Rustling up yet another menu

Chef Willi, who has worked in international hotels around the world, talks to Raveena Joseph about his latest venture and his long Chennai stint.

May 27, 2015 07:15 pm | Updated May 28, 2015 04:30 pm IST

Chef Willi has been more involved in food innovations and menu creations. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

Chef Willi has been more involved in food innovations and menu creations. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

When the famously ill-tempered chef Gordon Ramsay made his way to television screens in this part of the world, Willi Willson, then the executive chef at The Park, walked into his kitchen one day and asked the men assisting him, “Aren’t you happy I’m not like him?” Some men in the room shuffled around, some grinned and others smiled sheepishly. Finally, one spoke up, “Chef, have you forgotten about the first three years you were here?” 

“I suppose I have a temper,” chuckles the celebrated chef, who has sent many pots and pans flying across the kitchen. Despite this reputation, the New Zealander, who came to Chennai in 2002, is quick to make a joke. So ask him why, despite the many countries and hotels he has worked in, he decided to stay so long in India, and he says, “The Indian Government is quite the stickler for rules and regulations; if you lose your return air ticket, you are not allowed to go back. And I lost mine, years ago.”

Willi started off as a gardener, in New Zealand, at the age of 16. Looking for a change, a year later, he decided to join the army, where he was assigned to the kitchen. “In those times, we had the whole veal and sheep come in from the butchery and also had our own bakeries. So, I’ve done it all — right from cutting down a side of beef to baking a wedding cake. And there are not many people these days who get this sort of training.”  At the age of 21, he moved to Australia, where he met his Scottish wife, Margaret. He settled there, bought a house, renovated it and worked different jobs for seven years. Then, he moved to Germany to work in the five-star Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel & Conference Center because “unless you go overseas and get more experience, you’re never going to take the top job.” 

It was six months before he was accepted in the new German kitchen. For the six months following that, he ticked off all the senior chefs there by steadily rising in ranks, from working in the pantry to becoming Chef de Partie. “It used to annoy them that I was a foreigner who could cook. I could always cook, but that’s when I started taking it seriously.” All of a sudden, he was working with quality ingredients from around the world, such as fresh goose liver, freshwater crayfish, white asparagus and Italian truffles.

“The passion I put in food now, flavours it and makes it taste different; and what I try to teach my boys here, it all started then.”

From there he moved to Beijing for work, and then to Bali, and finally, Singapore. “I lived in hotels for 18 years. For me, it was okay because I was always working. But for my wife, it was something else.”

In 1996, he moved to Kolkata to work at The Oberoi Grand, where he earned a grand reputation for cooking up a storm. He then did a brief stint as an operations consultant in a beach resort in Goa and even worked at The Leela Mumbai before moving back to New Zealand. Then, he received a call from Priya Paul, who was planning to set up The Park in Chennai. He moved to the city, expecting to spend no more than six months here, but the gourmet thin-crust pizzas he introduced and the authenticity he brought to European food in the city earned him a name which made him stay. “I was at the right place at the right time; that was all. And I probably had a little bit of character to go with it,” winks the chef.

When his wife took ill and passed away a few years later, he only plunged further into work. He collaborated with Vipin Sachdev to take the helm at the kitchen in Tuscana Pizzeria (where there is still a fridge with a particularly nasty dent owing to a combination of his fist and fiery temper), set up the Greek restaurant Kryptos and was involved with Burgundy's and B-Bar. Then, right when he was again looking for another change, he received a call from Sam Paul, the owner of the Jonah’s restaurant-chain, who came up with an idea for a new collaboration —  Jonah’s meets Chef Willi.

On the eve of the launch, seated in a comfortable deep-blue sofa in the cozy interiors of the new restaurant, Willi says that the menu he’s offering is fun.

There’s Tex-Mex, a touch of Thai, some Indian flavours and his signature pizzas with a twist — fish and chips pizza, hamburger pizza and macaroni pizza for the kids. The kitchen is in full swing, being prepped for the opening and the staff scamper around, even as he throws instructions at them. 

The celebrated chef, however, cooks much lesser now and reveals that he hasn’t stood by the stove on a daily basis since his days in Germany.

Over the years, he’s been more involved in food innovations, taste testing, menu creations, plate presentations and kitchen management. Even at home, it’s his second wife, Marika, a Russian, whom he met in the city four years ago, who does all the cooking. Sunday nights, however, are omelette nights, and that’s when he takes over the kitchen. “I’m very fussy about eggs, so she lets me make them,” smiles the 58-year-old chef. 

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