The past three days have seen Chefs Lanshu Chen, André Garrett and Hideaki Matsuo in the kitchens at Northcote leading the Obsession 16 homage to fine foods and wines.
Chef Lanshu ChenChef Lanshu Chen
Lanshu Chen fuses her Taiwanese roots with classical French cooking to create a very personal and original style of haute cuisine. Lanshu first learned to cook at a young age at home in Yilan, a small town in the northern Taiwan, with her grandmother and mother.
After studying Foreign Literature at the National Taiwan University she moved to Paris to pursue her passion for cooking. After obtaining the Cer tificat d’Aptitude Professionnelle in cuisine from the French School of Culinary Arts and a diploma in pastry from Le Cordon Bleu, she went on to work for some of the best chefs in Paris including Les Ambassadeurs with chef Jean-François Piège and Jérôme Chaucesse, Relais d’Auteuil with chef Patrick Pignol and in the atelier of legendary Pâtissier Pierre Hermé.
After interning at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry in California, she returned to Taiwan to open her own restaurant Le Moût. Taichung, on the central western coast of the island of Taiwan that lies east of mainland China, is a bustling city famous as a centre of industry and a central travel hub. Many travellers will stop over in the city before heading off to explore the island’s mountainous interior, but clued-in foodies will make a beeline for Le Mout.
With its gold mirrors, intricate crown mouldings, crystal chandeliers, velvet chairs and antique French furniture, Le Mout’s grand dining room wouldn’t look out of place on the Rue de Rivoli. Chen takes an almost philosophical approach to her cuisine: “I am looking for a new way to interpret what I have learned and felt. It’s as though to create a culinary map that belongs to myself and to Taiwan, and as my thought wanders, the birth of each dish is just like the extension of every step in my life.”
Chen plates dishes such as duck egg with chestnut porridge, chanterelles and garlicalmond crumble or boneless short ribs and bone marrow with octopus, coffee and baby turnip with exquisite precision and attention to detail, raising simple ingredients to gastronomic heights.
Chen’s imaginative and sophisticated approach to local, seasonal cuisine, supplemented by some of the best produce in the world has led to her being named Asia’s best female chef by Veuve Clicquot and Le Tout ranking number 26 in the current Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
Chef André GarrettChef André Garrett
That Andre Garrett has his name above the door at one of England’s finest addresses will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed his career. The Bath-born chef moved to London in the early 90s to work with culinary legend Nico Ladenis, ultimately ecoming Head Chef of the acclaimed Nico Central in Great Portland Street.
Garrett spent two years with Bruno Loubet at his influential Soho restaurant Bistro Bruno, but made his greatest impact in the capital during his 13 years working with the Galvin brothers, winning Michelin stars as Head Chef at both the Orrey in Marylebone and Galvin at Windows in Park Lane.
Now, after more than two decades in the city, Garrett has moved to the Berkshire countryside. Originally built in the 1700s as a hunting lodge, Cliveden has hosted royalty, A-list celebrities and is famously the setting for the Profumo affair in the 60s. A meal at Cliveden is everything you’d hope dining in a grand English country house hotel might be. The setting is truly opulent with magnificent crystal chandeliers, gold leaf on walls hung with gilt mirrors and fine oil paintings and full height windows set with swagged silk curtains that frame the view of Cliveden’s beautifully tended National Trust grounds.
Garrett’s style of cooking marries a peerless technique, deeply rooted in classical cuisine but with lots of modernising touches to lighten the food. For example, his version of the classic Dover sole Veronique features wild line caught Cornish fish, filleted then rolled and poached in a water bath and served with braised baby fennel, blow torch cooked Baby Gem lettuce, a verjus and dried grape butter sauce and reduced chicken jus. His eight course tasting menus are true gastronomic events encompassing fine seasonal British produce that on occasion he pairs with some exotic ingredients, as in his dish of salt-cured duck liver tourchon, roast duck jelly, grilled peach, Indian long pepper and Japanese saké.
Garrett’s achievements outside of restaurant kitchens are impressive. He won the prestigious Roux Scholarship in 2002 (part of his prize allowed him to spend a month in the kitchen of three Michelin starred chef Guy Savoy in Paris), he received a Master of the Culinary Arts (MCA) in 2005, was selected to represent the UK in the 2007 Bocuse d’Or competition and now sits on the board of the Academy of Culinary Arts.
Chef Hideaki MatsuoChef Hideaki Matsuo
Hideaki Matsuo is a master of ‘ryotei’, an exclusive, ultrapremium style of Japanese haute cuisine. He took an unusual route to the professional kitchen, first picking up a degree in theoretical physics from Kansai University before training for three years with acclaimed chef Hidetaro Nakamura at Shofukuro restaurant in Shiga. In 1993 he took over the kitchens of Kashiwaya, the family business set up by his father in 1977.
In 2009, he was awarded two Michelin stars with a third following just one year later. You’ll find Kashiwaya on a quiet residential area in a suburb in the hills of northern Osaka. Ascend a flight of steps from the street, cross the stone path through the moss garden and enter through a sliding door. From there, you’re escorted to your private dining room that’s sparsely decorated in a contemporary ‘sukiya’ Japanese tea ceremony style with sliding doors, paper screens, tatami mats, low level table and floor level chairs.
Matsuo’s seasonally driven, and monthly changing eight-course ‘kaiseki’ (formal, multicourse) menus are inspired by the memory of his first tea ceremony. They are, he says, his attempt to express the ‘Japanese art of living’ in re-worked versions of classic dishes. Served in a succession of beautifully decorated chinaware, lacquered bowls and bamboo boxes, dishes such as grilled tile fish marinated in salted shrimp, puffer roe boiled in sake with turnip soup and whole fried river fish with gingko nuts, spinach and tamago (a type of Japanese omelette) combine colour, flavour, taste and texture in a highly sophisticated way. The meal will also include elements more familiar to western palates such as scallop, snapper and cuttlefish, sashimi and prawn and conger eel sushi.
A member of Relais & Chateau since 2011, Matsuo is also a member of the board of directors at All Japan Food Association that promotes Japanese cuisine. In 2013, he won the bronze medal at the 4th Culinary Masters Awards held by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan and opened Kashiwaya, Hong Kong, in November 2015.
Electrolux Professional are the headline sponsor for Obsession 16