BRIEFING MY KITCHEN Kevin Cherkas
Te chef and co-founder of Cuca in Bali tells Tina Nielsen why his kitchen is the best in the world
I
grew up in Canada and have always worked in culinary – I joined McDonald’s as soon as I could and went on to golf and country clubs before culinary school in Vancouver. Tis led me to Michelin-starred restaurants, in New York, Spain, Malaysia and Singapore. Ten, 14 years ago, I persuaded my wife
Virginia to open a restaurant in Bali. Cuca is designed with a Scandinavian and
Japanese feel: it is minimalistic, and everything is scaled back. Food-wise we serve tapas, cocktails and desserts. When we opened there was nothing like it in Indonesia. We only use local ingredients, and
everything is made from scratch daily. If we serve it, we make it. Our customers are global; all of them
The kitchen is set up for an easy flow and fast service of small plates
are tourists. Te one thing they all have in common is that they love food, and that is our bread and butter, because we have no passing traffic being down a road in the middle of nowhere. We built the restaurant from scratch, so I designed the kitchen myself. I think I have the best kitchen in the world because it flows perfectly. It is separated between the back for prep and the front where food is finessed and cooked. Te functionality means that we can do anything from a light dinner service to a 300-people event. It is an open kitchen with a 12-seat
bar counter. We knew our work would be something worth showcasing, but that does come with challenges; you need to be aware that everything is visible.
I rely on three bits of kit a lot. We are in
a hot tropical climate, so all our food is light with powerful flavors. First, we do a lot of our sauces in our Vitamax blenders. Second is our meat grinder, which we use to grind vegetables for stocks and different cuts of meat. Finally, we love salamanders – just to give dishes that last-minute temperature burst. We love putting food in there to gratinate it. If it is not working, it’s a real do-or-die. Speed is built into the design;
everything has to go out pretty fast. We have 25 people working in the kitchen during dinner service and everyone is Indonesian. We want it to be purely Indonesian in every way – from our building material to labor and ingredients. Tat makes Cuca a very sustainable restaurant.
The Vitamax, a meat grinder and the salamander are the kitchen workhorses
During dinner service in Cuca there are 25 people in the kitchen
All food is cooked from scratch daily using local ingredients
70
FOR MORE GO TO
FCSI.ORG
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
