by Dr. Iain Corness
Chefs,
as a group, tend to be absorbed in their careers, though many find that
when they get to the accepted “top” of their culinary quest, their
work has become administrative, rather than creative. This will not happen
with The Bay Restaurant’s passionate new Italian chef at the Dusit
Resort, Maurizio Menconi. For Maurizio, there is only one way to cook, the
‘correct’ way, and that’s the way he does things. Did you know that
Café de Paris butter has 36 ingredients? “There’s one recipe
with 28 ingredients, but I like the one with 36. It’s richer,” says
Maurizio.
He comes from a tiny village in Lucca province in
Tuscany, where he was the youngest of four sons born to a photojournalist
and his wife. His mother was a “homely” cook, but the culinary side
comes from his father. As a journalist he would travel all over Italy and
come home with different foods, ingredients and cheeses. These his father
would cook.
Being the youngest, by the time he was approaching the
end of his basic schooling, his elder brothers were already in the
workforce. The family had an American bar and one brother worked as a
barman, and another as a waiter. The young boy also used to help in the
bar’s ‘cold kitchen’ opening oysters. “Without salary - when you
are working for the family,” said Maurizio.
This experience was enough for him to realize that he
did not want to pour drinks or carry plates all his life, so he was
enrolled at a hospitality college in the area where he undertook a three
year cooking course, and then backed up for another two years for the
advanced course.
By this stage he was already showing that he had an
enquiring mind, and he decided to go to France to learn more about those
wonderful ingredients called truffles and ‘foie gras’. That took him
to Perigord where he studied everything including the feeding of the ducks
and how to make the liver into foie gras and confit. “I wanted to know
everything on which cooking is based.”
The family called him back to Italy and he joined a
restaurant in Florence, starting as we all did, at the bottom. From there
he moved on to a well-known hotel that used to host the Miss Italy pageant
each year. It was here that he began to understand that he liked working
directly with the customers, so he became the chef at the tables, doing
all the theatrical flamb้s that guests love.
While he had obviously inherited his father’s love of
cooking, he may also have inherited some of his wanderlust as well. When
he heard that a friend was going to Germany, Maurizio asked him to let him
know if it was worthwhile his going as well. He did not have to wait long,
as the call came in two weeks, “Come, come! It’s good!”
This was all he needed and he joined a small (36 seat)
restaurant in Berlin. This restaurant had an excellent reputation and one
of its regular customers was the F1 world champion Michael Schumacher, who
apparently enjoys a good steak. Maurizio also enjoyed getting his
autograph!
Maurizio’s reputation also grew and another chef
asked him to join him to open a new Italian restaurant. Rising to the
challenge, he left Michael Schumacher’s steak and started the new
venture, which was to become judged as one of the 10 best Italian
restaurants in Germany.
Whilst this was a great honour, there was a problem for
Maurizio. “I didn’t know where to go next. The owner was also a chef,
so I couldn’t go up.” However, the concept of ‘fusion cuisine’ was
emerging and Maurizio, with his enquiring mind, decided that he should
come to Thailand to learn how to understand Thai herbs and spices. He
could have just asked at any Thai restaurant in Europe, but that is not
Maurizio’s way. He arrived in Bangkok and enrolled in a Thai cooking
school. “It was all in Thai, but I just noted what they were doing, so I
learned more about using items such as ginger, bay leaf and lemongrass.”
Again the thirst for knowledge about food and the
ingredients was uppermost and Maurizio even went to the University of
Truffles in San Miniato. There he learned the differences between France,
where they use truffle pigs to root out the delicacy, and Italy, where
they use specially trained dogs. “The pigs are more intelligent, but you
have to retrain them every year, and then they get too big!” The
dilemmas of the truffle farmer!
The travel bug then took him to Australia where he
worked in a large restaurant where he learned accounting and
administration, as well as banqueting. He also found that there was one
basic concept that he realized he believed in implicitly. “When you go
for quantity, you can’t get the top quality.” And it was quality that
Maurizio believed in.
He returned to Germany, working in a small 26 seat
restaurant and then was invited to join a very famous restaurant in Italy,
owned by the chef who had invented carpaccio. He enjoyed working under
this great chef who taught Maurizio that he had to satisfy everybody’s
taste buds.
However, after one year, he noticed that the old chef
was becoming forgetful and it was again time for Maurizio to move on, but
he needed a holiday first, so he came to Thailand. He also found that he
loved Thailand and took a position with a four star hotel in Bangkok for
18 months, but again wanting to move upwards, then came to the Dusit
Resort in Pattaya, this being a five star property.
Here he continues to enjoy his profession, getting
immense satisfaction from as he says, “Converting raw ingredients into
something perfectly united, for the eye and the mouth.” You can see if
he is successful at The Bay Restaurant in the Dusit!