 people attended the event, which ran from November 5-7.

“We heard from organisers that our talk was actually the most well attended,” he said. “Perhaps it’s because we spoke about Bermuda and people wanted to know more about the Island. We also filled them in about life here — the lifestyle, how the people and scenery are.”

A festival organiser contacted him unexpectedly this year, and asked him to attend.

Mr Ferigo had to give a live, two-hour cooking demonstration as part of the three-day event which attracted people in the Northern and Southern parts of Italy.

“It was an amazing experience because it was held in a huge stadium and around that were hundreds of vendors and stalls offering every kind of food imaginable,” Mr Ferigo said.

“They had artisan cheeses, chocolates, ice creams and pizza, everything you can imagine.

“The organisers had heard about me and my cookbook and invited four of us celebrity chefs to each do a little cooking demonstration and a talk for the people of Italy.

“They paid for everything and even flew me down there and paid for my hotel. They wanted [my food] to represent Italy, but also the cuisine from where we are living now, so I created something with a Bermuda twist.”

He made pumpkin dumplings with white mushrooms, flavoured with black rum. Most of the ingredients were from his home town in Forni Di Sopra, about an hour outside of Venice.

The black rum paid “hommage to Bermuda”, his home for the past 22 years. The dish was topped off with shrimps and smoked ricotta cheese.

“I also talked about my time in Bermuda, my wife and children, so it definitely provided Bermuda with some extra attention,” he said.

Mr Ferigo also owns Bone Fish Bar and Grill and Café Amici Ristorante.

The festival was broadcast on Italian television; the chef said the exposure was one of the highlights of his career so far.

“The most rewarding thing for me was having my mom watch it on DVD,” he said. “She cried after seeing it.

“She just had an operation and can’t walk, so she couldn’t be there in person, but some people from my town were able to come down to see me.

“They were very proud because I left so many years ago, but my heart is still connected to where I came from.”

He continued: “My wife also got to see it and the thing I love is because there’s the internet, it’s something my children can see for the rest of their lives.

“It’s a big deal because when you do something like that in front of all these people it can be intimidating, but we did a fantastic job. I was representing my own country and also Bermuda. It’s amazing if you think about all the thousands of chefs from around the world and they chose me to come.”

Mr Ferigo would like to one day have a television show featuring local cuisine and interviews with farmers on the Island.

“It would be like Chopped, Bermuda style,” he said.