PUBLISHED April 22nd, 2014 12:30 am | UPDATED July 22nd, 2024 02:35 pm
Ryan Clift is a name that needs little introduction for true blue foodies. He is one of Asia’s rising chefs and the pioneer of experimental cuisine in Singapore. The chef, owner and driving force behind one of Singapore’s best restaurants – Tippling Club – his 23 year career has seen him work alongside some of the world’s best chefs and since its debut in 2008, Tippling Club continues to be one of the most highly sought after restaurants with its unrelenting ability to take modern food and cocktail pairings to new heights.
Chef Ryan – who has been singled out by 10 of the world’s greatest chefs of today as the gastronomic superstar of tomorrow – has seen Tippling Club bag a spot amongst Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants (no. 23), World’s Top 50 Bars (no. 45), and has made waves across the World Gourmet Series Awards of Excellence; in fact his list of awards and accomplishments would run right off the page if we listed them all, so many in number are they.
Such achievements clearly take huge amounts of talent, vast amounts of dedication and a truckload of vision. We fire 10 questions at Ryan Clift to find out the secret to his success, and get very inspired along the way!
1. When did you first know you wanted to be a chef?
I first knew when I was at a very early age of 14; I started washing dishes at a one-star Michelin restaurant near my hometown, in Wiltshire, England. After a few months of doing little jobs for the chefs in the kitchen, one day I came up for my shift, and the chef handed me an apron and said, ‘You’re no longer washing the dishes, you’re a Garde Manger.’ A Garde Manger is someone who’s in charge of all the cold entrees, such as pate, cheese spreads, or even tartars. That was it – boom! – the moment I put the apron on, the moment I was part of the team, I thought to myself, ‘Sold, I’m never turning back.’ 24 years later, I’m still doing it, still loving it, still working 18 hours a day, but it’s my life – for me, it’s the best job in the world. Cooking is exciting, it gives me an adrenaline rush, it’s creative, it’s artistic, there’s passion in doing it; it is everything you want in a job.
2. Who/what have been your greatest influencers?
One of the greatest influencers, for me, has been my discovery of food, which I discovered 18 years ago, and that has given me the opportunity to pursue other avenues in food and further my knowledge in sciences of food. That’s probably been the greatest influence in my cuisine, which has helped define my style and what I do – it’s a day-to-day influence in the kitchen.
3. What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Singapore?
The best meal I’ve ever had in Singapore, was the first time I’d ever eaten Chili Crab – though I’m not a big fan of chili and spicy things, and I put off eating it for months of me being here, when finally somebody took me to try it out, and I had it and I realized it’s all about the sour, sweet and salty – it was just amazing, I love the actual flavour of Chili Crab.
4. Do you follow trends?
I don’t believe in food trends and I don’t really follow them – I never have, and I never will. I wish people would start developing their own concepts, instead of following trends. Everyone’s always asking about trends, but if everyone sat back for a moment and looked within their own minds and concepts, they would be able to develop their own styles, based on what they like for themselves, instead of following everybody else.
There’s far too many people following the Nordic movement – everyone’s saying molecular gastronomy was a trend – but it wasn’t, it was just people understanding food science, moving forward, and then developing their own concepts out of that. It wasn’t a trend, it was a comment made by scientists, and then chefs realized that there was a science to cooking, it wasn’t just about putting food into a pan anymore. So, I wish more people would look at themselves, and their own businesses, and develop their own styles rather than following trends. There are far too many places that are the same, and we need diversity, which we can’t achieve if people just follow trends.
5. What’s a very unique ingredient you’ve been using these days and how do you use it?
A new unique ingredient we’ve been using is Nooka – Japanese fermented rice. We use it the same way the Japanese use it, which is to ferment vegetables. This gives it a cooked texture, and the fermentation process releases all the natural sugars and fructose – which really intensifies the flavour of the product with a nice salty undertone, and the umami characteristic that is brought out of the product is absolutely mind-bending. A close friend of mine specially showed this ingredient to me, and the Nooka is like a fermentation starter that you have to keep adding to, like it’s a live product that develops its own character. It isn’t widely used in western kitchens, it’s more rustic Japanese, but it’s a really interesting technique that I’m glad I got to learn about.
6. What do you think of celebrity chef big guns?
The words celeb chef are funny in themselves, because to me a celebrity chef is someone who is on TV, who always cooks on TV and is never in his own restaurant. But, at the end of the day, this topic came up at the giving out of the St Pellegrino’s Best 50 Restaurants Awards – the rise of celebrity chefs doesn’t take away or dampen the industry for other chefs, if it wasn’t for the celebrity chefs, who used to work in 3 star restaurants, and who can cook the pants off anyone else in the kitchen, they’ve opted to take TV as an avenue in their career, and they’re doing the industry nothing but good, because what these guys put on television is making people go, ‘Holy crap! You eat food like that? I want to try that.’
They’re bringing awareness to public audiences, inspiring them to want to try the new and interesting foods that are being offered to them at these restaurants. It’s waking up the general public. I look back at England and Jamie Oliver changed the country. One guy changed the way the middle class and the lower class looked at food, because he made it in a way that was approachable, but made people start thinking about fresher vegetables, and different varieties of vegetable. It came to a point where he even changed the way supermarkets stocked their shelves. So I think the celebrity chef guys, as long as they’re good, it’s a great thing for the industry.
7. How do you cope with long hours?
When you start out cooking you go through each barrier like you would if you were running a marathon, or like any endurance race. When you start out cooking, you get to a point where you think you can’t carry on, and that’s the turning point in every chef’s career where you either make it or break it. It’s almost a bit like the army; you burn out and you get to a stage where you either snap, you can’t go on, and you give up, which will land you cooking in a pub for the rest of your life, or – you break through that barrier, you work even harder, you push yourself to a point where 18 hours is like water off a pup’s back. You’ll work 18 hours but you’ll still go out for drinks after, you’ll still wake up at 6am and get to the kitchen because something’s changed in you that says, ‘I love this.’ It’s psychotic to think that, but it genuinely is how I feel.
It really is like the military in high-end restaurants all over the world, where people are broken in the kitchen – we take them to that level and you see it all of a sudden, they either step up, or they burn out. There’s no kidding, to work in a top restaurant, you’ve got to be hard, and you’ve got to be able to put up with the best of it. After 24 years of cooking professionally, I’ve only ever worked a minimum of 16 hours a day, so it’s natural to me. Of course, I sleep well on my days off. Well, you can sleep when you’re dead.
8. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Fried chicken and beer.
9. What would your next dream restaurant be?
I think I’ve almost reached it – I’m really happy with where Tippling Club is now. I’ve got a beautiful restaurant; I’ve got a great team of chefs, bartenders and front house staff. I’ve got a beautiful dining room and bar and we’re fully booked – that’s any chefs’ dream restaurant. I suppose the next stage is our experimental kitchen upstairs, which will be unveiled to the public in July this year, and that’s going to be my dream dining room, not restaurant, as there’s only going to be 10 seats, and it will be a premium space that is super experimental. People will be invited in to experience essentially what will be served downstairs at Tippling Club after 8 months or a year.
10. What would you tell your 18-year-old self?
The industry is never going to be easy; keep your head down, and when you think times are tough, push harder, when you think you can’t go on, push on harder. I guess I did tell myself that. I suppose I was fortunate. Never give up. You’ll only get out, what you put in.
You can find Ryan Clift at Tippling Club, 38 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore, 088461 on Monday – Friday: 6pm – midnight. Saturday: midday – 3pm, 6pm – midnight. For more information on Tippling Club see their website here.
Written by Ms Demeanour