Gelinaz, the chef’s collective, are back in town on the 3rd December. But this time, they are not travelling, they are staying “at home”. What travels this time, are their recipes. Each chef had to submit eight recipes that are typical for him/her, but she/he never served them at the restaurant yet. Those recipes were then shuffled and sent to another chef who will remix them in his/her own way and serve on the 3rd of December, for one night only, dishes inspired by those recipes to her/his guests. The guests and the chef will get to know whose recipes was interpreting the chef only at the end of the dinner through the Gelinaz ambassador who will attend the dinner (I will be that night the ambassador at the Aimsir restaurant in Ireland). Ambassadors will also take care of communication from the restaurants on that night, so if you are curious what is happening on the other side of the world, do follow us on Instagram (mine is here).
May Chow has received the recipes. And now?
What was your first thought when you read the recipes you received?
Oh!!! Panic attack, followed by a slight disappointment (I hoped for something Asian) again followed by total joy! It’s mediterranean, and that’s just as great as Asian.
What do you think of them now?
I dug deep into the individual recipes, dismantling each element, to find out how much I felt like sticking to the actual original. But as I got deep down into it, I found out that I actually had to work with the recipes as some sort of a mood board. So in the beginning a was a bit frustrated. Now I love them!
If you had to choose an animal to describe them, what would it be?
A peacock – or a sardine 😉
How will you approach it?
I ended up using the recipes as inspirational guidelines, as a form of freedom to create. Create something totally new to the restaurant, and something that I normally can only dream to do. To work completely outside the box, and use techniques and ingredients that are normally only finding the way to the plates for staff meals. And it’s actually amazing to get the chance to interpret a different cuisine, country and style on my home turf!
What will be the greatest challenge for you in this Gelinaz project?
To not fuck it up!
And what are you looking forward to?
To get going and to smash some cold beers with the guests during service and just have fun cooking something that is so different from what we usually do.
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PS Do check also May Chow, Mishmasa Nakamura, Lukas Mraz, Thomas Frebel, Felix Schellhorn, Luca Fantin, Richie Lin, Jonathan Tam, Prateek Sadhu, Riccardo Camanini, Yoji Tokuyoshi, Gabriela Camara, Chiho Kanzaki & Marcello di Giacomo, Lorenzo, Stefano & Benedetto, Micha Schäfer, Ana Ros, Jose Avillez, Karime Lopez, Angelo Agliano, Philip Rachinger, Niki Nakayama, Jeremy Chan, Niko Romito, Bo Songvisava & Dylan Jones, Antonio Galapito, Christophe Hardiquest, Antonia Klugmann, Jordan Bailey, Selassie Atadika, Rodolfo Guzman, Alberto Landgraf, Virgilio Martinez,Alex Atala, Zaiyu Hasegawa and Santiago Lastra.
