Eating Inn

All across Southeast Asia, many of the best chefs

and their restaurants are to be found in hotels,

and this series is devoted to making sure you don't miss out

on the absolute joy of sometimes Eating Inn.

I am Phillip Davenport, and you are watching

Toque 12's Eating Inn.

-All right, are we ready to cook or what? -

As Wolfgang Puck likes to tell us,

a restaurant's open kitchen is like theatre,

because everyone wants to see the star, the chef at work.

And as the saying goes, there's no show without punch.

Happy chicken!

This is especially true at Bar-Roque in Singapore,

where Chef Stéphane is the quintessential entertainer,

always making sure there is never a dull moment.

Bar-Roque Grill is a modern rotisserie with French influence,

so you can come and enjoy that meat platter,

which you're going to have a beef Wellington,

a Wagyu steak, a grass-fed striploin.

So we selection all those beef, but we just make sure

that it's an amazing quality.

So that's what we're doing, organic, grass-fed, Wagyu.

So we try to have some different type of meat on the board,

and then of course we have the rotisserie, which all the animals turning,

like the lamb, the pork, the chicken, organic chicken.

So really you can mix your table

with a lot of different kind of meat at Bar-Roque Grill.

Okay, so before you went to culinary school...

-Yeah. -...you must have had some kind of passion

from mum, you know, good food.

What was the first thing you think you made?

Oh my God, that was absolutely amazing, I still have the taste.

It was...

So my mum really cook a bit of everything, but really specialise in sweets.

And I remember that I did my first Mirabelle tart.

That Mirabelle is a little plum from Alsace, yellow plum.

And then I did that plum tart, and I was so proud

because I served that to my whole family.

And actually, I think it was tasting very good,

that's what they told me. But it's funny because

that tart I served to my family,

and I still remember the taste of it, you know.

And now every year is a seasonal thing, the plum Mirabelle.

Every year I reorder them from France

and I'm doing exactly the same recipe after 26 years of cooking.

So I always will remember the taste of the tart, yeah.

-We're going to do a Beef Rossini today. -Okay.

Beef Rossini, so it's one of my favourite dish

because the dish has everything inside.

-Yep. -So we have a beautiful tenderloin,

grass-fed of course from Australia.

O'Conner's Beef, which is absolutely amazing.

So you can see there is some beautiful marbling here.

Phil, I think you're going to have to season the beef with salt on both sides,

-pepper on both sides. -There's nothing wrong

-with a bit of salt, right? -No.

-Okay, some nice beautiful pepper. -Voilà!

And then a bit of oil, so it's going to caramelize.

- Not too much. - Wow, just perfect.

This is going to go back on your Japanese grill?

- Yeah, absolutely. - Because we want that smokiness.

Again, the smokiness and the char of the beef is just amazing.

In the same time, we're going to grill the beef

and we're going to pan sear the foie gras...

-Yep. -...and toast our bread.

Okay, Chef, I wasn't wrong. You were getting me to work here.

- Yeah. -So we've got this beautiful tenderloin

-from Australia, right? - Absolutely.

We've seasoned it up. It's going to go on the grill.

This beautiful yakitori or a robata grill from Japan

and the nice coals giving it a little bit of smokiness.

- Yeah. -It's a gentle heat, but it gives it

a nice beautiful crust and smokiness.

So now we're going to do the foie gras.

- Yeah. - On the old pan,

-put that foie gras. - Yeah.

-So no oil and nothing. - No oil

because the foie gras is so oily already and it has so much fat.

The fat that's coming out of the foie.

Yeah, we're going to use it for the bread, for the bread to just absorb.

-Look at that. - Oh!

So we're going to use the beautiful flavour of the foie gras.

This is what you call naughty cooking, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

And that's why we talk about using everything of the dish.

-Yes. -So even the fat of the foie gras,

-we're using for the foie. - Oh, look at that.

So that's going to put aside for now and it's going to finish nicely.

- Yes. -Then we're going to the next pot.

-Yeah. -We're just going to put some butter.

And then we're going to put full on the induction here.

- Yes. - Voilà.

So we're going to take the mushroom and caramelize the mushroom,

which is shiitake, button mushroom, king oyster mushroom, just like that.

So we're going to caramelize them to extract the best flavour of it.

The last minute, you're going to put your baby spinach.

- Oh. -Voilà.

- Wow. - And then you don't want to put

too much baby spinach, you just want to do one to go like that.

Okay. So we got the mushrooms that has been cooked in butter.

It's just caramelized them nicely. Some spinach at the end.

We've got our crouton here.

-The fats come out of the pork. - Yes.

We're using the fat. We're caramelizing that bread.

And then our steak, by the time we get to plating,

I'm just going to be turning it here on the robata. Right?

- Beautiful medium rare. -That's gonna be beautiful medium rare.

-Okay. So now to plating. -So I'm going to plate it now.

-Okay. -So I'm always, I always like to put

-a bit of sauce first on the plate... -Oh, don't be stupid. A lot...

...just to stick the crouton here.

Then what I'm going to do,

I'm going to take the mushroom and spinach.

-Yes. -And I'm just going to stick

into the bread. Just like that. Just like that.

Look at that. Now we arrive to the steak.

- Oh. Get out of here. - Oh my God.

- Oh my God. - Okay. I have to say, Phil.

Yeah.

- For medium rare. Hold on.

You did an amazing job. Look at that.

- For medium rare. Seriously. - Look at that.

It's falling apart. It's cooked so well.

-Beautiful. -We're going to put it over just here.

Look at that.

And we're going to finish with a little foie gras just on the top.

-Seriously. -Three beautiful pieces of foie gras.

-Yeah. -Please go all over it with the juice

and it's going to be amazing with red wine sauce, gravy.

- Look at that. Seriously. - Just beautiful.

Look at that. Let's try that. Chef, look at that. Perfect meat.

Bon appétit.

Oh my God.

Okay. So your mum must have been a major influence on you.

You decided to take the leap of faith and go and cook for a living, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So I did decide at 14 years old

to go to the culinary school, which the first year

you're doing some front of the house, back of the house, and bartending.

And then the second year you choose what specialty you want to do.

And of course, I decided to be a chef.

And then that's how we start.

And then I did three years, which was very interesting

because you go on training for six months and you are six months in the school

and you're doing that for three years.

So I did a catering mentoring as well.

And it was very interesting. And I think that's the base.

In the school, it's not where you get the passion and the love of cooking.

I think it's really where you learn the basics.

And really after, it's really important to meet the right chef...

which I did with Michel Royer, which is a big chef in France.

And that really...

gave me that passion of cooking.

And I think over the years, again, it's a long run.

It's a very long run, 24 years already.

But different mentors in different stage, which was Michel Royer,

-then Daniel Boulud... -Yep.

...and then Christof Michel, which each of my mentors,

I have three mentors in my life. I learned different stage of F&B,

which can be the business, the passion of cooking,

the techniques and everything. So I think it took,

yeah, it took those years to grow that passion and to arrive

where I am right now.

Life at Bar-Roque is always full of surprises.

So here's one for you.

For those who love a little caviar, let's cross to China,

where Stéphane is busy checking the very sustainable source

of his excellent supply.

Look at me, those sturgeon, they are just beauty.

-And the water is so clear. -

And you can feel they are in very amazing condition of living.

And it's just amazing.

They are 70 or 80 kg of fish.

I mean, it's just unbelievable. Unbelievable. Beautiful.

Beautiful little children. Look at that.

-So beautiful. -

Amazing.

Well, the farm experience was absolutely amazing

because we did go see the farm.

And I was absolutely amazed about the process,

about the patience that you need to do that kind of caviar.

I mean, they were waiting 15 to 18 years per fish to get the caviar.

And then I saw the processing for the caviar and I was really amazed.

Very clean. And then the caviar after 30 minutes

is already into the tin, in the can.

So the process is really sharp, clean, and really beautiful.

Really, really amazing. I was really, really amazed about the whole process.

Here Stéphane crosses another freshness frontier.

Not sure about the rubber glove taste, but it's still apparently amazing.

Perfect.

So I use HM because I really love the taste.

I mean, we have approximately eight different caviar

from different varieties of sturgeon.

I find three really of them that fit really the food of Bar-Roque

because you really feel the roots of the flavour of the caviar,

the saltiness and the yard to the caviar.

And that's why I decide to use those three specific type of caviar...

that's fitting very well with the Bar-Roque great food.

Okay Stéphane, we've got this extraordinary looking chop here.

We have one of the best pork from Spain...

-Yep. -...Iberico, so pork chop.