New Haven Independent

Alba Estenoz was happily at work at the Chapel Street restaurant’s February Chef’s Table event. She demonstrated for some 30 devotees how to prepare pink champagne truffles; the right layering for a perfect chocolate hazelnut crunch bar; and how to fashion that classic French treat, an almond rocher, where just the right drizzle of quantro helps the sugar adhere to the crispy roasted almonds.

Estenoz’s life trajectory was really not supposed to land her at Zinc.

If her parents’ wishes had been fulfilled, she would have been elsewhere Tuesday, excavating an ancient ruin or interviewing a world leader at Davos. At one time she indeed appeared headed on that road.

But none of that, or the prospects of same, made Alba Estenoz happy. Then she discovered, well, not chocolate, but creating fabulous pastries.

The soft-spoken Estenoz, a native of the Roman town of Merida in Spain, said she was originally drawn to archeology, then anthropology, both because of where she grew up and the academic expectations of her parents. She did the Spanish equivalent of four or five years of college work in those fields. In Seville she switched to journalism. That still didn’t make her happy.

She met Joel Silverman, an American studying abroad, and they married. She followed Silverman to Austin, Texas, where he was doing graduate work. Needing a job, she started at bussing tables at one of Austin’s top-flight restaurants.

“When they opened another restaurant,” she said, “I had an opportunity.” From there, she learned the secrets of cocoa butter, including where to order the best chocolate. (She swears by the French firm Valrhona.) Result: She found herself vocationally for the first time in her life. She was happy.

On the road to chocolate, how did Estenoz find the quiet courage to reject life paths that were expected of her?

The power of a recovered childhood experience appears to be a big part of the answer.

As Estenoz took some almonds out of the microwave Tuesday night, she paused thoughtfully and then said: “I began to remember an uncle and an aunt I had. Not in Seville but another town, a small town nearby. They had a bakery, and I spent a lot of time with them when I was very little. I’d almost forgotten.”

Those early experiences brought her, ultimately, to Zinc and this Chef’s Table night, which pleased guests such as Margo Tucker and her husband Jim, from Hamden. They came here a year ago from Dayton, Ohio, where, they said, they always supported downtown life. They were at Zinc interested not only in chocolate but also in exploring how the three sparkling wines served complemented Estenoz’s chocolate covered hazelnuts.

“Of course, it took a while for my parents to accept the idea of my being a pastry chef,” Estenoz said, “but now they do.” They visited her when she worked at a restaurant in Madrid. They have not yet been to Zinc, where Estenoz is in her fifth year conjuring up desserts, some nine a night on the menu, of which usually at least three are chocolate-related. But that family visit is definitely in the cards.

Estenoz now lives at Yale’s Morse College, where her husband is the dean. They have an 8 year-old son. So far, she said, she has resisted students’ pleas to make pastries for them, but it’s clearly a failing resistance.

“On Valentine’s Day, Friday the 13th,” Estenoz said, as she cleaned up from the chef’s table demonstration, “I’ve agreed to do a pastry class with them.”

The next Chef’s Table, on Tuesday April 7 at 6:30, might draw some of those students. It is an exploration of great encounters between beer and cheese. To learn more, or to find Alba Estenoz’s pastry recipes, or learn of other Zinc events, go to the Zinc website.