Gordon Ramsay selects Bread Street Kitchen intern in cook-off
The position of intern at Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen has been filled.
Twenty-one-year-old Koh Han Jie of Institute of Technical Education (ITE) College West beat three other contenders at a cook-off held on 22 September, at Marina Bay Sands, for the six-month-long position.
Koh, a first-year culinary student undertaking a Diploma in Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management from the Institut of Paul Bocuse, beat three other contenders for the prized position in Gordon Ramsay’s soon to open restaurant, Bread Street Kitchen.
The ten-minute cooking challenge was issued and judged by Ramsay and the president and chief executive officer of Marina Bay Sands, George Tanasijevich.
The four candidates had to create three dishes using a mystery single ingredient. The ingredient, revealed at the start of the cooking challenge, was eggs.
In the video below, Ramsay specifies how the eggs should be cooked.
Koh won with his butter-brushed omelette. The rest of the candidates present were from The Singapore Hotel and Tourism Education Centre (SHATEC), At-Sunrice Global Chef Academy, and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).
About why he is picking an intern from the local culinary schools, Ramsay said, “We’re starting with the foundation – to bring in local colleges and to have a look at local talent and more importantly start to look at the collaboration on where we’re going.”
A seasoned mentor from his work with ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Masterchef’, Ramsay is not newbie at dealing with interns. On how interns should approach working with him, Ramsay gave this piece of advice: “Copy now and follow the exact instructions. As you get older, get rid of me and put more of you on the plate. Let that evolve.”
Marina Bay Sands has recruited over 300 local interns over the last four-and-the-half-years for their food and beverage training and mentorship programme.
BREAD STREET KITCHEN, SINGAPORE
Bread Street Kitchen is scheduled to open at Marina Bay Sands in April or May 2015, Ramsay confirmed the date at a press conference before the challenge.
The Singapore outlet of the three-Michelin-star restaurant’s menu will be slightly different from the flagship in London’s.
“As my first restaurant in Singapore, it’s not going to be serious expensive, and clearly it’s not going to be cheap, but it is going to good value for money.”
“We will adapt and transform the Bread Street Kitchen London’s British-European menu into the Singapore style blend,” said Ramsay. “That process started three months ago – we’re looking at localising dishes from London.”
Menu prices for Bread Street Kitchen Singapore are still being worked out. “As my first restaurant in Singapore, it’s not going to be serious expensive, and clearly it’s not going to be cheap, but it is going to good value for money.”
When asked about his Singapore team, he said, “It’ll be nice to have two or three members of our team in Singapore spend time in London prior to opening, so we’ll get the right synergy.”
Posed with questions about the competition and challenges of opening in Singapore, the chef who was also in town for the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix said: “Marina Bay Sands has been brilliant at looking at what type of restaurants they haven’t got. Bread Street Kitchen is something that is not here already. I like that bit of ‘cool Brittania’ style that’s coming in. Like I said, I may be late, but we know it’s not how you start, but how you finish.”
The chef who won his chilli crab dish segment at HungryGoWhere-led Hawker Heroes challenge in 2013, tells us more about what to expect at Bread Street Kitchen Singapore in the video below:
Ramsay first fell in love with “Singapore’s culture of good food, great service and most amazing surroundings” when he first did a cookery and demonstration with Alain Ducasse for a group of 25 housewives at Raffles Hotel in 1998.
