An Italian chef who recently exhausted opportunities for exploration in the Maldives has relocated to Vietnam, and the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi’s kitchens as the new head chef at Angelina, the landmark hotel’s three-year-old Italian restaurant.

Ivan Negro’s appointment as chef de cuisine is a next generation move by the hotel as it builds on Angelina’s reputation as the most chic Italian dining opportunity in the country.

Located on the ground floor of the historic hotel’s Opera Wing, the 120-seat restaurant opened in October 2008 as a venue for discreet liaison and high-brow association, cultivating a social and culinary scene in a destination where sophistication is developing as fast as a Polaroid.

“Ivan’s mission is evolution, not revolution,” said Kai Speth, the hotel’s general manager. “He’s inheriting a menu that was established in 2009 but is about to acquire subtle shades of difference as Ivan brings his own creativity into our recipes for sauces, and as he re-imagines what we’re doing with everything from lobsters and prawns to dessert. A new chef is almost always an incredible new opportunity.”

Prior to his move to Hanoi, Negro, 30, worked as a sous chef in the kitchens of two Four Seasons restaurants in the Maldives, where the restaurant business catered to waves of guests coming in seasonally from China, Russia, Arabia and other destinations.

“We were constantly changing, preparing foods differently for each group,” said Negro. “I’m really looking forward to bearing down now on the priorities of Italian cuisine, as opposed to the tastes of revolving demographics!”

His first foreign post was in London, where he worked for separate stints in the early and mid 2000s. A native of Aosta, Italy, he graduated from the Istituto Alberghiero Catering School in Châtillon at Aosta, Italy.