Derrick

Derrick on the Hot Seat 

1. What inspired you to become a chef?

Food is memory! Coming from a background that celebrates food, I distinctly remember sitting down with my family and friends for a wholesome meal – laughter echoing, fighting for the last slice, and just living in the moment. I love how the first bite of my favorite dish can transport me into another time and place – my childhood home. So, I guess I’ve always been a sucker for good food and good company, and to get to offer that to people every day seemed like an obvious career choice for me.

2. What is your signature dish? What do people love about it?

It’s got to be Chicken Shashlik. Like I said, good food is enhanced by good company, and Shashlik is a widely known picnic food across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia. If you aren’t familiar with Shashlik, you must have heard of Shish Kebab, they’re basically the same thing. The dish is mainly meat marinated and grilled over hot coals and has been a part of Central Asian cuisine for thousands of years. It’s believed that the Romans also enjoyed this delicacy in their time. So yes, you can see why I have put years into perfecting Chicken Shashlik on my menu – it’s historically delicious and people just have a good time with it.

3. How do you describe your overall cooking philosophy?

Okay, this is a tough one, because I don’t follow hard and fast rules in my kitchen. Okay so maybe that’s my philosophy – go with the flow and let the dish cook itself. Let me elaborate, have you heard of freestyle in dancing? That’s exactly what I like to do in my kitchen. I improvise on the go. I let the meat decide how long it wants to stay on the grill, I let the knife get down to work instead of going all julienne, and let the swift movement of skewers beautifully bring the final dish together.
 

4. Name two of your strengths and two of your weaknesses as a chef.

I think being a chef requires a set of hard and soft skills. While I’d like to think I’m good at the former, I have a long way to go with the latter. For example - I work my way around skewers well, and sometimes put on a show where I pretend like it’s swordplay that attracts an audience – my senior at the restaurant seems to appreciate that. However, when I do get guests coming in to appreciate the cuisine, I get jittery and can come off as stand-offish. That’s something I’m working on; I do want to emphasize here that I love having customers over and it lifts my spirits on my low days.

5. Tell us a bit more about your fitness journey and how you cut out time for it.

Haha, there’s no deep story behind that. When you’re as much of a foodie as I am, you just got to take care of your health and shed the extra calories. I am a firm advocate of physical fitness and wouldn’t want to be ignorant about the side effects of grilled food. You got to enjoy grilled meat in moderation, there are no two ways about it. For me, it was a journey of self-realization when I started feeling fatigued into my second year as a chef. That’s when I started working out and now, I don’t miss a single day, it’s part of my routine and I love it. I’m also petitioning for a gym in the restaurant, lol!