PLAYBOY CLUB
Playboy returns to London…
A
fter a hiatus, the Playboy Casino is coming back to London’s Mayfair. In keeping with the area’s reputation for top-class cuisine and some of the finest bars in the city, Judy Joo has been hired
as Executive Chef and Salvatore Calabrese as the club’s mixologist. Casino International talked to Judy about this prestigious appointment, and how she arrived at the Playboy…
Casino International: How did you get started
as a professional chef? Judy Joo: I went to cooking school. I turned
professional as a chef in 2004. I’m best known as a resident Iron Chef on the
international cooking programme, Iron Chef UK. It’s a fantastic show, based around competitors using a secret ingredient; the contestants have to make five dishes with that secret ingredient. I was one of the four resident Iron Chefs competing against the contestants. Before that I was working at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, but also rotated through some of his other restaurants.
CI: How did you end up working for Gordon
Ramsay? JJ: I was actually eating at his restaurant, and it’s
quite a small place with maybe 30 people in at any one time. Gordon had stopped by and was saying hello to the guests. We were talking, and I told him I was a chef, and he said “When are you going to start working for me?” He introduced me to his head chef, and I took his number, called and we arranged a stage, which is where you work a full day so they can assess your skills. I was hired and worked there part- time for about two-and-a-half years. I was also freelance writing at the time.
CI: How do you fit in with the Playboy image? JJ: Playboy really likes my background, because
there’s a story there – I was in fixed-income derivatives with Morgan Stanley, and I did that for five years before I became a chef; that career-change story is something people have been surprisingly
30 JUNE 2011
…and it’s bringing top-notch talent to England’s capital in the shape of Executive Chef Judy Joo and top mixologist Salvatore Calabrese, aka The Maestro
enchanted with. Bloomberg did a piece on me joining Playboy Club
as the Executive Chef and it somehow became the most-read story worldwide for that day, and top-five for the week! There seems to be an interest in people who have changed careers, and who have made a success of it.
CI: What does an Executive Chef do, exactly? JJ: I’m responsible for building a menu, and
training a team, designing everything about the menu even down to the font and the type of paper I want; I’m looking at the uniforms, crockery, utensils – I am building this place from the bottom up, everything, and then maintaining it.
CI: What clientele are you aiming at? JJ: It’s member’s only, exclusive, and high-end. But it will be a diverse clientele; they want lawyers, doctors, not just celebrities and socialites. It needs to be a well-rounded clientele of a certain pedigree, which is interested in gaming, fine food and wines, and the fantastic cocktails Salvatore is going to create in the bar… Everything looks very slick, very sexy, and we’re on Old Park Lane in Mayfair, next to the Four Seasons.
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