Singaporean Lawyer-turned-Masterchef to Host Culinary Festival’s ’Charity Dinner’
Amid the unusual recipes and cuisine combinations on the menu at next month’s Gourmet Abu Dhabi 2011, a 16-day culinary festival taking place across 14 of the emirate’s fine dining restaurants, Chef Willin Low’s journey from courtroom to kitchen will provide one of the third annual event’s more intriguing table stories.
Driven by a lifelong passion for food and cooking, the 39-year-old Singaporean entrepreneur gave up a promising law career to pursue a dream of a different kind: becoming a self-owned restaurant pioneer and world-renowned masterchef.
For Low, who will host Gourmet Abu Dhabi’s first Charity Dinner at Teatro, Park Rotana Abu Dhabi, on Wednesday February 16, the career-defining decision was elementary. “I was reading law in the UK and the food served at my halls of residence was so atrocious that I started cooking for myself and friends,” he said.
“I then de-stressed from my work as a junior lawyer in Singapore by entertaining friends at home over dinner. In the last two years of my career as a lawyer, I started working as a private chef catering for guests that engaged my services for their dinner parties. Then one day I woke up and decided to quit law and pursue cooking full time and opened ‘Wild Rocket’ in 2005.”
Two years later, ‘Wild Oats’ and ‘Relish’ followed in February and December, respectively. The expanded cuisine concepts in Low’s rapidly expanding restaurant empire required new, tailored menus and a significant re-think towards both his personal culinary philosophy – he labels his cuisine as Modern Singaporean: “It’s what I am; sometimes Western, sometimes Asian, but always Singaporean” - and professional recruitment ethos.
“I was never trained classically as a chef so I am not bound by any rules - except that the food must taste good and be a comfort,” said Low, who counts variation as the key to his culinary prowess. “Being in Singapore is a great blessing because I appreciated good Chinese, Malay and Indian food as a child and when I got older I was exposed to Japanese, French, Italian and Thai cuisine.”
The effects of such a globally influenced palate, Low added, is intrinsic knowledge of varying cooking techniques and ingredients: “Singaporean chefs are in the best position to understand taste profiles of global ingredients and be able to meld the flavours together.”
The unifying process is not, however, limited to his menus. “At first I was purely food-driven and selfish - I love to cook and wanted to be a chef so I opened a restaurant. Over the years, my primary motivation has evolved and I’m now focused more on the welfare of my dedicated team of staff who have made my restaurants what they are today,” said Low, whose full-time staff – including rehabilitated criminals - have stakes in his business.
“I want my full-timers to be able to own their own homes and owning a group of F&B outlets has opened many doors for me to give back to society - I firmly believe that we should always bless the less fortunate so we hire ex-convicts, conduct baking classes for orphans and give to children charities.”
While Low’s work with the Yellow Ribbon Project (helping ex-convicts), Children Cancer Foundation (granting wishes to children with cancer), The Straits Times Pocket Fund (helping children from poor families) and Dover Park Hospice have earned his charity stripes in Singapore, it also made him the obvious choice to conduct Gourmet Abu Dhabi’s inaugural Charity Dinner - where guests can book tickets for AED650 (US$259) and sample Low’s well-practised modern Singaporean cuisine, a reinterpretation of classical taste with an avant-garde twist.
The Charity Dinner, being held at Park Rotana Abu Dhabi’s Teatro restaurant on February 16th, is in aid of Donate a Brick, which aims to build a Special Care Centre in Abu Dhabi. With over AED 10 million (US $2.72 million) already amassed in a project that requires investment of AED25 million (US $6.81), the Donate-a-Brick campaign is simple: each brick costs AED5 (US $1.36) and there are five million bricks to collect. ADTA has also pledged a portion of the evening’s proceeds to Donate a Brick.
“Our Charity Dinner concept is designed to yield a tangible philanthropic legacy from Gourmet Abu Dhabi and there can be no more lasting legacy than physical bricks and mortar, so partnering with Donate a Brick made perfect sense,” said Noura Al Dhaheri, ADTA’s Acting Leisure Development Manager. “Low’s own charity work and projects make him a natural fit for our inaugural event.”
“I hope to bring a slice of modern Singapore to the dinner; something familiar and western with something different and Asian,” added Low. “I think fresh ideas have to flow from traditions. There is a reason that these have become traditions in the first place – they have been tried and tested. It would be fatal to just have fresh ideas from a vacuum; I believe tradition must be the base from which chefs’ fresh ideas fly.”
With his unconventional path to the kitchen and humanitarian employment practises, Low represents a new breed of culinary behemoth, one seemingly willing to tear up the rule book and redraft chapters at will. This assessment, Low argues, does not paint the full picture.
“To push the boundaries every now and then and challenge mainstream perceptions, it is important to always have people who think out-of-the-box. One of the best ways to achieve this is by nurturing non-traditional talent, but it is absolutely essential to retain traditional talent as the foundation,” said Low.
The third edition of Gourmet Abu Dhabi, organised by Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, boasts a range of new features as a hallmark stellar cast of 17 International Masterchefs – with 22 Michelin-stars and three Chefs Hats between them – and a horde of celebrity guests, line up in a programme of Epicurean Promotions, Culinary Masterclasses, Château Dinners, an Emirati Royal Dinner, Gourmet Golf Experience, Feast of Middle Eastern Cuisine and the Abu Dhabi Gourmet Stars Awards Gala Dinner.
Gourmet Abu Dhabi 2011 has the support of: Abu Dhabi National Hotels as premium corporate partner; Etihad Airways as airline partner; RAK Porcelain as fine porcelain tableware partner, Acqua Panna & S.Pellegrino as the official still & sparkling mineral waters partner; Gaggenau as the premium kitchen appliances partner; Classic Fine Foods as premium gourmet products partner; Spinneys, High Spirits and African + Eastern as beverage partners; Nespresso as coffee partner; Valrhona as chocolate partner and Donate A Brick as the charity partner.
Bookings for Gourmet Abu Dhabi 2011 can be made by emailing info@gourmetabudhabi.ae.
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