PROCHEF 2012 RBC by The Pro Chef Middle East

MIDDLE EAST ISSUE 04 JUNE 2012

IT’S A PASSION!

Marco and Giorgio share their secrets

IT’S A BUSINESS!

Restaurant conference shares success

IT’S A CULTURE!

Parisian food shares love on a plate

Publication licensed by IMPZ, Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority

ISSUE 4 JUNE 2012

EDITORIAL Should chefs have morals? We call out Thomas Keller for his declaration that he serves so few people it really doesn’t matter if he doesn’t source responsibly.

THE EGGS FACTOR What’s lurking in the home fridge of dessert chef Claire Clarke? We expected the butter and cream, but who knew about the Marmite?

FROM THE WALK-IN Details of a couple of recent studies - one on the cost to the US economy on rising obesity levels and the other on how, after all, rice is healthy.

OUT AND ABOUT The recent Restaurant Business conference saw two days of industry debate and idea sharing. And Unilever Food Solutions found a regional winner for Chef of the Year.

ON DISPLAY If you have not one but three restaurants on a truly iconic train, shouldn’t the tableware be stunning? We look at the exclusive porcelain from Villeroy & Boch for the VeniceSimplon Orient-Express.

ON THE MARKET Tea is a classic beverage. We look at some of the trends in the tea market.

INGREDIENT Coffee goes artisanal, hi-tech, lo-tech, any tech in New York City. How many of these ideas would work here in the UAE?

30 09

PIMP MY PLATE The idea is simple: we take a favourite recipe and give it to a great chef. The challenge? Cook it as it’s written and then reinvent the dish to fine dining level. Our next victims are the Rivington Grill team who have to tackle Catalan fish soup and end up with it on bread...

FACE TO FACE With radically different childhoods - one on a northern council estate, the other on the shores of Lake Comabbio Marco Pierre White and Giorgio Locatelli have become the faces of Italian food in Britain. We talk to them both.

ON THE PASSE Dishes from STAY by Yannick Alléno.

BOOK REVIEW We discover more niche food magazines! Who said print was dead?

TRAVEL Tourist or chef, who wouldn’t want to go to Paris to eat? Editor Dave Reeder, who can’t stay away from the city, offers some personal tips and favourite addresses.

THE LAST WORD Designing your menu for fun and profit.

Out and about partner.” He challenged chefs and owners to think not just about food hygiene in their own kitchens but also to look closely at issues of quality and safety in the supply chain. “For some menu items, we’re seeing ingredients coming from up to 25 countries,” he pointed out. He then stressed the need to adopt ‘ hygieneomics’ - a balance of quality, safety and profitability. “We need to consider food safety as an integral part of the overall business process – not just something to be done to meet legal requirements. In other words, we need an holistic approach that is predictive, not retrospective.” As one of the key elements of any restaurant’s success is building a menu that works, Thomas Pendarovski, the Executive Chef of Sofitel Dubai Jumeirah Beach, spoke passionately about his approach to the kitchen. “When I arrived at the hotel, the first thing I did was sit with my chefs and talk about seasonality and ingredients. I also made radical changes to the buffet. To be honest, I don’t like buffets - they’re messy. Instead, we went for customised portions and the buffet looks clean and crisp.” Picking up comments from the food trends panel, he agreed that chefs need to talk more to customers. “There’s nothing better for a guest than speaking to a chef - it’s a wow!” After a coffee/networking break, Zuma’s General Manager Spero Panagakis and chef for hire Andy Campbell agreed that quality produce is a great differentiator for a restaurant. Chef Uwe Michel, President of Emirates Culinary Guild and Head of Kitchens, Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek explained how he has championed the removal of endangered fish species from the hotel’s menus.”We all have to go together on this or we won’t succeed. If guests ask now for hammour, I say to them ‘We want our children to enjoy it in the future’. There are lots of great, sustainable fish in the market.” With audience discussion, they looked at the changing state of local produce and general sourcing issues. Gold sponsor, the US Dairy Export Council, is charged with increasing exports of American cheese. However, as Angelique Hollister, VP Cheese Marketing, explained, general perception is that American cheese is merely processed slices for burgers and so on, making it the world’s largest producer of cheese. In fact, as demonstrated by a wide variety of artisan cheeses that were sampled in the networking area, the large number of European immigrants into America brought with them their own cheesemaking tradition. Today, there are more than 400 artisan cheeses being produced in what Hollister calls “the new frontier” In the first of two short session, Boecker’s Regional Food Safety Manager, Hala Makhoul, gave a helicopter view of food safety issues. Her energetic style kept the audience riveted, especially when she recounted her university grduation celebration dinner where, suspicious of the food on the buffet, she was the only attendee not to be struck down sick! Everybody talks about the need for healthier eating and Heiner Werdeling, GM of the Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi, explained the hotel is undergoing

a complete rethink of its F&N outlets as well as a shift to more sustainable and healthier options, led by the hiring of California-baed chef Jennifer Lorenz, who is repositioning the hotel’s flagship seafood restaurant Nautilus. “You need to be different in a crowded market,” he said. Lastly, before lunch, Zuma’s Head Sommelier, Jacquie Lewis, urged industry colleagues to more Media partner: creative with wine lists to drive extra value. Day two began with an energetic performance by Tribe Restaurant’s Chief Worrier Stefan Berg looking at strategies for investment and how to identify gaps in the market in the fast-growing casual dining sector. “There’s not enough data in this market - it’s woeful how little data there is on eating out,” he warned attendees. He saw the MIDDLE EAST key opportunites for the near future as “casual

dining with table service” and the development of regionally developed brands. He also urged the industry to adopt technology before it lost “two generations” for whom paper menus no longer make sense. This was followed by a panel on restaurant branding and reinvention involving ex-Caprice David O’Brien, now Director of the new consultancy Ghaf, Rima Hechaime, who has wide experience of restaurant branding in Lebanon with Brainstorm, as well as Stefan Berg. Hechaime stressed the importance of consistency in branding: “Don’t say one thing and then translate it into something else. The messaging has to be the same.” O’Brien agreed: “We need to spend more time building loyalty.” Berg believes that “brand value is the most important thing”, although he

Ralph Omar

David O’Brien

Abdul Rashid

Liesa Euton

Today restaurant management teams are caught between shrinking margins and the need to constantly attract new business and continuously satisfy longterm regular guests. The recent two-day Restaurant Business conference was designed to give executive chefs, restaurant managers, marketing professionals and general managers the chance to step back from the day to day pressure, gain inspiration from success stories, rethink their approaches and emerge ready to embrace change and increase business. Jacquie Lewis

www.cpidubai.com/rbc

11 9

Chef Thomas Pendarovski

38 hotel managers, executive chefs, purchasing managers, restaurant managers and food service suppliers gathered for two days last month at the Restaurant Business conference, held at The Address Dubai Marina. Organised by CPI Conferences, a division of CPi, the publisher of The Pro Chef Middle East, the conference under the theme of ‘Dining value – Driving value’ spotlighted ways in which the fine dining sector can adapt amidst increasing competition. Delegates from the USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Levant listened to and discussed topics such as food trends, kitchen hygiene, menu development, quality produce, wine pairing, rebranding, designing for success and the supply chain. Topics from the floor centred on local sourcing and staff training. Host and moderator Liesa Euton is a former restaurant owner and hotel manager, with a wide understanding of issues raised by the conference. Day one began with her introducing Ralph Omar, CEO of Restaurant Secrets. The company is a fast growing and successful restaurant consultancy and he shared insights about how the right systems are required to guarantee restaurant success.

Chef Andy Campbell The first panel saw Samantha Wood (former inhouse hotel PR and marketing and now popular local food blogger, FooDiva), Jonathan Harris (former restaurant and operator for Hilton in the USA and now a restaurant consultant and Dave Reeder (editor of this magazine) discussing food and fine dining trends. All agreed that sustainability and traceability would continue to be a key trend, but also felt

that increased cuisine specialisation would help restaurants distinguish themselves in the market. Harris thought Korean food would be a winner and Reeder argued for regional distinctions Venetian or Roman food for example, rather than generic Italian. All wished gourmet food trucks might become a trend and all spoke passionately about the need for great service and creating relationships with customers. Although everyone at the conference understood the importance of hygiene in the kitchen and the need to be aware about food safety, they paid special attention to Abdul Rashid, who is Director and General Manager of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health Middle East. He has an enviable record in this field and was part of the initial team in Dubai Municipality that seriously addressed food safety issues. “Ten years ago, there was no budget for food safety,” Rashid reminded delegates. “Now there’s been a complete change, driven in large part by Dubai Municipality’s shift from industry policemen to industry partner.” He challenged delegate to think not just about food hygiene in their own kitchens but also to look closely at issues of quality and

“If guests ask now for hammour, I say to them ‘We want our children to enjoy it in the future’. There are lots of great, sustainable fish in the market.” - Chef Uwe Michel, President of Emirates Culinary Guild and Head of Kitchens, Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek

Out and about safety in the supply chain. “For some menu items, we’re seeing ingredients coming from up to 25 countries,” he pointed out. He stressed the need to adopt ‘ hygieneomics’ a balance of quality, safety and profitability. “We need to consider food safety as an integral part of the overall business process – not just something to be done to meet legal requirements. In other words, we need a real holistic approach that is predictive, not retrospective.” As one of the key elements of any restaurant’s success is building a menu that works, Thomas Pendarovski, the Executive Chef of Sofitel Dubai Jumeirah Beach, spoke passionately about his approach to the kitchen. “When I arrived at the hotel, the first thing I did was sit with my chefs and talk about seasonality and ingredients. I also made radical changes to the buffet. To be honest, I don’t like buffets - they’re messy. Instead, we went for customised portions and the buffet looks clean and crisp.” Picking up comments from the food trends panel, he agreed that chefs need to talk more to customers. “There’s nothing better for a guest than speaking to a chef - it’s a wow!” After a coffee and networking break, Zuma’s General Manager Spero Panagakis and chef for hire Andy Campbell agreed that quality produce is a great differentiator for a restaurant. Chef Uwe Micheel, President of Emirates Culinary Guild and Head of Kitchens, Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek explained how he has championed the removal of endangered fish species from the hotel’s menus.”We all have to go together on this or we won’t succeed. If guests ask now for hammour, I say to them ‘We want our children to enjoy it in the future’. There are lots of great, sustainable fish in the market.” With audience discussion, they looked at the changing state of local produce and general sourcing issues. Gold sponsor, the US Dairy Export Council, is charged with increasing exports of American cheese. However, as Angelique Hollister, VP Cheese Marketing, explained, general perception is that American cheese is merely processed slices for burgers and so on, making it the world’s largest producer of cheese. In fact, as demonstrated by a wide variety of artisan cheeses that were sampled in the networking area, the very large number of European immigrants into America brought with them their own cheesemaking tradition. Today, there are more than 400 artisan cheeses being produced in what Hollister calls “the new frontier”. In the first of two focused session, Boecker’s Regional Food Safety Manager, Hala Makhoul, gave a helicopter view of food safety issues. Her energetic style kept the audience riveted, as when she recounted her university graduation dinner where, suspicious of the food on the buffet, she was the only attendee not to be struck down sick! Everybody talks about the need for healthier eating and Heiner Werdeling, GM of Yas Viceroy Abu Dhabi, explained the hotel is undergoing a complete rethink of its F&N outlets as well as a shift to more sustainable and healthier options, led by the hiring of California-based chef Jennifer Lorenz, who is repositioning the hotel’s flagship

seafood restaurant Nautilus. “You really need to be different in a crowded market,” he said. Lastly, before lunch, Zuma’s Head Sommelier, Jacquie Lewis, urged industry colleagues to more creative with wine lists to drive extra value. Day two began with an energetic performance by Tribe Restaurant’s Chief Worrier Stefan Berg looking at strategies for investment and how to identify gaps in the market in the fast-growing casual dining sector. “There’s not enough data in this market - it’s woeful how little data there is on eating out,” he warned attendees. He saw the key opportunites for the near future as “casual dining with table service” and the development of brands from the region. He urged the industry to adopt IT before it lost “two generations” for whom paper menus no longer make sense.

This was followed by a panel on restaurant branding and reinvention involving ex-Caprice David O’Brien, now Director of the consultancy Ghaf, Rima Hechaime, who has wide experience of Lesbanese restaurant branding with Brainstorm, as well as Stefan Breg. Hechaime stressed the importance of consistency in branding: “Don’t say one thing and then translate it into something else. The messaging has to be the same.” O’Brien agreed: “We need to spend more time building loyalty.” Breg believes that “brand value is the most important thing”, although he expressed amazement that a Candian brand like Tom Horton’s could “hit the ground running” without general awareness of the brand. Thomas Klein International has helped many restaurants open, addressing everything from

Ralph Omar

David O’Brien

Abdul Rashid

Liesa Euton

Jacquie Lewis

Chef Uwe Micheel

Vasudevan K, Farah Sawaf, Antonia Felgner and Louay Al-Samarrai

concept to design, menu to staff. Principal and Managing Director Daniel During spoke about how design and decor can be used – indeed, must be used – to build success. Although reinvented shawarma company Wild Peeta only has one outlet, it is punching well above its weight through the clever use of social media. Co-founder Mohamed Parham Al Awadhi shared some of the secrets of success in a world of Twitter and Facebook, challenging attendees to be creative and think differently. “What we’ve done is turn thousands of followers into people involved in our brand. What colour should we paint the walls? What about the new menu? Those 10,000 people are our virtual board members and free consultants. That’s the power of socia media.” He stressed: “it’s not the number of followers, but how you measure the influence on-line. The reward, however, is priceless - you cannot pay any amount of money to get the same return as special media when it works.” A business that doesn’t know its customers is almost bound to be one that’s underperforming, but what are the best ways of finding out about their needs? A selection of F&B and non-F&B experts discussed ways to find the answer. These were experienced consumer marketeer and now market analyst Vasudevan K (Director of Navo), co-founder of boutique PR agency Active PR, Louay Al-Samarrai, enthusiastic marketer Farah Sawaf, owner of Soul Communications, and, from the Hyatt Group, Antonia Felgner, who is F&B Marketing Manager. According to Sawaf, “you can’t just say ‘this is my customer’; instead you need to categorise them into target segments”. Al-Samarrai agreed. “I think it’s very interesting how clients describe their customers instead of actually finding out who they are. Hotels have so many customer touch points you could use to gather information and spread influence.” “I think it’s all down to the personal touch,” Feigner summed up. Touching on food supply chain problems, Royal Culimer’s MD, Jeroen Tollenaar, gave a crash course in helping to understand the issues. Finally, a general panel brought it all together, with a selection of experts sharing what they learned over the two days and allowing delegates to discuss issues that concerned them. The panel consisted of independent restaurant consultant Jonathan Harris, Chef Paul Lupton (busy at the St Regis Abu Dhabi preparing for the opening of Rhodes 44 after the summer), former chef and restauranteur Tony Culley who has set up the regional arm of Oakleaf which is bringing in regular supplies from Rungis Market and Boecker’s Regional Food Safety Manager, Hala Makhoul. Conference Director Nayab Rafiq hailed the success of Restaurant Business and urged delegates, sponsors and speakers to provide feedback to make next year’s conference even better. He can be reached at nayab@cpidubai.com. More details on the next event can be found at www.cpidubai.com/rbc.

Mohamed Parham Al Awadhi

Time for networking and a coffee

Learning about American artisan cheeses

Delegates take a break

A quick social media lesson

Industry topics under discussion

David Oâ€™Brien asks a question

Discussing kitchen hygiene

Out and about

The Sofitel team hard at work

Audience involvement

A question for the speaker

Stefan Breg in action

And thanks to our sponsors...

Gold sponsors

“The conference provided us with an excellent opportunity to network with the key decision makers in the restaurant businesses and the retail sector in general, as well as a platform where we could present our professional services to an audience who were keen to see what we could offer and how best we could support their businesses. With over 200 participants attending our presentation, it gave us the opportunity to interact and respond to their queries more effectively. At the same time they were able to get a far better understanding of the range of services that we are able to provide.” Abdul Rashid, Director and General Manager, CIEH Middle East

“It provided an excellent venue for the US Dairy Export Council to connect with the key players in the UAE’s fine dining scene. Our gold sponsorship provided great exposure for the US cheese industry and allowed us to showcase specialty cheeses that can add great value to high-end menus. The event was an ideal platform to share ideas and learn more about up and coming food service trends; it featured knowledgeable and dynamic speakers who encouraged participants to think about how they could use the information in their own business. Very rewarding!” Anglique Hollister, Vice President, Cheese Marketing, US Dairy Export Council

Silver sponsors

Sponsors “The event was excellent and the participants were really good. The topics presented at the event were also interesting and I believe, including me , that everybody enjoyed the knowledge sharing. The audience were very much interested on our Khazan products, in terms of the product quality, tasting and way of presentation and explanation and many of them are now interested to buy the products for their hotels or restaurants.” Khaja Ahmed, Deputy General Manager, Khazan Meat Factory

“This was something the industry really needed. I was surprised at the popularity of the event. It was a great turn-out and the conference touched on all the relevant topics for the F&B industry today.” Lloyd Lamprecht, Key Account Manager Middle East, Villeroy & Boch

“It was a very successful event and we now have a closer touch with decision makers. We found in-depth and even hidden information that more people in the industry should be aware about. Compared to similar events, I found it more informative especially the panel discussions.” Ameer Kokash, Divisional Manager, Sara UAE

“CPI did a very good job and I can see myself working with them again. The beautiful aspect of the event was the two days. Each day had a totally different audience which widened the clientele and gave us greater business development opportunities.” Antoinne Messi, Country Manager, Boecker

Supporting organisation

Artisan cheeses from the USA

Refreshment from Highland Spring

Food safety tips from Boecker

Sara’s selection

Specialty products on display

Disposable plastics from Cosmoplast