Before becoming head chef at Hong Kong's Belon, which debuted at No. 40 on this year's list of Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, British-born Daniel Calvert was the youngest sous-chef to work under Thomas Keller at Per Se in New York. Known for his precise, classically French approach to cooking, the 30-year-old chef will join Yusuke Namai of restaurant Ode in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward for a collaboration dinner on August 29. This month, Calvert spoke with The Japan Times about life in the kitchen and finding pleasure in the daily grind.
You started cooking when you were 16. What attracted you to the kitchen? When I was a kid, my mom didn't have time to cook. She used to work two jobs to support me and my sister, so I had to cook for our family. It turned out to be something I really enjoyed doing — having the chance to provide for and make people happy through food. The first thing that I really loved to make was pasta, and I think it's some of our strongest work at Belon.
What's the most important thing you learned working for Thomas Keller? Discipline and consistency. Anybody can make an amazing sauce once, but as a chef you have to be able to get up every single day and do the exact same thing, the same way you did it the day before. It's the hardest thing anyone can do, but it's also where the pleasure comes from. Ninety-nine percent of the job is repetition, and if you don't enjoy the repetition, you'll never get through it. I've always liked the pressure of the kitchen and the feeling of getting things right.