Home Other Interview with the New Chef Cameron Gardiner of Sofitel Plaza Hanoi

Interview with the New Chef Cameron Gardiner of Sofitel Plaza Hanoi

Other

Posted on 26/04/2015

Chef Cameron Gardiner joined Sofitel Plaza Hanoi 3 months ago and now is excited to share about his culinary journey as well as his coming-soon brand new menu. Hailing from Australia’s capital, Chef Gardiner draws from diverse experience in modern gastronomy of his hometown, Middle East, Hong Kong and Vietnam.

1. How has your cooking style and expertise been influenced by such impressive background?

I wouldn’t say my background is too impressive. On cooking style, I’m probably making the same developments as most chefs. When I look back at the dishes I was coming up with a few years ago, it is kind of funny to see how I was trying to do too much and put too many things on the plate all at once with 6 or 7 different cooking methods. I think this is probably a stage everybody goes through. Now I’m just looking at the ingredients I have and trying to let them be themselves. More is actually less in cooking and some of the most memorable things I’ve eaten have also been the simplest with just 3 or 4 ingredients helping the main event. Just taking care of your ingredients is the way to good food.

2. What do you expect to bring to Sofitel Plaza Hanoi?

I’m going to bring things right back to basics and put the focus back on the ingredients. If we have the best possible chicken available to cook, it’s just a matter of throwing it in a pan with a bit of salt and let the chicken be as great as it is.

This May, we will introduce the new a la carte menu for Brasserie Westlake and hopefully later this year we will be launching our new buffet, which will follow this concept, the best ingredients and that’s it. We will have a number of open kitchens stationed right in the restaurant with our chefs working directly in front of the guests, sharing with them the very best products that we have selected from all over the world.

3. Behind the luxury of world-class five-star hotel and the enjoyment of fine dining connoisseurs, what is it like to work in as well as manage a kitchen team?

It’s probably not as exciting as people might think after watching those cooking shows on TV. There is also the day-to-day supervision of the operation, keeping a good eye on how much money we are spending, meetings, keeping on top of hygiene, dealing with suppliers etc. But at the end of the day, serving food and knowing that all of your guests have enjoyed themselves is what makes it all worthwhile.

I do have a habit of leaving my phone off from time to time so I have a chance to spend time actually cooking. There’s nothing worse than being in the middle of marinating a whole bunch of pork and having the telephone buzzing away in your pocket the whole time. They are all necessary and parts of the job so I should not really say the office is boring but I’m never going to be as passionate about the cost of paper towels as I am about a Sapa black pig! (Laugh)

4. What makes you interested in Vietnamese culinary? How have you familiarized with local ingredients, spices and tastes?

I’ve been here for a few years so I am a little bit familiar with most of the basics. Something I enjoy is seeing all the variations between the different areas of the country and being able to compare the “banh xeo” in HCMC to the one in Danang. And then getting to try real home cooking as opposed to restaurants.

I think on the surface, local ingredients are very good. However when you look at details there are some issues. Banned chemicals and colors being used, banned pesticides and fertilizers being used on vegetables, overuse of antibiotics in seafood farms, pigs, cows and chickens being injected with water to increase sale weight and profit.

On the other side, there is a huge demand now for ‘safe’ vegetables and although demand currently seems to be higher than supply, things will start to even out eventually. This is something that I feel very serious about and when you’re responsible for serving 20 or 30,000 meals every month, you’d better take it seriously. I also don’t mind the chance to take some time and get out of the kitchen to visit a few of the farms whenever there’s a chance.

5. If you were a tourist in Hanoi, would you prefer eating in a fine-dining restaurant or exploring street food? And why so?

These are really 2 very separate things and I enjoy both. Vietnam is quite famous for its cuisine and probably more so for its street food. The same thing occurs here as in most countries with this kind of portable restaurant concept that is the very best dishes will always and only be at a place that really specializes in one or two things. You’re not going to find the very best “bun cha” in the same shop as the very best “bun rieu” and there’s a simple reason. These shops rely solely on their reputations for what they do by simply cooking the same dish day in day out for 50 years and passing their recipe on to their kids and grandkids. This is something that we hope to bring to the hotel. Quite often in hotels would you find poor examples of these kinds of dishes being served with no real heart and soul behind them. What we want to do is to convince one or two great street cooks with the benefits of a salary, taxes paid, insurance etc., to come over and bring their hard learned experiences to our kitchen where everyone can get the best of both worlds.

6. I am pretty sure that as a Chef, you might have cooked uncountable meals and tasted various kinds of foods. Do you actually cook at home after a long day cooking at work? If you do, could you please share with our readers your favorite meal to cook for family?

Generally, I’m not going home after work and cooking the family meals, I’ll usually have some leftovers from them and either eat it cold or if I’m really in the mood I can heat my dinner in the microwave for a minute first. I do like to cook on my day off though, usually just something simple on the BBQ.

One of my favorite things to do is making cakes or something with my daughter’s ‘helping’, we make a bit of a mess and really have fun.