new_spaces_07_GB

More documents

Recommendations

Info

40 Sights and Scenes 3. An “Arminator” in a Culinary Mecca Armin Leitgeb, a world-class chef from the Tyrol region of Austria, has found his greatest challenge in Singapore Text: Roland Hagenberg “When I was in the fourth year we had career weeks to help us fi nd out what career we’d like to pursue,” recalls Armin Leitgeb. “I fi rst tried out mechanical engineering, which involved fi ling down blocks of metal and getting cracked fi ngernails. I decided that wasn’t for me!” Leitgeb thereupon left his home in the Stubai valley to work in his aunt’s restaurant in Seefeld, 40 kilometres away. “I was tasting, looking, sniffi ng, trying things out. The kitchen was a hotbed of activity, and that convinced me: I wanted to become a chef!” When Leitgeb, who is now 34, talks about his meteoric career in his thick Austrian dialect, one can still hear the youthful enthusiasm in his voice — along with a spirit of adventure and a longing for distant places. “During our training, we apprentices always saved every penny so that at the end of the season we could squander all the money abroad on a A chef and his world Armin Leitgeb in front of his workplace, the top restaurant Les Amis in Singapore. supper cooked by a famous chef, usually in France!” he recalls. After his apprenticeship, Leitgeb was hired by the threestar restaurant Tantris in Munich. The master chef Hans Haas became his mentor, and the two men are still close friends. “We often perform together at international cooking shows, and Gaggenau is an additional bond,” he says. “Hans’ school is equipped with Gaggenau appliances, and as for me, I’m a Gaggenau ambassador. I helped design the Gaggenau showroom in Singapore.” After Tantris, Leitgeb worked in Marc Haeberlin’s legendary restaurant Auberge de l’Ill in Alsace — Leitgeb’s wife was born in this region — and then moved on to Jacques and Laurent Pourcel’s Le Jardin des Sens in southern France. “In this business it’s not enough to just send around your CV. It’s important to have personal recommendations,” says Leitgeb. “That’s how it was for me — with one
PHOTOGRAPHY: DARREN SOH exception. After I had gathered some experience at the French Laundry in California, I suddenly felt like trying out Asia. My uncle was the director of the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore, and he actually passed around my CV to his acquaintances. That got me a job at the Raffl es Hotel! I wanted to get more experience in the area of management so that I wouldn’t fall into the same trap as many chefs before me: They worked for decades in the world’s best restaurants, then went into business on their own, but they failed miserably because they weren’t able to calculate costs!” However, Leitgeb considers stubbornness to be an even more dangerous characteristic than ignorance. “You can’t come to Singapore from Europe as a celebrated chef and simply do your thing, just because you think you’re the greatest. People’s palates are different all over the world. Of course it’s true that people Only the best produce and the freshest fi sh are good enough for Armin Leitgeb. The ingredients he uses are fl own in from all over the world, but the local markets also provide him with spontaneous discoveries and new taste experiences. always want to try something new, but you also have to offer them an escape route back to the kinds of taste experiences they already know. If you don’t, your guests won’t return and your restaurant will go bankrupt!” Armin Leitgeb — whose admiring friends call him the “Arminator” — believes the secret of his success in Singapore is a careful balance between lightness and taste. “Back home I could simply use more butter or lard to enhance a certain pleasurable taste, for example, but I wouldn’t dare to do that here!” he says. Leitgeb is now the Chef de Cuisine at Les Amis — and it’s the biggest challenge he has faced yet in his career, not just because the restaurant is so famous but also because Singapore is simply the city of fi ne food par excellence. “If you don’t gain weight while you’re here, there’s something wrong with you,” say the Singaporeans. That’s because everything you eat here tastes fantastic and there’s a broad range of cuisines to choose from — Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Indonesian and European. Leitgeb often simply wanders around the “wet markets”, which offer fresh vegetables, meat and fi sh around the clock, to gain inspiration. He stops here and there, for example at the Tiong Bahru market, tastes and sniffs things, strokes fl owers, orders a bowl of noodle soup from a street stand — and then returns to Les Amis with a wealth of new ideas. “The ingredients of my dishes vary with the seasons and are carefully selected,” he says. “For example, I’ll call up a fi sherman in Brittany and talk to him directly rather than with a wholesale dealer. He might tell me that he’s caught a wonderful turbot. I then start to compose a meal in my mind, experimenting with impressions I’ve gathered from the Singapore markets until the delivery comes from the airport. If it’s winter in Europe I place my orders in Australia and fi nd out what vegetables are best there at the moment. When it comes to chanterelles, however, things get diffi cult. I want only those grown in France. The same goes for mugwort — which you need for a good roast goose.” The life of a sought-after chef might seem glamorous in lifestyle magazines, but Leitgeb isn’t impressed by the fl attering reviews he receives in the media. He accepts this acclaim with humour and a grain of salt. When he is asked if music inspires him while he’s cooking, the “Arminator” answers, “I often work in the kitchen for 15 hours at a stretch, so I need to have a radio above my head — not for the music but for the news. Otherwise I’d never know what’s happening out in the world!” www.lesamis.com.sg 41
Page 1 and 2: new spaces 07 365 days Gaggenau new
Page 3 and 4: PHOTOGRAPHY (TOP TO BOTTOM): BRUNO
Page 5 and 6: Masters of jelly Sam Bompas and Har
Page 7 and 8: “ The complete airport was eaten
Page 9 and 10: PR industry. Both of them lived in
Page 11 and 12: PHOTOGRAPHY: GAGGENAU The wine expe
Page 13 and 14: A successful aesthetic symbiosis Th
Page 15 and 16: A House with a Heart A tailor-made
Page 17 and 18: Comfort on every level Grace, the c
Page 19 and 20: Where nature meets architecture Alt
Page 21 and 22: 1 Iittala Tools pan Maybe it is the
Page 23 and 24: The Wonderful World of Shopping Mod
Page 25 and 26: “ Supermarkets are the most frequ
Page 27 and 28: nate the empty building, shopping t
Page 29 and 30: If you take a walk — or, preferab
Page 31 and 32: Sustainable and exclusive The avera
Page 33 and 34: Extremely precise and fast: There a
Page 35 and 36: Gaggenau new spaces 07 Focus on Sin
Page 37 and 38: “A variety of sounds, rhythms and
Page 39: One of the most remarkable private
Page 43 and 44: 2 3 4 5 1 What’s Next? What’s N
Page 45 and 46: Building Stories Lampshades made of
Page 47 and 48: 47 A lustrous cavern of LEDs Zaha H
Page 49 and 50: Every object tells a story, and so
Page 51 and 52: PHOTOGRAPHY: HUTHMACHER/ARTURIMAGES
Page 53 and 54: Up, Up in the Sky From the Alps to
Page 55 and 56: Visitors are left breath - less 650
Page 57 and 58: Daring escapades Only thin lines ar
Page 59 and 60: PHOTOGRAPHY (FROM LEFT): COURTESY O

new_spaces_07_GB

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?