Culinary Trends | Mid Winter 2011
Interior shots of AKASHA restaurant/bar/bakery in Culver City, CA.
to like the person you’re working for and get along with them. There’s a lot of restaurant chefs who couldn’t do it!
Why’s that?
The smart chefs know their cus- tomer and they’re really into cooking for the customer. If what you want to make isn’t what your customer wants, then you have a problem.
What’s your advice for someone wanting to become a private chef?
The problem is that you have to work for someone to get really good references before you can work for someone! Maybe your parents know someone, or a friend works for someone. It’s all about the trust factor, because celebrities – and CEOs – are very private. There are agencies, but the agencies all want you to have a reference, too.
Why a restaurant now?
I always wanted a restaurant, but it was never the right time. I have a 21-year-old daughter, and when she was a baby I certainly didn’t want to open a restaurant.
Someone approached me and said, “You should open a restaurant.” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, I’d love to open a restaurant!” We weren’t that serious. We went to look at locations just to see what was out there. But we found this unbelievable location. So we took it, wrote a busi- ness plan and founded the restaurant.
What are some of the things that you ab- solutely won’t compromise on?
I only use organic sugar and organic flour. Most of the produce is local. We make a lot of things here – we make our sambal sauce; we make all of our pickles; all
our own ice creams; for the bar, I make all the syrups – we make our own grenadine syrup out of pome- granate juice. I have a whole little jam, jelly and chutney side-busi- ness. We use a lot of that in the restaurant, too.
Why the side-business? You seem really busy as it is!
A friend of mine taught me how to make jam, and it’s so much fun, I really, really love doing it! There’s this real sense of accomplishment of going to the farmers’ market, buying six cases of fruit, cutting it all up, cooking it down, making a chutney or a jam, putting it into the jars and sealing them. It’s a great feeling!
How do you decide where to draw the line on ingredients?
I look at every ingredient, and there are different factors. Of course, it has to taste great; it has to be a clean product. But if I have a choice between local, unsprayed citrus fruit that’s not certified organic – but it really is – I’d rather have that than certified organic oranges from Mexico.
Is sourcing easy?
One of the reasons I did a restaurant now is I’m able to use the kinds of ingredients I want to use. Twenty years ago, your meat vendor wasn’t bringing you amazing grass-fed steak.
But you could find those ingredients as a private chef?
When you’re a private chef, you can just go to Whole Foods and get whatever you want. It’s easier if you’re only getting five steaks. Here, I need 50 delivered every other day.
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