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  • 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]

FEMALE SPEAKER: Welcome to Talks at Google in Singapore.

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