Team

Christo Mitov

Christo is born and raised in the harsh surroundings of post-communist Bulgaria. However, he managed to gain a very high sensitivity for the beautiful and the innovative – a fact proven over time in multiple articles and interviews he has been publishing in diverse media in Bulgarian, English and German.

Believe it or not, Christo has a conservative Christian background and memories from the time when a Kinder Surprise egg was his Christmas gift. He has always been a nerd – the old-fashioned, socially awkward one with the perfect notes in class. The first foreign language he learned was English, back in 1991 when he started kindergarden and visited Germany for the first time. The first computer he used was Macintosh II and the first programming languages he learned were Basic and Pascal.

Christo started his first web project in 1998 with the site bgteen.com, which is a porn site today (not owned by him). His media career followed internships in different media, a short 3-year career as a foreign editor and correspondent for Darik Radio (involving some pretty badass interviews with Noam Chomsky, Nigerian terrorists and Dutch Mohammad illustrators) Since 2009 he works as PR for a communication research institute in Berlin. In 2009 he started Grateful Grapefruit – an art & queer zine effort to give expression space to his admirations.

He has also been nursed by a gipsy. That’s why he owes a really colorful personality, his pasty looks notwithstanding.

Sean Johnson

Sean is an American artist living in Boston, MA. He studied Photography, Video and Performance Art during both his undergraduate and masters studies. He currently works as a freelance Artist, but is also a college professor, event planner, and an amazing housewife.

Aside for the visual arts, music has always been one of his passions. His child hood is filled with stories and memories of him singing and dancing around to Whitney Houston, Ace of Base, En Vogue, and other amazing pop stars.

His interest in indie rock/pop music all started when his good friend made him listen to Belle and Sebastian on their usual long drives to Uni. “Judy and the Dream of Horses” blasted throughout the windows and at this moment on, he knew that there was music out there that needed to be shared that was beyond the radio hits. His interest has become a slight obsession, looking at trending sounds and hits on the Billboard charts, seeking out European Pop hits, underground sounds, and newcomers to the music world. Constantly searching for new music, and sharing his finds with others, Sean always has something new to listen to, sharing his love for music to everyone.

His love for music has helped him start his local party, Fur & Gold, giving away music to everyone who attends, sharing new artists, and also bands that they love to everyone.

Joe Diliberto

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Joe did his undergrad degree in Boston and Munich. After realizing that teaching brats at a Swiss boarding school was definitely not his “thing”, he moved to Berlin in the very chaotic mid 90s. Rumor has it he had a grand time.

In Berlin, Joe started his marketing/media career. A brief stint in Abu Dhabi (in summer..hot!!!) and he was back in Berlin before moving to Brussels for graduate school.  Brussels…less said the better.

Ater country hopping his way through the 90s, Joe settled in NYC and quickly became food obsessed. Putting the grad degree to use, Joe worked first as client-side marketing bitch, eventually trading the good life for agency life. Eventually the agency toil paid off, and he was appointed MD at a rather fun media agency. To balance the icky-ness of agency life, Joe got wrapped up in food culture and cooking. A seed was planted.

Manhattan is rather fabulous, but after many years, the call of Germany could not be resisted. After two years of FFM and 15 years in the marketing/media world, Joe was ready for a year off. Back to Berlin! What to do, what to do…go back to agency life?  Find a cushy client-side job? Cooking his way through the time off it became clear that there was only one option. Open a kitchen shop! Joe and his boyfriend opened Kochtail in Mitte in 2010. Their focus is on environmentally friendly, quality tools for the kitchen and home bar.

Per Joannesson

Born and raised in Uppsala, Sweden, Per Joannesson (27) attended the oldest university in Scandanavia, the Uppsala University and walked out with a degree in horticulture,
(quite like his fellow country man Carl Nilson Linnaeus, -who as a matter of fact received most of his education at the very same university-)

While Linnaeus dedicated his entire life to collecting specimen of animals, plants and minerals, Joannesson came to the realization that collecting PRADA, FENDI and DIOR Homme alongside with a heavy dose of contemporary art and literature was far more lucrative than creating a herbarium.

Joannesson currently lives with his giant angora bunny Spinoza in Paris. That’s him on the left.

Pino Bonetti

Pino was born and raised in a very small village in Italy. 300 people, half of which relatives. A nightmare for any horny nerd. Technically speaking, he’s not a digital native. Indeed he does remember his life without Internet… As if it was someone’s else. He immediately recognized that the Internet could have set him free and in 1995 he was the only one online in a quite wide radius.

After his graduation in physics he moved to Berlin, then to Amsterdam and eventually back to Berlin, where he feels home. Pino usually describes himself as bearcub (for many but not for everyone), TV series junkie (True Blood anyone?), popstar (he never misses any good gig), effortlessly cool (especially when he’s traveling), amateur photographer (his photos are included in his posts), Nokia employee (as social media whore).

Although he just feels like the world isn’t ready for him, he recently decided to be part of the fab Grateful Grapefruit team. His mission here is to blog about travel, a work in progress project he is definitively carrying on very well. Other random activities that are keeping him busy right now are organizing dinners with Christo and Joe during which they cook for
him.