When it comes to rating other chefs, the experts hold their tongues
These dishes, abalone at Poom Seoul, pasta at Sortino’s and Mandarin chicken salad at Zen Hideaway, are among Seoul chefs’ diverse recommendations. [JoongAng Ilbo]
These chefs often get together casually in a restaurant or pub outside the luxury hotels in which they work, but that evening was somewhat different.
Lee Chun-sik, director of the Sheraton Walkerhill’s kitchen and a member of Les Toques Blanches, served the prominent cooks a nine-course fusion meal, from fresh sashimi to roasted lobster tail, in the luxury penthouse in his hotel in Gwangjang-dong, eastern Seoul.
I was there at the formal table, of course not as a chef but as a writer. I was curious to see how chefs - who are taste experts - would judge their colleague’s work.
Not surprisingly, the meal was tense. Every chef smiled and joked, but none made comments about the elaborate dishes, either good or bad.
When the group remained quiet right up through the strawberry dessert, a question struck me.
Do chefs ever make comments about each others’ culinary creations? Is that a taboo I’m not aware of?
This “Chef’s Special” series, which gives chefs the chance to share their favorite restaurants and tastes, has started to answer that question. Yet after interviewing almost 20 hotel chefs in the last year, I’ve come to realize that they’re very discreet about judging others out loud. They keep their opinions quiet.
I understand that. In the culinary world, taste must be followed by strategy.
Although most of the chefs I’ve interviewed have been cautious and offered only general opinions about the dishes they recommended at other restaurants, the factors they used to choose a place to dine out were consistent.
Chefs today look for simple, modern and healthy food, unlike in the past when fancy beat out simple.
The overall atmosphere of the restaurants chosen by the chefs wasn’t necessarily as important as the quality of taste and ingredients they served.
The restaurant could be located in the back alleys of the Namdaemun market in central Seoul, where the ceilings are so low that some chefs have to stoop - but that won’t stop them if the taste is right.
And home-cooked cuisines were a consistent favorite, as most of the chefs had first dreamed of their future careers while watching their mothers or grandmothers at the stove.
By Lee Eun-joo [angie@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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