The moment I knew: ‘We didn’t speak the same language but somehow we understood each other’

Federica Andrisani was confused by Oskar’s blue eyes and fair skin – she thought her boss had said he was from Tanzania, she’d never heard of Tasmania. Photograph: Guardian Design/Federica Andrisani

In 2013 I moved from Milan to work as a pastry chef in Marano Vicentino, a tiny town in the region of Veneto. My new boss was the youngest chef to be awarded a Michelin star in Italy and I was excited by the opportunity to work at El Coq, living in the staff sharehouse and learning everything I could.

I’d been there a year when Oskar arrived on the scene. A fellow chef and friend of my boss, he had been working on a boat somewhere and was going to stay with us in the sharehouse for a few weeks and spend some time in the kitchen helping us develop the menu.