30 October 2017
Share
When you come to Chef’s Table By Chef Stephan, you get a “menu” that only shows today’s produce—28 key ingredients that lead the characteristics of the food that day. Diners are then able to tell us what they don’t eat, or if they are allergic to anything on the list. We are able to work around all the usual dietary restrictions—vegan diets, dairy or gluten intolerances, nut allergies for example—very well. We always have back-up dishes up our sleeves.
It is every chef's dream not to be bound by a fixed menu. I like that I sometimes don't know what we going to cook when we arrive in the morning. I enjoy starting my mornings with creative exercise because I get bored easily of cooking the same dishes over and over again. There’s always a lot happening in the kitchen, it’s almost like an R&D lab every day.
It is every chef's dream not to be bound by a fixed menu. I like that I sometimes don't know what we going to cook when we arrive in the morning. I enjoy starting my mornings with creative exercise because I get bored easily of cooking the same dishes over and over again. There’s always a lot happening in the kitchen, it’s almost like an R&D lab every day.
With Chef’s Table, we have no fixed a la carte menu and we are free to create and serve new dishes every day. There are two ways through which we decide what goes on the menu for the day. First, we develop a good relationship with our suppliers so they will notify us when they get good produce that just landed in Singapore. When there’s something interesting that we get excited about, we can change our menu quickly.
Otherwise, my head chef Lorenz Raich and I are constantly on the lookout for seasonal produce available from Europe, Japan, Australia or the US, and even local produce. We have some local producers like Edible Garden and Packet Greens that grow things for us. In this way, at Chef’s Table, we are able to work on a menu that’s purely driven by produce and the chefs have no limitations and no restrictions to our creativity, and of course, no signature dishes.
Otherwise, my head chef Lorenz Raich and I are constantly on the lookout for seasonal produce available from Europe, Japan, Australia or the US, and even local produce. We have some local producers like Edible Garden and Packet Greens that grow things for us. In this way, at Chef’s Table, we are able to work on a menu that’s purely driven by produce and the chefs have no limitations and no restrictions to our creativity, and of course, no signature dishes.
My ultimate goal is to never serve any diner the same dish twice. Therefore, we keep a book with menus from every day so that we can remember what we have cooked before. We have had customers come back two days in a row and that was still manageable, although I’d imagine that three consecutive nights might be tough!
One of the good things to have come out of this open-menu concept is the reduction on food wastage. We only buy what we need to serve fresh ingredients and reorder for the next day so we don’t have to keep too much stock in-house. With no a la carte menu, I found that I have been able to have more control over how we make full use of all the ingredients and thus reduce food waste.
One of the good things to have come out of this open-menu concept is the reduction on food wastage. We only buy what we need to serve fresh ingredients and reorder for the next day so we don’t have to keep too much stock in-house. With no a la carte menu, I found that I have been able to have more control over how we make full use of all the ingredients and thus reduce food waste.
Sometimes we get diners who think our menu is a scribble book and start using a pen to cross out all the things they don’t like and write down what they want. And sometimes we get a table that requests for everyone at the table to get different dishes for each course so they can try a greater variety. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to accommodate requests like that because we simply aren’t able to prepare 32 different dishes in a single night!
So far, our greatest challenge was a gentleman in his early 50s who crossed out 21 out of 28 ingredients and wrote on the menu: “no fish at all and no vegetables” for an 8-course dinner. It was a very limited amount of ingredients we could use, and since we figured he was a meat-lover, we served him three different cuts of beef that night, all done in different ways. It was not the most satisfying meal for us to cook though. We get so much interesting produce that we want to showcase to our diners if they would come with open minds to try new things.
So far, our greatest challenge was a gentleman in his early 50s who crossed out 21 out of 28 ingredients and wrote on the menu: “no fish at all and no vegetables” for an 8-course dinner. It was a very limited amount of ingredients we could use, and since we figured he was a meat-lover, we served him three different cuts of beef that night, all done in different ways. It was not the most satisfying meal for us to cook though. We get so much interesting produce that we want to showcase to our diners if they would come with open minds to try new things.
I envisioned the restaurant as a place that would feel like home, with its open kitchen and airy ambience. The only thing that might set it apart from a typical home kitchen and dining room would be the high tables and chairs. This was most important to me, so that when my kitchen team and I served the food, we would be eye level with our guests. I wanted to interact with our diners and have good conversations happen at eye level, which is something you wouldn’t be able to do with normal-height tables.
RECOMMENDED READING: See more Industry Insider stories here.
