How A Spectacular Failure Served As A Reality Check For Chef Eric Low
Why young chefs are getting it all wrong and how to find one’s true value.
“At the end of the day, whatever you studied or learnt in culinary school doesn’t teach you how to firefight. What takes you through each day is experience.”
Chef Eric Low’s first competition as a young chef was a complete disaster.
“I had that kind of literally young thinking: just register for it and think about what I wanted to cook,” he recalls.
“I didn’t even do any proper practice or rehearsal, assuming that everything would fall into place.”
But two days before the ice cream competition, he fell very sick.
The illness, coupled with a lack of preparation, left him serving a lacklustre scoop of ice cream, topped with some fruits and biscuits on the big day.
“When I looked around and saw what the other fellow competitors were doing — those who went through a proper coaching process and mentorship — I realised how far off my standard was,” Low says.
Looking back, he attributes all his success today to that spectacular failure. It was a much-needed reality check that taught him the value of experience and spurred him to work harder.
Since then, besides becoming an accomplished professional and celebrity chef with numerous accolades under his belt, Eric Low has also written award-winning cookbooks, founded a culinary arts and food science consultancy, and worked in 25 countries around the world.
In this interview, he talks honestly about why young chefs need to change their mindsets, and discovering what really matters.
F&B is over-hyped in the media.
“F&B is always portrayed in media as very glamorous, the hype, and the shine-shine, bling-bling thing.
But people don’t see the behind scenes, the cleanup, the wash-up, the firefighting, even managing logistics and things like that.
And it’s constantly a very, very tough environment too. When you wake up each day, you have no idea what’s going to happen, what kind of fires are you going to fight.
There are more chefs than cooks in Singapore right now, and that’s not a good thing.
Nowadays, graduates become head chefs, or open up restaurants and cafes in three or four years. But sometimes they are not even ready.
The younger generation is very lucky, because they can pick up technology real fast, and have better linguistic abilities than my generation or those before me.
But many of them lack firefighting skills.
At the end of the day, whatever you studied or learnt in culinary school doesn’t teach you how to firefight.
What takes you through each day is experience.”
What competitions are really all about:
“Nowadays, I always ask young chefs in competitions: ‘What do you really want from this whole thing?’
90% will tell you that they want to win a medal, or be the best chef.
Many youngsters see Masterchef and professional culinary competitions as a fast-track, quick-visa way to the top.
When some of them win, their egos get bigger.
But competitions are all about personal growth, not winning. The real takeaways of a competition are: time discipline, personal discipline, and commitment discipline.
Because you might be training very hard in your own kitchen, you know your own kitchen very well, but the competition location could be a completely new setup.”
It’s all about respect and teamwork.
“At team level competitions, there are no heroes or superstars.
Everyone in the team from core members, team assistants, coaches and even logistics support personal play a key crucial role in the team’s overall success.
Respect is the value that gets you around and over many difficult situations.
Once I got up at 4am in the morning to send a pastry team for their national level competition.
One of the young chefs in the team thought I was their service driver and started to order me around to his fancy. After I dropped them off at the competition hall, I returned later in my uniform as competition judge and that poor fella could never looked at me in the eye again.”
Private dining and pop ups are not that simple.
“The gig economy is also very strong, so everybody wants to be a private chef or do pop-ups.
But many people don’t know what issues to address first, even before planning the menu.
For example, an inexperienced chef might say he wants to create a fancy menu, but an experienced one will say, ‘Okay, let’s have a look at your venue first.’
You have to know what are the waste management issues, the equipment that’s available, the kind of power supply, and other logistics before even talking about the menu.
Some private chefs over-promise clients on the menu.
Then they realise that the house kitchen and refrigerator are too small, there’s no space to do plating, or not even enough space for people to sit in the dining area!”
The true value of a chef lies in his heritage.
“The way a chef would think in his 20s, 30s, and 40s is very different. I’m already in my 40s, so I’ve been through all those stages.
When you’re young, you want to do hipster and funky stuff; you want the glamour; you want to be in the limelight.
But when you reach your 40s, you start to understand better where the bigger picture lies, and realise what’s really precious to you.
I’m trained in Western cooking. Being in Italy, Spain, and France was so enriching for me from a Western cuisine angle.
But at the end of the day, what do the people want from me? Asian food.
When I was overseas, I realised that my true value was my Asian heritage, and how shallow I was on that.
Championing my heritage [Teochew] cuisine is even more important, because that’s where I’ve found my true value.
I’ve seen so much about Teochew food and how it has been valued down to this generation.
I’ve heard legendary stories about my grandfather’s cooking, because he was also a Teochew chef, a big name in the 1950s and 1960s. Many people in older generation people remember his kind of dishes, but those are no longer available nowadays.
So I realised in this modern day I need to bring Teochew cuisine back.
It starts from your own home, your childhood, and what you ate in the school tuckshop. It starts from what your mom cooked for you.
So this is where I learnt how to rebuild everything again.
And this is the kind of thing that people will eat every day, this is the kind of thing that people will money to eat.”
It’s always about feeding people.
“In my motivational talks, I will always share this with young people: never forget the reason why you are a chef.
As a chef, you need to Cook, you need to Host, you need to Educate, and you need to Feed people.
When I say ‘feed’ people, I’m not talking about just from a business point of view.
It’s about feeding people in the community. Anybody who is hungry and less privileged. If you have the skills, you know how to cook, feed them.
Food is what brings people and communities together.”
