Meet the five Odette chefs who helped Julien Royer achieve Michelin success
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Meet the five Odette chefs who helped Julien Royer accomplish Michelin success
In celebration of the restaurant'due south 5th anniversary, chef-possessor Royer wants his well-loved squad to take the spotlight. In return, they share how his mentorship has impacted them.
The Odette dream team: Chefs Jonathan Gan, Louisa Lim, Adam Wan, Julien Royer, Levin Lau and Yeo Sheng Xiong. (Photograph: Joyee Koo)
20 Nov 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 09 Jul 2022 eleven:09PM)
How practice you define a restaurant's success in this day and historic period? For chef Julien Royer of iii-Michelin-starred Odette, information technology's a kitchen that runs faultlessly even when he isn't effectually.
This month, as the restaurant named in tribute to his grandmother celebrates its ceremony, he's confident that he'south achieved this. Five years in, Royer has built what is perhaps his strongest team nevertheless – some members, such as executive chef Levin Lau, chef de cuisine Adam Wan and sous chef Yeo Sheng Xiong, accept worked with him for a decade.
"We have grown together. They have become more than staff members to me," he said. And, "Present, I can take a day off or become on holiday and have no worries considering I know the restaurant volition be running very well and the standard volition be the same as whether I'm here or not. I think this is truly the success of what a restaurant is in 2020, because you lot tin't be here always."
And then this year, in low-cal of the pandemic putting a damper on collaborations with other feted restaurants effectually the world, he's come up with a different idea for jubilant the ceremony of the restaurant at the height spot of 2020'due south Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list.
"I told myself, 'Why don't we do information technology with our ain little stars here?'"
In a three-day event named Marchands de Bonheur – "Merchants of happiness" – held from November 20 to 22, 5 of Royer's chefs volition take the pass, presenting their own dishes created with the chef-owner's guidance.
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"All of them have great talent, and all of them are the backbone of what we exercise on a daily basis. And without those people, at that place would be no restaurant, no story, no success. And so, information technology'southward a fashion to reward them, make them smoothen and push button their creativity," he said.
In fashioning the card for the anniversary dinner, each of the 5 chefs got to pick an ingredient that is currently in season, and craft a dish celebrating it.
Royer himself volition also serve two of his signatures: The pigeon, a dish that has evolved via different permutations over the years, each more than delicious than the last; and the langoustine, his favourite seafood, cooked very gently to highlight its natural sugariness.
The chefs have "been working on the dishes for the concluding few weeks, testing and refining and working as a team," Royer said. "This is the beautiful affair about information technology – alone, yous can't do much, but when you are surrounded by corking people like they are, you tin."
Who are the people who brand upwardly the heart and soul of Odette, and how do their dishes illustrate their journey with the eating place? Nosotros got to know these talented chefs, rising culinary stars and purveyors of gustatory pleasance.
EXECUTIVE CHEF LEVIN LAU
Having been part of Royer'southward squad since 2007, Lau, whose father ran a market vegetable stall, knows all the ins and outs of kitchen direction.
Even though he'south the strong, silent type, he isn't without a sense of humour. For the anniversary dinner, the 35-year-erstwhile is presenting a playful tribute to Odette'south longstanding signature uni dish.
Instead of serving it in its beat, he'll serve Hokkaido uni in a spiked glass bowl instead, with Osaka sardine tartare smoked with cherry wood for some unctuous fattiness, and finger lime that'south as well from Japan. Information technology'due south topped with uni-infused mussel cream and Kristal caviar. "There's a twist on the flavour, just the dish looks near the same," he explained.
The cosmos is inspired by his appreciation for Japanese ingredients and their provenance, a passion cultivated through trips to Japan with the restaurant'southward suppliers to source for produce as well equally to cook at events there with Royer and the team. "I really respect how they care for their ingredients advisedly, starting with the farmers," he said.
In the 13 years that he's worked with Royer, Lau has learned to read him so well that he can always tell when his chef has tasted the one thing that'due south especially offensive to his palate: Dried shrimp. Whenever he detects it in food, "he makes a confront", Lau divulged with a express mirth.
That, Royer protested, is because Lau loves putting dried shrimp, fish sauce and other pungent Asian elements into his own cooking.
On Lau's part, information technology will forever be a mystery, he mused, why the French dearest their stinky cheeses only not hae bee and durian.
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CHEF DE CUISINE ADAM WAN
What happens when you spend more time with your French chef than with your family or friends? Your English takes on a pronounced French accent, and information technology's disarmingly unique.
Born in small-boondocks Malaysia, Wan recalls building wood fires and visiting wet markets with his grandmother as a child, which motivated his food aspirations.
He has worked with Royer for most x years at present, and has risen through the ranks to become his correct-hand man in the kitchen, picking upwardly a command of French forth the way – which certainly helps in edifice rapport with suppliers.
For his dish, he wanted his French culinary training and his Chinese heritage to encounter on a plate, while paying homage to 1 of Odette'southward signature dishes, the Normandy Dark-brown Crab.
He's called to present a dish of Hokkaido king crab served ii ways: Cold and hot. At that place is crab meat accompanied by a cucumber-tarragon sorbet and a layer of Riesling and Tosaka seaweed jelly; and and so Chinese-style crab dumplings in a warm broth. "Dumplings are one of my favourite foods," the 30-year-former said.
He has besides made sure to incorporate one of the philosophies he's captivated from Royer: Respect for ingredients. The dish "uses every single part of the king crab to make sure at that place'south no wastage": Broth is made with the shell, and crab trimmings form the dumplings' filling.
It'due south a tribute to the fact that "nosotros cannot cook skilful food without the farmers, fishermen and other producers," Wan said.
At the same time, "This is a really good opportunity to show my Chinese heritage in a French eatery… I always tell myself, 'Never forget where you come from.'"
SOUS CHEF YEO SHENG XIONG
The name on Yeo's chef's jacket reads "Naka Xiong", just it'southward really a nickname that Royer bestowed upon him: "Naka" is how the French chef pronounces the Mandarin conversational filler words "na ge", which Royer says he used to hear Yeo utter all the time.
Yeo, who began his career with Royer at xix, has since embraced it fully – when he travels for work, it's easier for chefs in other countries to pronounce than his actual proper noun.
The 29-year-former is obsessed with the seasonality of produce, something that he credits Royer with helping him capeesh.
"The kitchen smells different every season," he said. "Right now, when it'south in between autumn and wintertime, you start to see cranberries… chestnuts. You come across all the root vegetables. I really love celeriac. If I smell celeriac in January, information technology brings me back to November and December, like when you odour bak kwa at Chinese New year's day."
In a country where we have no seasons, the 29-year-old has come quite a long way from his babyhood growing up on his male parent's fish subcontract in Kranji. He now oversees the restaurant's research and development processes, and mentors other cooks.
Fifty-fifty so, he laboured over the dish he wanted to nowadays considering, he quipped, it's "going to be served in the restaurant where (Royer's) grandmother's name is on the wall".
When the chefs were asked which ingredients they wanted to work with, he was the first to shoot his manus up and "chope" Alba white truffles.
Showcasing the seasonal effeminateness, his dish also features Pu-erh tea-smoked egg, celeriac puree, Vin Jaune-buckwheat sabayon, well-baked pancetta and Piedmont hazelnuts.
Information technology's a comforting notwithstanding elegant dish that mirrors the stage of maturity he'southward grown into equally a chef.
"I used to be really angsty and I thought that yelling was the best manner," he said. "But when (Chef Julien) saw me yelling, he would go, 'Calmez-vous', which means 'calm down.'"
Inferior SOUS CHEF JONATHAN GAN
Gan is a self-taught cook whose love of Japanese culture is inscribed on his arms in the form of anime-inspired tattoos and the saying, "Fall downwardly seven times, get up 8."
The attention to detail that the Japanese are known for is something he seeks to emulate, so he spends even his days off reading up on culinary methods, learning techniques of shambles and preservation.
Moving from Whitegrass to Odette in 2017, the 27-twelvemonth-one-time was keen to acquire about French cuisine, and Royer's mode taught him an appreciation for "light and clean-tasting flavours".
For the dinner, he'southward presenting a dish of wild turbot from Brittany, i of his favourite fish to work with. He brines it, so poaches it in French butter, serving it with Jerusalem artichoke puree finished with a mussel beurre blanc.
He makes sure to add that information technology's "garnished with lemon zest, capers, bits of lemon segments and parsley", because he's only recently moved up from the garnish station to being in charge of proteins.
Not bad at all for a chef who'south had no formal culinary grooming and learnt everything on the job.
PASTRY CHEF LOUISA LIM
Yous'd remember that having dedicated her life to pastry, she'd be a fan of all things sugary, only 28-year-old Lim says she really doesn't appreciate overly sweet desserts.
That's why her creations are delicate, restrained and never cloying – the perfect ending to a tour de force of a meal.
For the occasion, the Le Cordon Bleu Paris graduate, who trained and worked in France for four years, has spun a creation using chestnuts.
Equally information technology's autumn and they are in season, chestnut mont blancs immediately sprang to mind. She and then decided to add a citrus element with Corsican clementines. Along with toasted hazelnut meringue, the cease result is a plate that combines "everything I like in a dessert".
In keeping with Odette'south pattern artful, "When I'g creating a dessert, I always bear in mind the words feminine balance," she shared.
You could call it her personal deed of mild rebellion: "I'm one of the few girls in the kitchen, so I prefer to add a feminine touch," she said.
An environment with "a lot of male person energy" does "get daunting sometimes", she said. Merely, "I always tell myself to stay focused and take pride in whatever I practise."
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Odette is at one St Andrew'south Road #01-04.
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