FEMALE SPEAKER: Welcome to Talks at Google in Singapore.
We're live here but there's people also dialing
in from live stream.
And today we're going to have chef Andre
Chung from Restaurant Andre to be here with us.
[APPLAUSE]
Chef Andre's new book, "Octaphilosophy,"
just released this week.
So we're one the first readers to get a copy.
And he's also going to share a lot of the secrets
from this book during this talk.
Chef Andre has been trained by many of the world's top chefs,
and he is also among the best chefs.
And he mainly learned his culinary skills in France,
and he has brought the taste of south France
back to Singapore in his restaurant Andre in Chinatown.
Yes.
And Restaurant Andre has been one of the top 50 restaurants
in the world, and one of the top three in Asia.
[APPLAUSE]
Before we start the talk, we're going
to play that creative process from restaurant Andre
again, just for us to have a look at how he creates
some of the famous dishes.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
-It's kind of a traditional fine dining sequence that
happends in the main course.
You've got have the cheese course.
When it first arrived in Singapore,
I realize that at the beginning, although you
have the best French artisan cheese,
not everybody appreciates it.
Everyone enjoys every single course until the cheese.
The cheese course seems like one of the courses
where we can not do anything.
In respect of the French tradition and sequence,
we would like to keep it.
But how can I inject something that really belongs here?
So I decided to do a look-alike cheese
course of dehydrated milk bavarois in the dry aging room.
It's exactly like cheese making.
So we put it on the grill so it had the nice ventilation
and it dries it slowly.
And I would flip it on different sides
until it half dehyrdrated and created the crust over it.
The inside is milky, like a Camembert.
We see ourselves as like an artisan
because we're making our own cheese, which
is something very farmer style.
So we get the hay from France-- really nice hay
with a lot of different herbs inside.
And then we dry them and roast it.
And then we make a hay ice cream served the Camembert.
For those that don't appreciate the traditional artisan cheese,
they could have something that is similar-- very light,
very refreshing, very sweet and totally unique.
I spend most of my time in the south of France, Medditeranean.
I want to create that really, very classy--
or you can say Medditeranean on Spanish dish.
You have a charcoal grill squid with piquillos smoked pepper
and olive oil.
A very simple dish.
When I was thinking of the dish, what makes you remember?
Is it the squid itself or it's the combination
of the squid and the piquillos or what is it?
It's that smokiness.
It's that burning edge that makes the whole dish to life
Nothing can be replaced with that burning
flavor from the charcoal.
So what about if I want to have an ultimate dish, that I just
eat the charcoal.
And that's where I start to really work on it.
And we make fried charcoal dough.
So we serve burning charcoal with the friend charcoal dough.
And then we serve a piquillos dip with the charcoal squid.
In fact, the squid, or the piquillos in a dish
they are just accessories in a way.
We designed that in the middle of the menu.
So sometimes when you see a normal menu, you start it small
and the portion gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
For a long menu, sometimes half way through it,
it's getting heavy.
You're getting tired.
If half way, we can have a break or we
can have something fun-- that kind of lightening
up, freshening up a little bit.
And then we restart again.
Every night, we have a guest finish very late.
Most of the time they finish at 11:00, 11:30, 12:00,
or even the later sometimes.
I just feel that I want to serve something like breakfast,
and then say, hey guys.
You've got to go.
[LAUGHTER]
You know, it's breakfast time.
Kaya toast is the breakfast in Singapore.
It's white toast-- grilled white toast.
And then you have kaya, which is a coconut and pandan.
Then you have one slice of cold salted butter.
And that's it.
That's kaya toast.
Well, at the end of the meal, you serve coffee of course.
So coffee served with the kaya toast--
that's kind of the ending or a beginning.
But yet I don't want to just serve
kaya toast like anywhere else.
I still want to keep my French background.
I started to make white toast look like macaroons.
We do it exactly the same way.
We grill it, make our own kaya.
And then you must have one icy cold salted butter inside.
If you're eating with your eyes open, it's kind of a macaroon.
But if you're eating with your eyes closed,
it's exactly the same kaya toast.
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[END PLAYBACK]
ANDRE CHIANG: All right.
[APPLAUSE]
So OK.
Good afternoon, guys.
So today I'll be here to talk about Octaphilosophy and also
why we're doing everything and what's
behind it or our thinking process.
So the video that you saw just now, it's just a few dishes
is that is why we do it.
And I guess a lot of you have already been to the restaurant
and you know what we do.
Some of you don't know.
But that doesn't matter.
So today we're going to go start from the beginning.
As you can see, the Octaphilosophy--
what is Octaphilosophy?
Why the octagon is so important to us
and why did everything come from it?
So just starting with Octaphilosophy-- Octaphilosophy
is something that when I first started-- before I
started Restaurant Andre.
My parents are Taiwanese.
I was born in Taiwan.
And I grew up in France.
I arrived in Singapore eight years ago.
That's how everything started.
And we wanted to come back to Asia
and start up our own business.
So I was thinking, OK.
So how to tell people that this is Andre's cuisine--
this is not Taiwanese cuisine.
This is not French cuisine.
This is something that belongs to me
and it collects everything everywhere I go.
And it becomes my own style of cuisine.
So I started going back to look at everything that I did,
that I created the past 20 years.
And I realized I don't have anything fixed.
Everywhere I go, I collect ideas.
It becomes.
I get inspired by different things.
I grew up in an artist family.
My mom was a chef.
My father is a Chinese calligrapher.
My brother is an actor.
My sister is a clothing designer.
And I'm very into pottery and sculpture.
So in a way, we were trained since we
were little to appreciate each other's work--
to appreciate the beautiful things in life
in different forms.
So that means a lot to me.
And so I look at everything that I've
created in the past 20 years.
And I realized these eight elements
that are constantly repeating in my creations-- it's
just like, OK.
Our hairstyle, our makeup-- if you
look at what your picture was five years or 10 years ago,
you'll say, oh my God.
I got a hairstyle like that.
And my make up is horrible.
But at that time, you feel so good about it.
Yeah?
So same thing for me.
I said, you know I constantly change my style or taste.
But the one thing that never changed probably
is my favorite color.
Yeah.
So that's the essence.
So when I look at everything that I've created,
these eight elements are constantly
repeating in my creation.
So I said, yeah.
So how to tell people that this is Andre's cuisine--
these eight elements become so important.
Because no matter where I go, no matter what I create,
or when I create, these elements-- eight elements
are always there.
So that's Andre.
So we just try to give it a name and give it
a reason so people can understand it easily,
that this is Octo-philosphy-- that this is what we do.
So when we first started, I always was constantly
asking myself the question, all the time,
are we moving forward or are we moving backwards?
Oh by the way, you guys can have a lunch [INAUDIBLE]
while eating.
It was so cool.
[LAUGHTER]
I like it here.
[LAUGHTER]
Yeah.
So where were we at?
I should have one too, like, you know.
So yeah, when I first started, I constantly
asked myself questions-- are we moving forward
or are we moving backwards with everything that we create?
Yeah.
So if you think about a dining experience,
if you go to a casual restaurant, and you go.
You sit down.
And you order.
And you eat.
If you're at a fine dining restaurant, you sit down.
And then they're going to ask you 50 questions before you
reach your first course.
Oh you have to select this, and select that.
You want this.
You want one that.
We have 250 selections of teas and things.
So can I start?
OK.
And every dish, there were so many things in the there.
And the menu, it's so beautifully written.
So what is that?
Is that the ultimate dining experience?
Or are we just forcing the guests to catch all that?
Can we just keep everything simple,
and leave this space for imagination?
Not giving you the whole book and say, OK.
You have to read through it.
Can we leave this space for the imagination,
for the creativity?
So that's what I think-- that if I just
put these eight words on my menu,
and I leave the rest to the guests to discover.
It's not empty.
It just leaves a room for you to put in your imagination,
or you feel that your answer to that
question-- you filled in the space of your dining
experience.
And only the dining experience that fits you
is the ultimate dining experience.
So that's how I started out the philosophy.
So these eight elements, later we're going to go through.
Today I just took eight pictures inside the book.
So we can just go through it.
And I'll just show you what it is roughly.
So we've got these eight elements.
So how do I create every dish?
So for me, the eight elements, the eight dishes,
it's like a movie.
It's like a movie you have.
You sit down for two and a half hours for a movie.
And it's exactly the same time for a dining experience.
So I'm the director.
And how am I going to create this
two and a half hours that you feel this excitement,
that you have good guys and bad guys,
and the other funny guy came out.
So how do I prepare this script so that this two and a half
hours aren't bored?
It's always up the beat.
So eight elemnts-- they are all different characters.
So nothing is related to each other.
And there's no particular sequence.
So you have a good guy.
You have a bad guy.
You have these eight different characters.
How do you create these eight different characters?
In one of the pages of the book, you
have the sketch, this octagon analysis.
So what is the octagon analysis?
We look at every dish and then we give them a DNA.
OK?
So I prepared something just real quick just now.
So you the eight elements.
Maybe I'll put it here.
OK.
So I just drew an octagon.
And this is what we do.
We give a DNA for every single dish.
OK.
You see originality, imagination, craft, taste,
character, simplicity, emotion, and structure.
OK.
So you will have a dish that focuses on structure.
Or you have a certain dish that focuses on-- sometimes it's
you have to eat it with hands and this
is one of the experiences.
Or this dish is inspired by my mom's salad.
Or this is a dish that focuses on textures or art design.
So every dish comes from a different source
of inspiration.
Yeah.
So we identified every single dish with a DNA.
OK.
So that's that octagon is the DNA for the dish.
And so if we have eight of them, to put them together,
they should become a complete octagon.
That means every dish that gives a different angle--
some dish focuses on structures, some focus on imagination.
You see how they overlapped.
Yeah?
So I guess as a chef, or not-- or any one of you-- sometimes
we never look at what we do.
We thought that, OK.
This is cool.
This I created.
And every single dish is perfect.
But if you analyze it and give every dish a DNA,
you realize that they are all towards one side.
They are all very structural.
Or they are all very emotional.
But it's kind of lacking something.
So some movies are very consistent, at the same pace.
And some movies you have different characters inside.
You have a very good pace.
Why?
Because we have to look inside.
What do we have?
Why is this so important?
Sometimes you have a dish come in.
It's very visual.
It's very detailed.
And everything is so perfectly done.
And the next course can be so rustic
that you open the husk of the corn
and you just eat it with hands.
And then the next course can be something else--
totally simple.
So that's what I think-- that's the ultimate dining experience.
And everything is calculated, but that's only
behind the kitchen door.
We don't want to tell the guests everything that I just
told you just now.
We want them to have these eight words,
and just sit down and relax.
And they realize why everything is so connected.
So yeah, it's been more than what a chef's supposed to do.
And I don't know if you respect this.
But--
[LAUGHTER]
I'll just continue.
[LAUGHTER]
So we're going to go into the Octaphilosophy, so
the eight elements.
And it goes random.
So one of the elements is unique.
OK So you might not know what is this,
but I'm sure everybody should know.
This is a carrot heart.
OK.
It's a heart of carrot.
So if we cut a carrot length-wise, and then you see
there is one thin yellow part inside.
And this is the carrot heart.
But we never knew that a carrot heart could look like this.
So what is unique?
There is no such thing as unique.
If you have a white sheep in a whole bunch of black sheep,
the white sheep is unique.
And the black sheep gets into the bunch
up white sheep-- it's unique.
And sometimes the uniqueness comes to the right place
at the right time.
It doesn't matter what it is.
So this picture in the book-- I want to show you that a lot
of the things that we think we know, but we don't.
We always peel or cut the carrots like that-- peel
it with a peeler.
But if you cook the carrot, the entire carrot by itself,
and then you open it, you peel it
like you peel an orange skin.
And you will see this.
So change another way of thinking.
And change a different way to process a food,
and then you see it in a different way.
And that's unique.
So there's nothing really unique or not.
It's just how you do it.
We get used to the way that we work all the time.
This has to be like that.
A carrot has to be like that.
You have to cut it in a way.
And you never see the beauty of a carrot heart.
Then we use it.
We cure it.
And then we just show it.
And everybody says, wow.
Where did you get this carrot?
And it's from the [INAUDIBLE] Market.
[LAUGHTER]
You know?
So it's brainless.
But that's how I want to show that it's
how we see this differently.
Second-- artisan.
So artisan is an interesting element.
This one day that I went over to Japan to see my friend.
He's a three Michelin Star, one of the top restaurants
in Tokyo.
And he took me to see this aubergine farmer.
And you know, the Japanese are very
famous for their aubergines.
So then he said, this guy is the best.
OK?
You gotta get the vegetable from this guy.
So I went to see this guy.
And speechless-- his produce is top notch.
And I said, can I buy this?
And he said no.
I said, then why are you selling it?
[LAUGHTER]
He said my aubergine can only be charcoal grilled
and served with a pinch of salt. So he's telling me
how to cook the aubergine.
And I'm like, OK.
So if I say yes, and then I come back
and I cook it a different way, you would not know.
But one thing very important is that at the end
I didn't manage to get the aubergine.
Because I think the saw it in my eyes
that this guy's not going to cook it the way that I asked.
[LAUGHTER]
So he said no.
And then I go back and say, OK.
Oh my god.
You know one thing that strikes me is a chef,
we never think about what the farmer thinks.
They spend months, maybe every day,
they go flip the vegetable.
They give them water.
They take care of it.
They say OK.
The weather is not good.
And then we cover it with something you keep them warm.
It takes so much care of every produce.
And they're so proud of it.
And what we do is, today I'm going to do a carrot jelly.
And I just buy the carrot, the best carrot I can get.
And I just squeeze them into juice.
And I make a jelly.
So everything's gone.
All the work is gone.
And we never thought about it as a chef because of our ego--
because we're so selfish.
We think that, I know how to handle it.
But we never think of it in a perspective of an artisan--
that they want to do deliver-- they're
so proud of their produce.
And they want to make sure they deliver all the way,
from the moment that it grows until the end,
that it can be served perfectly.
We never thought about it.
We just think that we're good at what we do.
And I'm going to take care of it.
So that gave me an idea, that every day and every menu
that I serve, I want to have one dish that doesn't belong to me.
I want to have one dish that's dedicated to the artisan.
So I want them to tell me how you want to cook it,
how I can deliver the best out of it.
If he said that I'm going to grill it and then give
a pinch of salt, then that will be my foundation.
I will see how I can deliver the way that he wants to.
Or if he says that just slice them and dip it
in a bit of vinegar and just eat it with hands or whatever.
So can I just have one dish that doesn't
belong to Andre in a menu that's dedicated to the artisan?
At least that's something that I can do,
and not to forget all the hard work from the artisan.
So that's how I want to have one of the elements that's
dedicated to the artisan.
And so in this picture, you see the artisan's hand
and he's holding something.
It should be a carrot.
It should be an orange.
It should be an aubergine.
But we cannot identify what it is already because it's been
processed.
So in this picture, I want to say that a lot of chefs
that we say, OK.
We are natural.
We use organic products.
We try to preserve it as much as we can.
We cook it as light as we can.
But are we really natural?
Yeah.
Are we really delivering what the farmer's message is?
Or are you just pretentiously natural?
Yeah.
So that's the picture.
In fact, that is watermelon skin.
So we cure the watermelon skin and it becomes
one of the dishes in the menu.
So yeah, that's that elements of artisan.
Next element-- south.
South is an interesting element.
It refers to the south of France because I spent most of my time
in France.
I arrived in the south of France in Mont Pelier.
That's where I spent 10 years of my time in the south of France.
So in the south of France, what I learned is not only OK.
We use a lot of seafood.
We rarely use meat-- very light cooking, acidity, freshness.
People are generous.
So that's what I learned-- not only how to cook,
but how to live my life.
Mont Pelier-- where I lived is just about 40 minutes
to the Mediterranean Sea.
So that's where I spent my time learning about the culture.
And you will see that the people from the south of France, they
never think about-- OK.
My chef never taught me or said this is what I do.
This is what I like.
Or this is what I want you to do.
He would tell me this is the south of France.
This is how we eat in the south of France.
And this is when we have to eat it.
This is how we eat it in the south of France.
This is how we cook it in the south of France.
So it's not about him, it's about the whole south
of French cuisine.
So for this picture, it's the fish
that we pitched on every-- this is one of the pictures
that you'll see in the book.
Every ticket is when we bid in the [INAUDIBLE] market
in Japan.
So you have to pick the fish.
And then after you got the fish, you put a ticket on it.
And they list a ticket of [INAUDIBLE] Andre.
So that's 632, that's our fish.
That's our ticket.
So when we picked fish, the best fish that we want,
we would put the ticket on there.
So that's becomes yours.
So we use a lot of seafood in the south of France.
This picture-- I just want to show that-- everybody asks me,
oh Andre, is that French cuisine?
Is that Japanese cuisine?
Is that a Taiwanese Asian twist or what?
For me, it's really difficult for me
to categorize what we do, what I do.
But it does not matter.
For me, if you look at the fish, we
saw we got our fish from Japan, from the [INAUDIBLE] market.
And we give them a ticket.
But there is no border in the sea.
They just happened to swim to Japan.
And you pick it out.
And then that's a Japanese fish.
Or that should be-- pick it out an the Mediterranean Sea, then
that's a Mediterranean fish.
That's a French fish.
OK.
So am I Taiwanese, French, Singaporean, or what?
It does not matter for me.
I don't know how to categorize the thing that I cook.
But I want people to enjoy it, enjoy the experience.
It doesn't matter where you come from-- south of France.
Texture.
For me, when you talk about texture,
most of the time we talk about one
produce in a different dimension, different process,
that focuses on one dish.
So in this case, this dish is a frozen white truffle bisque.
And for me, what is texture?
How do you create a texture?
When you look at a piece of stone, and then you say,
oh that's texture.
But how do you feel the texture?
Only when you have a contrast-- only when you
have a smooth surface or you have a smooth hand.
And then you touch the stone.
Only when you have a contract, you have texture.
Only when you have a very soft surface
and you touch a very rough surface,
and then you feel the texture.
Or hot and cold.
So how do you feel cold?
Only when your temperature is warmer.
So there's always a contrast.
So contrast is texture.
And another meaning for me for texture is time traveling.
So we create-- how to create a texture is time.
So maybe you leave it under the sun, the same produce,
you leave it under the sun for 24 hours.
And that changed the texture.
Or you leave it for three months and that changed the texture.
You bake it in the oven for 10 minutes
at 250 degrees, that changes the texture.
So texture is time traveling.
It's about time.
So this is the dish where you can
see-- it's a handcrafted wooden ball by an artisan.
And on the top is an ultra-modern capsule.
And he's trying to capture that contrast, and also the time
traveling.
And inside you have the ultramodern frozen bisque
of a white truffle.
And you have an original truffle that's just right next to it.
So for me that contrast tells you what is texture about.
Pure.
So this is one of the dishes-- it's a finished dish.
Yeah.
It's supposed to be like that.
[LAUGHTER]
So white on white-- obviously that's pure-- white on white.
So here we have two messages for you.
First is that purely pretentious or pretentiously pure?
Sometimes when we have an image, we
have something really really simple.
And we though yeah, that's pure.
That's simplicity.
Just like a beautiful white t-shirt,
and you think that it's very pure and simple.
But behind that white t-shirt that you bought,
there might be a huge, gigantic, dirty factory behind it.
So are we pure?
Or it's potentially pure-- for everything that we do.
For me, pure is you leave a space, message to unfold.
So it is a complete picture.
It's not an empty space.
For example, in our restaurant, we
do this pure element of a dish.
I was thinking that nowadays we use everything with seasoning.
We season everything.
You need a pinch of salt. You need a dip.
You need a dressing, a sauce, a puree.
Everything needs a seasoning.
We've been eating seasonings more than the produce itself.
Even when we think we're healthy-- we're having salads.
We're having a carrot stick.
Even a carrot stick, you need a dip.
So are we eating the dip or are we eating the carrot itself?
We can't even identify what is the flavor
of the carrot itself.
We need something to go with it.
But what is a complete-- so if you're having a carrot
stick by itself, it doesn't mean that you are missing something.
It's still a complete flavor.
It's just our brain tells us we need something.
If you look at this dish, if you're like
do you need a sauce or something to go with it?
Why?
It is a complete dish.
It is a complete flavor.
You don't need seasoning.
So it's a reflection for us to think when we have a space,
and we need that space to leave it as it is.
And we're asked to put in our imagination, put
in our creativity-- to fill up the space.
There's nothing missing here.
So for me, that's a purity.
That's a purity.
So in our restaurant we do have a dish that uses no seasoning,
no-- just purely a combination of the produce itself.
No electric consumptions, no fire, no cooking.
So this is one dish-- elements of salt.
OK.
This is very interesting.
Salvation, salary, salad-- salt is the key to life.
In the old times we used salt to keep us away from demons.
We used salt as currency to exchange.
And we used salt to preserve food.
So salt is the beginning of everything.
That's how important salt is.
And turn black and white into color.
The first seasoning that we know-- so salt
has been very important.
For me, we are always thinking that can we have a flavor
that everybody understands?
Whether it's lemongrass, or it's chili, or it's curry--
I don't know-- a cheese.
Somehow it's trapped in a certain boundary.
But can we have one dish that everybody understands?
So I was thinking salt.
It's not just the physical salt, but the depth of saltiness.
What I mean is for example, soy sauce, fish sauce, ham,
anchovy, and sea water or seaweed.
They are all different depths of saltiness.
So that means that if you have a piece of carrot--
why do I keep talking about carrots?--
[LAUGHTER]
OK.
Anyway, you have another piece of carrot.
You use a different depth of-- let's stop looking
at seasoning horizontally.
Let's look at it vertically.
So a different depth of saltiness.
So if you season a carrot with the things
that I just mentioned-- different depths of saltiness.
You put all these things to the carrot.
You still taste the carrot itself,
but the flavor changes complete.
And I think that's the beauty of it--
that you can still taste the produce itself,
but in a different dimension.
And I think it's really sexy-- that people will understand
the meaning of the depth.
If you put these five ingredients-- fish sauce,
ham, anchovy, seaweed-- we put them in one place.
You still taste the five different depths of saltiness.
They won't cancel each other.
And so that is my source of inspiration
for the elements of salt. And we use no salt added.
So that's a dish that we don't use the physical salt.
Instead we use different depths of saltiness
to enhance the produce that we're trying to highlight.
Terroir.
So terroir is about the land, the soil,
the character from a particular space-- time of produce.
So in our restaurant, we have one dish that we try to-- we're
trying to portray the character of terroir--
the soil, the stone, the character, the nature.
So we buried our meat inside a soil of bitterness.
So we have coffee beans, cacao, licorice,
and you put a hot stone inside.
And we cover it.
And we bake it in the oven.
So in a very old school pressure cooker--
instead of cooking every meat in a plastic bag, nowadays
you see.
So for me, that is trying to reflect that question
that I said at the beginning.
One day, I was just betting with my team.
And I said, are we moving forward
or are we moving backwards?
Nowadays we cook our meat in a plastic bag
and then we say that is super cool.
But are we giving any flavor to the meat itself?
If you look at the old times, how people cooked their meat--
they charcoal grilled it.
And then they cook it in a pastry.
They cook it in the dough of bread.
Or they cook it in some crust.
And it gives so much flavor.
Even just frying in a frying pan with butter,
garlic, and rosemary gives so much flavor to the meat itself.
And nowadays we just cook it like that.
So are we really moving forward?
Sometimes we just never look closely at the things
that we do.
And we think that are we moving forward or backwards?
It doesn't give any flavor to meat itself.
So terroir is a dish that I always
want to go back to the original place where we are,
where the flavor belongs to.
Then memory-- so this is a very famous dish in our restaurant.
So one day, one of the guests asked me, Andre-- Every night,
after I serve the main course, I go
to see the guests at the table and see how are they doing.
One of the guests one day asked me, so Andre,
what's your childhood memory of sweets?
And I stood there for 10 seconds and I said, nothing.
Nothing-- I couldn't think of anything that I liked.
Oh my god.
I have no childhood memories.
[LAUGHTER]
It's horrible.
I couldn't think of anything that I liked.
And that kind of stuck on my chest
for a very, very long time.
And so one day I was with my wife and we were watching TV.
And I said, hey, you know, this is one thing I really
like is the raw cake dough.
I don't like cake.
I don't like pancakes, or ganache,
or cupcakes or anything.
I'm a very savory person.
So even sometimes my dessert is savory.
Like we use green pea.
We use beet root, celery-- are very savory person.
So I say, yeah.
Every time a family member when the prepared a cake,
and there's always the last bit of the raw cake dough.
And that's my favorite part.
And I don't want to the final result. So I said, yeah.
So that's my childhood memory.
OK?
So I'm going to tell people that's my childhood memory.
So I will prepare-- I want to do a raw cake batter
preparation just like that.
Oh by the way, that's the final product.
[LAUGHTER]
That's what we serve on the table, seriously.
This is not just an image.
This is how we serve in Restaurant Andre.
And you have it like that.
So I want people to just put the egg in the milk.
And then you have butter, flour.
And you mix everything together and eat it.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Are you serious?
ANDRE CHIANG: Yes.
I'm very serious.
[LAUGHTER]
It's called a DIY cake.
That's what we serve.
So I say-- you know, that I can tell people
that that's the process.
That's the thing that I like in my childhood memory.
So I went back and I did the cake batter-- a real cake
batter-- and I try it.
And try to catch my childhood memorr-- my favorite part
of my memory when I was a kid.
And I tried the raw cake dough.
And I said, it doesn't taste good at all.
It tastes horrible.
But why I cached that memory as my child memory--
is that because of the raw cake dough?
Maybe not.
Is that the favorite taste that I like?
No.
But why is that something that stuck on my mind
and is something I remember-- is that's the moment when
my family gets together.
And they will prepare the cake.
And then I'll wait here until they're finished.
And I see the last bit and I'll steal the tongs.
And then I eat it.
So what is memory?
Sometimes it might not be the best thing in a world.
But that's something that is stuck on your memory.
And every time you think about it, that's this sweetest part.
That's the best part of the meal.
So that's why we decided to keep this dessert.
Of course everything is well-prepared.
You're not going to have a rotten egg,
and with the milk, and cook the thing on the table.
But yeah.
That's one of the things we do in our restaurants--
one of the very popular dessert in our restaurant.
So I guess that's about Octaphilosophy.
So at the end-- I want to say this is what we do.
And I hope that you all find want your eight elements that
mean a lot to you.
Maybe not eight-- 12, 16, anything.
But most important is we don't travel and look for ideas.
We don't look at what other people do and look for ideas.
The idea is in you.
It's in everything that you do.
And find the essence.
It can be eight.
It can be six.
It can be-- maybe your idea came from oh my god.
I got out and have a smoke.
That's your Octaphilosophy.
Find you eight elements that means of lot to you.
And the rest I think will just come naturally.
So discover your Octaphilosophy and I hope your enjoy the book.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
FEMALE SPEAKER: And now we can have maybe one or two Q&A.
And then afterwards, if you got the book,
Chef Andre will be here for signing the book.
ANDRE CHIANG: Yes.
Do you have a question?
AUDIENCE: So I've been to your restaurant many times.
I celebrate most of my beautiful moments at your restaurant.
So when you talk about your dish,
I think it's time traveling is the fois gras dish that you
make-- [INAUDIBLE] every day.
And I saw the uniqueness in your experience
with the black strip.
I think the decor in your restaurant-- and [INAUDIBLE]
star and the big mirror on your third floor.
[LAUGHTER]
And I also know your wife as well.
[LAUGHTER]
ANDRE CHIANG: Uh.
OK.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: I've been to your restaurant many times.
I try to understand how you view a brand.
Are you going to continue to stay unique?
Or are you going to be another Joel Robuchon or Daniel Boulud.
Are you going to franchise your restaurant?
ANDRE CHIANG: OK.
That's a very good question.
Definitely not.
There's only one Andre.
And Andre has to be Andre.
Right?
So it's hard to-- personally, I'm
someone that is very, very against that kind of pace.
So although we have-- along the way in my career,
I've come across so many great talents.
So many great chefs-- that just like
when we were I first started, and no one knows who Andre is,
but you have someone, good friends that say,
Andre you're really talented.
You should have your own restaurant.
I'll lend you money and you open your own restaurant.
When you have money, you return it back to me.
That's how I started.
Along the way I met so many great talents--
so many great chefs-- that I think that they shouldn't just
work for me under Andre.
So I want them to open their own restaurants
and they have their own brand that
has nothing to do with Andre.
So for us, we started six years ago.
We have Restaurant Andre.
And now we have in total three other restaurants
in Singapore-- one in Paris, on in Teipei.
But none of them are under the name of Andre.
And my card doesn't have all these restaurants name.
You don't find it on the website.
None of the restaurants serve the same dish,
the same crockery, the same design, the same pricing.
Everything is completely fresh.
And I think that's something important of us--
is every restaurant needs to have
their own DNA, their own concept.
And it's always the chef is in front.
For me, I'm just the supporter.
And I think they should do their own thing
and they should be the man of their own concept.
That's actually the least thing I
can do that to support his great talent.
So there will be only one Andre.
And you won't see Andre Sydney, Andre Istanbul.
[LAUGHTER]
Thank you.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Any other questions?
AUDIENCE: Hi.
My name is Lionel.
Thank you for sharing with us.
I've been to your restaurant once, not as many times as him.
And I really like the way that you think.
And just from hearing you share this,
I can see the passion that you have.
I'm curious on your journey, how did you know from the start--
or did you know from the start that you wanted to be a chef?
And how did know this was your calling?
Tell us a little bit of more about that journey.
ANDRE CHIANG: OK.
So as you know, I grew up in an artist family.
So I didn't know that I would become a chef.
I wanted to be a potter.
I wanted to be a potter and I want to do sculpture.
That's what I liked when I was little.
My brother and my sister, they are much-- seven years apart
from me-- so they are much older than I.
So they already found what they want to do.
And so my mom was running a restaurant in Japan--
a Chinese restaurant-- and so she was like,
that's the last kid that probably
will take over my business.
I'd better try to guide him somehow.
And make sure he doesn't go in the other direction.
So yeah.
That's how I thought OK.
I'll be the one to take up my mom's business.
And I kind of liked cooking.
So I left Taiwan when I was 13.
And I stayed two years with my mom.
And I learned the things from her.
And so I can eventually take over the restaurant.
And after two years I decided to learn something different.
And I said, OK.
I'm going to learn French cuisine.
So in fact I don't know-- I don't have an idea that I want
to be best chef in the world.
I want to do French cuisine.
I don't have an idea.
I just said OK.
I want to take over my mom's restaurant.
And I better learn something-- not only from her,
but from the best of the best.
So I can bring back different idea and try to help my mom
and change the concept and learn how to be better.
Once I arrived in France-- it's completely different.
It's totally opposite of what I learned from my mom.
First, that's my mom.
Second it's a Chinese restaurant.
So she'll teach you how to make things crispy,
how to make that skin shiny and how to make it crispy and hot.
So it's very, very technical, very technical.
And second thing is she said, OK Andre.
don't?
Try to be creative.
Don't try to be funny.
Just do the thing that I asked you to do.
This is the recipe.
OK.
So I don't want you to change anything.
I want you to continue.
I don't want you to change anything.
And I went to France.
And it's a totally opposite way.
My chef asked me, so what do you think?
What do you think?
You like it?
You don't?
Why?
And when you receive the vegetables and you smell it.
And he said tomorrow, I'll take you to see the farmer.
You'll see the farmer.
And you say, OK this is Uncle Gilbert
And this his vegetables.
And he lives with his two daughters.
And it's so emotional.
Everything is so emotional.
So when you create a dish, you think about Uncle Gilbert
and his two daughters.
[LAUGHTER]
So it's very different.
It's very, very different.
So I say, wow.
That's the heart I delved into-- all
of the process, all the creative process of French cooking.
The culture, the history-- everything is connected.
So I talked to my mom, I said that's something I want to do.
That's really-- I feel so free.
I feel I can tell people what I think.
I can put my imagination in the dish.
And it's all connected to everything.
So my mom said OK.
If you like it, just continue.
And so that's how I just continued
my path of French cuisine.
And I just stayed there for 17 years.
So I never really planned like five years, 10 years down
the road, what am I going to do.
So I'm still doing what I do.
Right now I never think of doing other things.
[INAUDIBLE] I like it.
Everybody has one thing that he does better than other people.
For me, it's cooking.
So I wanted to continue and do what I do, and share my idea.
And sometimes I feel I think differently.
So I need my team to balance me out.
So yeah.
Thank you.
OK?
Another one?
AUDIENCE: Is your mom's restaurant still running?
[LAUGHTER]
ANDRE CHIANG: No, because they're
looking for a head chef.
[LAUGHTER]
No.
My mom retired.
Once she knows that the son is not coming back
to take over the restaurant.
And so she said-- the three of us, me,
my brother, and my sister-- they're
all good at what they do.
So my mom can retire.
There's no need to-- and then she said, OK.
Then I'll just retire.
She left but she was here for my lunch yesterday.
And then she went back to Taipei this morning
before I came here.
FEMALE SPEAKER: One last question, please.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, Andre.
I've been to your restaurant before.
And it's fantastic.
So today is the highlight of my day.
And my question is really around your creative process.
Your food is amazingly created.
Have there been times where you must
stuck in the creative process?
And what do you do to get out of that rut?
ANDRE CHIANG: OK.
Just a quick story-- this one day, a couple of years
back-- I think it's the second year that the Restaurant
Andre opened.
So one day, we have the guests arrive.
And the restaurant is packed.
And more than half of the restaurant
is all repeated guests.
So all of repeated guests are always
wanting to try a few new dishes and different things.
As I start to do-- and I said oh my god.
Everybody's a repeated guest in this room.
So I was said, OK.
The kitchen is running like crazy.
And everybody is running around.
And I said stop.
We're going to change the entire menu tonight.
And everybody's like what?
Because we are in the middle of the service and everyone's
running.
I said we're going to change the entire menu because we have to.
And everybody stopped for four five seconds-- OK.
And they run the other way.
[LAUGHTER]
That's the moment that-- before I always think back
I can do everything.
I can create.
I can execute everything the way I want it.
And I can do it 100% But that was the moment
that I suddenly realized that with my team,
we can reach 120%.
It's something that I cannot do without their support.
I can have thousands of ideas.
But I need good execution.
And that's how fast-- they can come in and say, OK.
Chef, later we're going to do this.
And we're going to do that.
And later, OK you want the duck dish.
OK.
Then we can do this and we can do that.
And that's when we put everything together.
And I feel so powerful.
The moment that I feel so powerful
is when I'm in the kitchen because I
have my whole team with me.
And they're more critical than I do.
They say chef, no.
I don't like this.
We should best do this.
They're more critical than I do.
They give me a lot of pressure.
That's how I enjoy it.
For me, it's really the teamwork.
I work a lot with me team.
We sit down.
We talk about it.
We talk about different ideas.
So it's not just Andre.
We have a good team that supports every idea that I do.
We're not the hierarchy.
We're not the on man show and say I want this.
And get it done.
No.
We discuss.
In our kitchen, we have one small white board.
It's probably this size.
And everybody can write a unique combination
of flavors or anything on it.
So we pass by that white board 300 times a day.
So every time you walk by you'll see someone
wrote duck egg and vanilla and lobster.
So you're like whoa.
What is that?
It makes you think Is that a dessert?
Is that a dish?
So I think maybe is an appetizer.
And he might thinks it's a main course.
So everybody can write the ideas that they have,
or just three components, not detail on the white board.
And so that's how we get all the ideas.
And we pass by that white board every day.
And in a book, there is one picture on the white board--
a dirty white board.
And we all put our idea as we pass by every day.
And that's where I get our inspiration from.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]