Sydney Chefs

Serge Dansereau
now Chef, Bather's Pavillion, Balmoral

Kables at the Regent Hotel is, according to restaurant Critic Stephen Downes, a "fine big hotel dining room". He awarded it 14 out of 20 in 1991. It got three hats and 18 out of 20 from Leo Schofield in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide which said:

"How ironical it is that the most aggressive promoter of Australian produce should be a French Canadian. In California the chefs have a saying that "if we can sell it, someone will produce it." However the law of supply and demand works differently here, and chefs have virtually had to drag, cajole and coax their suppliers into production of things other than mass-market ingredients. Serge Dansereau has perhaps worked hardest, not only at getting quality produce but actively promoting it, and his menus are celebrations of the glories and the rosy future possibilities of Aussie meats, cheeses, fruits, vegetables and seafood."

The kitchens are superbly organised and equipped. I particularly admired the coolrooms, completely different chambers for meats and fish; complete fish prep section; baking room with a huge, separate, air-conditioned room for chocolate making. A burnishing room and silver storage -- where the item's price is listed next to where it is kept. Customer pilferage of silver ware was, Serge said, "horrific".

Chef's office in centre of kitchen glassed in with clip boards for all the sous -- chefs, nine of them, who take charge of the different kitchens and sections; next in seniority come the chefs de parties, then the commis chefs and finally the apprentices. Quite a few Asians in the kitchen.

Serge Dansereau is most impressive, works like a demon and is involved in every aspect of the organisation:

"What is a properly trained chef -- you could say a traditionally trained chef is one that goes to school. In my kitchen really all have been basically trained in the normal classical sense. If you work in a hotel the type of people that work there tend to have the classical experience and all that. I think what's happening is that sometime I have some of the more well-known chefs who will send to me somebody that has never been trained classically and they will send them to me so that they get the hotel experience; so often if they find somebody with lots of potential and they pretty much reach their useful life in a restaurant then they should get that classical training so they ask me if I can provide them with a job so that they can see how a hotel runs and a brigade with all the different sections and that produces a person which is a bit more complete as far as and ready to take on more responsibility".

"At first I am always very reluctant and feel bad for them because I know that it is going to be a complete shock for them -- they are going to have to wear a hat, to wear a necktie, they will have to abide by certain hours; they're not going to have the radio in the kitchen; they're not going to be able to do all the things; they're not going to be able to have a beer in the kitchen after service; they're not going to be able to sit on the table and all the things that go on in those kitchens any more -- so I am always a bit anxious that a person is not going to be able to cope with that; and that person has to have a lot of guts to go through this because they are going to go through a rough time; because they've had so much liberty they were basically allowed to do whatever they wanted or they were old chums.

"I warn them, I'll take you but you've got to understand that is the situation and you'd better decide before you take a job here; that's what it is you know; I'll do the right thing but its going to be completely different -- understand that; and most of the time they will want to do that -- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't -- if they're not ready to do it normally after a month right away you can see it; but some of them have been very surprised; they've toughed it out and a couple of months later I will have a talk with them and they will say -- you know it was very hard but now I've fallen on my feet and I understand it; you've got to have the patience also, lots of them don't have the patience; they want to have it all very quickly".

"There was such a shortage of qualified chefs in those years -- lets say 1987, 88 and 89, but now it's changing -- because the economy is not good any more; everybody is cutting back in a hurry so suddenly you're going to have all those chefs that are not trained kind of left out because you're going to have the choice of all the qualified. I always have a waiting list of people that want to come down here; so I'm lucky, its not always been like that, but its like that lately; for the last year and a half I always have a big waiting list so obviously I am going to draw on the better ones. For example, with apprentices; I probably have something like 300 applications for apprentices a year and its impossible to sort it out so you can still make the wrong decision. We ask them for a written report of why they want an apprenticeship and then we have an interview process for about 40 and then narrow it down to say 25 and then to ten on the short list who I interview and then I will take maybe three to four.

"I personally think the system in Australia is completely wrong; I came from a totally different system where you work two years full time at school to learn the basics. There is no apprenticeships. It is full time at school -- mornings would be theory, food science and costings and all that -- in the afternoon you have all the practical side -- you do cafeteria, after six months you go to table d'hôte and after that you go to a la carte and that's the three main areas -- and after that you do supervision -- where you have diet food; butchery and all those things; pastry and bakery. Pastry and bakery are two years more. So you are either a chef or a pastry/baker -- but if you are a chef you get something like one month out of those two years to learn pastry; so after you leave school after those two years, you are completely trained. You have no experience whatsoever with the market but you're trained; you know all the theory, you know the garnishes you know all about the soup.

"Here the problem in Australia if you start working in a bad place then that is what the apprentices learn and their training time is wasted completely."

"If you exclude the hotels -- long pause -- a lot of restaurants do use apprentices because they find them less expensive; half of my staff are on a wage and don't make any overtime and we need them only 40 hours. But my staff on salary, the sous-chefs and chefs de partie, are expected to work 50 hours and don't get extra payment. We have a complete mixture in the kitchen of nationalities. The executive sous-chef, who is my right hand, he is Australian; extremely good, hardworking -- no idea about demonstration or making a menu but he's a worker; so for me he's perfect -- he was trained at the Hilton 15 years ago; he came from the garde-manger section so he has incredibly talented with food, very, very good with food and is a person who can cook with real flavour. Out of the 90 persons I have here I would say four, maybe five have real talent -- it is very rare. You have a few key people with that and that's it.

"In Sydney most restaurants have apprentices and some of them do good training -- Rockpool, they learn something different -- it might not be classical but still you learn lots of good things.

"Rockpool receives a lot of criticism because Neil [Perry] has not been trained classically -- not fair -- too many mixtures of food, in this day and age -- a lot of the blame should go the press -- they have developed the cult figure of the chef; they have created lots of monsters through that; they are guilty of doing that.

"What I think you have to do; you should specialise in what you feel -- what you are comfortable with -- French cuisine is something that is learnt by a lot of the chefs like us and basically that's what we should stick with -- some of the other chefs like Neil Perry, he's not been trained to anything really specific so he is in that school of doing lots of your own thing.

"I would never have my own restaurant because I couldn't be at the stove every day doing the same things. I would get bored -- I need more -- I need to be more creative than that. To change the menu every six months -- for me as a person I can't do that -- I am not saying that it is wrong but for myself I would go bananas. That's why I like to work in a place like this because I can make menus for banquets, I can make sandwich menus -- I like to make a good sandwich, its a challenge, I want to do something that's good and that doesn't mean that I'm a lesser chef -- you've got to be able to use your talents for lots of different things.

"In a restaurant I sometimes feel that people change the menu too often and you don't think what you are putting on the plate anymore -- that's where the faults come in -- you don't try your food anymore -- you don't eat your food anymore, you just don't make sure that it is good; you don't actually make it and try it and say is this dish good -- nobody questions themselves any more -- they just assume that it's going to be good, going to be fine -- I've got so much talent that its going to come perfect. But it doesn't work like that; its been proven that it does not work -- you've got to take the time to research your menu; research your dish; to re-balance; you've got to do the right thing -- that's probably the middle, you go to an extreme like Alain Senderens -- that comes in with a dish every three months or six months and that's it and the other extreme is what I called "go go food" -- you just write it down and if it sounds good -- so that's it that's what's going to go on to the menu and you just kind of put it together before service -- and that's it."

"I used to change menu every week; very hard for the brigade -- actually they like it its challenging for them but when you look at it carefully you're not giving the customer very good value -- by the time the kitchen brigade is used to the menu, you change it, just by the time that they are becoming good at doing it -- you are changing the menu so I did realise that and said that's it -- I want my food to be more researched, more intelligent, more balanced, more serious. A dish has to be tried and re-tried before putting it on the menu. Otherwise we run down and you put it together at five o'clock just before service and say that's alright.

"Too many menu choices are led by the journalists -- we love, loathe them fear them -- you always try to be different; you're always afraid to do something which shows you as one of the leaders and all that -- so you're always trying to outdo yourself -- which is right and wrong. But I find the biggest influence from the foodwriter is not proper because they are always searching for the newest trend, the newest dish -- most of the public in Australia is not really educated in food so that's why it is not so important in a sense to mix up foods like that -- in fact they like that in Sydney."

"In Quebec where I come from there is so much tradition. Here there is nothing, there's no base, there's nothing -- that's why in a sense you cannot overly criticise the people who just do food that they feel is liked in Sydney. The people in Sydney buy it -- that means they like it. So its really hard to say well that this is wrong; its really really hard because if they like it."

"I have a lot of professional respect for -- Gay Bilson for her conviction in her ideas. The impressive thing is that Gay is not afraid to leave a dish alone -- even me I don't because I always get pestered by the customer -- feel I have to garnish more, give more on the plate. She is really brave not to give the potato, etc.

" Damien Pignolet for the consistency of his food.

" Neil Perry for his innovation.

"I don't know Phillip Searle very well and am not really on the same wave length with him; I respect him.

" Peter Doyle -- is meticulous in everything he's doing -- he writes down all his recipes and weighs things and studies all his recipes very carefully.

" Mogens had no real impact on me -- part of the old brigade

"Anders Ousback -- has had a personal impression on me; he is a fantastic person and has an extraordinary way of doing things. With food Anders flies from one spot to another and never does any one thing for any length -- he is very clever in his approach to bringing a concept to life -- but doesn't cook regularly himself. He has been out of it now for several years and wouldn't want to be spoken of in food terms I don't think

"On the periphery is Stefano Manfredi -- very good food but not someone that leaves a mark.

"Mark Armstrong did have some influence".

"The European island layout takes more room, is more efficient -- but takes more staff because you have to have one on the sauce, one on the fish one on the grill, two on the veg. -- I can't cut down numbers because you cannot have one doing the grill and the fish at the same time -- it's physically impossible; in the line system you can have one on the hot; one on the grill; one on the cold and one on the dessert. The line definitely is more efficient -- you can move sideways -- with the island physically you have to run around -- if you are going to have one person doing two duties -- they have to be switching from one side to the other which is impossible. You can move sideways, you don't bump into people. You have to define kitchen patterns -- The kitchen here was badly laid out I changed the layout completely -- I took the plan of the kitchen and did arrows so that one person did this and had to go there, so then I changed the equipment around so that their paths would not cross. So that all the lines went straight to the pass instead of crossing each other. Kitchen design is so important. I mean little details like the infill between ovens -- so that you have somewhere to put things down -- put your sauce, mise en place -- I hate kitchens where there are things put on the floor etc. Lots of details and space considerations. Meat drawers work well -- people who design kitchens don't cook -- but also every chef has his own way and say you take five different chefs and you will get five different kitchens -- it's a problem.

"But that comes from training -- if you train properly and you see everything -- you get told how to work. Even with my sous-chef -- he tries to use every bit of space in the fridge for his mise en place and still not enough. There's never enough equipment for him -- he is using a big electric oven to cook one piece of meat. I ask why -- he said it cooks faster -- why waste all that energy to cook one portion -- why does it have to cook faster -- people aren't in a hurry -- you can plan for it properly. But he prefers to do it at the last minute instead of liaising with the dining room. Every space in the fridge he uses -- if we had five more fridges he would use them -- just inefficiency. People will just misuse a space."

Serge's Career

"I did my training in Montreal, Quebec and went to the Institute of Tourism and Hotel Business in Montreal.

"Whilst studying I worked for a large hotel corporation at weekends and after school -- they would bus me around various hotels where they needed help and also after school.

"After I finished training (two years full time) I worked in some well known restaurants in Montreal and also still for the hotel. I had two jobs at the same time as I didn't think that one job kept me busy enough -- I would day shift in one and night shift in another -- I didn't have too much free time. It gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of different things.

"Then I went as emergency chef for the hotel corporation at different hotels around Canada. They would send me to places to revive them and get them back up to scratch; I would work at each place for about a year; get it clean and organised and restore staff morale and then when it was up to standard -- move on. I would try and use a lot of local recipes in the different hotels in the provinces. There is a lot of regional recipes and special products in the different provinces of Canada and I would try and build up an awareness of them. I worked in four different hotels as head chef until I was 25 when I decided that I was getting a bit tired of that and felt that I needed to concentrate properly in one place. Over that time I had learnt a lot about costing and about efficiency.

"At that time The Regent contacted me and offered me the position of Executive sous Chef at their new hotel in Sydney. After a year I was promoted to the position as Executive Head Chef. I was very very young but had a lot of experience in different kitchens and had seen lots of different situations.

"That was eight years ago and I am very happy -- they look after you very well and encourage you to run the restaurant as your own business -- in Hong Kong the chef was there for ten years. I think it is important for consistency to stay more than three years.

Serge left his long time position with the Regent in Sydney in 2000 to become chef (and partner) in Bather's Pavillion in Balmoral on sydney's North Shore.

Recipes

Other Serge Dansereau links: Food and Friends by Serge Dansereau, an interview (and recipes) with Serge in 1999.