Dish, Lot 1-1,
Ground Floor,
Dua Annexe,
211 Dua Residensi,
Jalan Tun Razak,
Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 03-2164 1286
Meals start at RM22.
The Delicious Group has just upped its offerings with famed Chef Steve Allen’s latest menus.
IN general, Malaysians are pretty casual. Given a choice, we’d rather not have to dress up for a meal … unless it’s at a really good upmarket place.
Stuffy suits, stiff shoes and awkward moments are what most people would gladly pass up for a more modest location. Lately, however, many swanky joints have eased up on the dress code so that patrons can enjoy fine dining in a relaxed environment. Enter “casual fine dining”. The term may sound oxymoronic, but telling of a sensible idea.
Scrumptious: Chef Steve Allen of DISH with a freshly prepared plate of sauteed scallops with cauliflower puree,turkey bacon andalmond crumbs.Hopping on the bandwagon of F&B outlets in Kuala Lumpur with this nifty concept is The Delicious Group’s DISH, an upmarket diner where you can show up in your jeans and pay a reasonable price for your meal.
Located at the group’s flagship Delicious outlet at Dua Annexe on Jalan Tun Razak, DISH occupies one end of the hall beside the gourmet food store Delicious Ingredients on the ground floor, while the Delicious restaurant sits on the floor above.
The ambience at DISH is similar to that of Delicious – cosy and classy casual – albeit with a touch more glassware.
“I have been to a few high-end restaurants around here and I’ve felt quite intimidated in some of them,” Eastern & Oriental group creative chef and The Delicious Group consultant chef Steve Allen shares with a smile.
“It’s true that most people don’t like waiters hovering over them when ordering or eating.
Casual settings are a popular thing now in London, because essentially, you get to have really good food without having to put on a suit for it,” Allen says. I meet the Englishman at DISH on a warm Saturday afternoon, shortly after his return from a brief trip to Penang, where he has been developing new dishes and training staff at the Delicious Straights Quay outlet.
Allen was formerly head chef at Gordon Ramsay’s exquisite restaurant Claridge’s in London, and the offer to start afresh in Malaysia was timely.
“After 10 years, I just needed something new,” explains Allen, who now lives in Kuala Lumpur with his partner, Jennifer, a professional violinist who played with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Inspired by London’s swanky, dining scene, Allen has created three brand new menus for DISH: A La Carte, which features 34 dishes comprising options such as freshly shucked oysters, grilled tiger prawns with herb and chilli salsa, and marbled Australian Wagyu beef; a lunch set menu with eight dishes; and a weekend lunch menu, which is still being developed.
“We’re still doing our market research to see what other restaurants are doing. We’d like to incorporate stuff that isn’t being done elsewhere around here,” the chef adds, allowing me into the kitchen with him as he rolls up his sleeves to prepare our meal.
Deftly tossing ingredients into a pan, he starts dicing and seasoning items on the counter. Allen moves swiftly, performing multiple tasks, but even under the circumstances, he remains collected and speaks to his assistants calmly. I verbally note that it’s a startlingly gentler approach to that of the tense kitchen atmosphere in Ramsay’s hit series Hell’s Kitchen. “I’m not looking to bring that sort of thing over here,” Allen replies with a smile.
Young and restless
Born in Eastbourne, near Brighton, England, Allen had an early start to his career. The older of two siblings with a hairdresser mother and radio DJ father, Allen learned to cook as a child, and had by the age of 10 been taught by his grandmother to bake his first cake.
He describes the invaluable exposure to cooking he had as a young man: “I used to follow my dad around for gigs in hotels, and I naturally spent a lot of time in the kitchen. When I was 13, he got me a part-time job in a hotel kitchen peeling vegetables. In a nutshell, that’s how I entered the scene.
Allen honed his skills through the years, baking for his mother’s clients, trying to “outdo granny, who really baked fantastic cakes”, he remembers with a smile. Unconventional experiments in the kitchen were not uncommon, like the time he added vanilla essence to his spaghetti bolognaise.
“Tastes different today, Steve, what have you done with it?” his father had asked in surprise. At 16, fresh out of school, Allen threw himself wholeheartedly into his first apprenticeship, working for four years at Boodles, a gentlemen’s club in St James Street in London. He later attended Thames Valley University in Slough, where he completed the Academie Culinaire de France Scholarship and complemented it with another course to learn more about pastries, food science, practical cooking and French terminology. Upon graduation, Allen worked with local chef James Kirby at Cotto Restaurant in Kensington.
Allen’s sense of excellence shone when participating in national culinary competitions, where he clinched titles in competitions such as The Young Chef Of The Year Awards 2003 and The National Chef Of The Year Awards 2008. His big break came in 2001, after he’d made it as a finalist vying for the Gordon Ramsay Scholarship.
“I’d messed up the dessert actually, having forgotten all about the ice cream I’d left on the counter long before the presentation,” Allen admitted with a chuckle.
“But I suppose I did everything else right because Gordon approached me at the end and offered me a spot at Claridge’s (Ramsay’s exclusive fine dining outlet in London).”
Allen worked his way up to the position of head chef, under the tutelage of executive chef Mark Sargeant. “Everything was new to me at that time. I’d never seen a truffle before, hadn’t seen many kinds of ingredients in the past. I knew what a cod was, but that was it,” he remembers. “London was an eye-opening experience.” As he started work at Claridge’s, Allen gave himself a year at the most.
“Those were 14- to 16-hour days.
I told myself that no way could a person work that hard five, six days a week. But before I knew it, 10 years had passed.” Later, Allen participated in 11 episodes over the first three seasons in Ramsay’s hit TV series Kitchen Nightmares, helping with menus, recipes and training the staff. “It was the best time of my life.
What you see on those shows is completely different from real life.
Gordon’s actually a really great guy who rewards hard work.
Besides, tempers flare in every kitchen. It’s the same everywhere,” Allens says of his mentor who “showed him the world”. Despite appearing on several TV shows, Allen is refreshingly grounded and disinterested in developing a TV personality for the public.
“I just like to cook,” he says simply. “And I came here to learn more about the food and culture, which is highly regarded in England. Everyone there talks about Malaysian food.”
“I feel I can contribute towards the country’s culinary industry, which is continually increasing its standards. Even as a fine dining chef, I won’t be trying to push for that all the time, as a local culture (like the mamak) already exists.
I’d like to attain something in between.” Rich and flavourful The anticipated spread is good to go:Sauteed scallops with cauliflower puree and turkey with almond crumbs; Vitello Tonnata, marinated veal with tuna mayonnaise arugula; salted baked cod with red pepper and lemon sauce; Black Angus tenderloin beef Wellington; and the Australian Black Angus 150-day grain-fed tenderloin, which took a tad more time to make. The natural flavours of the seafood and beef are rich and intact, enhanced by just the right seasoning.
“The a la carte menu is by no means expensive.
I don’t want people to feel that fine dining here is unaffordable,” Allen says, adding that the menus will be updated and improved from time to time. He later spoils us with pineapple carpaccio with coconut sorbet and tuille, in which the combined sweetness of the sorbet and caramelised coconut thins melt in the mouth like manna – or crisps, if you will – from heaven.
“The freshness of ingredients is key,” Allen says, following with an illustration.
“I’d rather buy fresh seafood and other meats locally and from neighbouring countries (and other regions), bearing in mind that there’s a lot you can do with cheaper ingredients.
It’s a matter of the treatment you give it while cooking,” he explains. He names several kinds of fish such as the King Cobia from the East Coast, as well as local fruits such as the pink and green guava, and mangosteen for new dishes.
“Most people would just eat the produce whole, but there are different ways you can prepare them actually,” he explains.
“Fresh, pureed or iced.” “What I see missing in Western kitchens is the lack of local products in them,” he remarks. “Imports are expensive and often less fresh.”
An upcoming trip to Cameron Highlands will give him a good idea of the local produce he can incorporate into DISH’s menus. “I intend to focus on that for now,” he says. While purees made from the pulp of mangosteen, papaya and guava sound amazing, I sure hope he looks into using durian too.
