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| Glyston at the shoot |
I have been working on a pro chef series these days for my YouTube channel, The Finely Chopped.
Here I meet chefs who still spend more time running restaurant kitchens than on Instagram or on television. Folks who professionally cook for people.
It has been a wonderful experience getting to meet such people and getting to learn from their culinary experiences. The knowledge they have running kitchens day in and day out for paying customers is phenomenal. One rarely sees these folks outside of the kitchen so I am using this opportunity to get to know a lot more about food from them.
One thing that I have noticed about a lot of these young chefs in these modern restaurants is that they are very articulate and have lots of interesting things to say. Role models I am sure for those who want to follow in their paths.
We also decided to get kitchen or cooking tips from these pros whenever possible and share them with you. Hopefully, it’s something that food lovers will love.
Last week I shot with chef Glyston Gracias of Smoke House Deli. I first bumped into Glyston at Smoke House Deli at Phoenix Mills a few years back. I had ordered a pasta which turned out to be a tomato sauce based one. The description in the menu didn’t make it clear that it was meant to be tomato sauce based.
I don’t like tomato sauces and made a face as I begun to eat the pasta. Glyston walked up to me, introduced himself and asked me what the issue was.
I explained my angst and on his own initiative he took the pasta away and sent back a lovely blue cheese and pancetta linguine based on what I said I liked.
That was a brilliant dish.
Since then I have often bumped into Glyston at the Bandra outlet of Smoke House Deli but this shoot was the first time that we really chatted in a long time.
I discovered that he is East Indian. It was close to Christmas so I spoke with him about East Indian Christmas traditions. You can read about our chat at this link to my recent NDTV Food article.
Do check out this video on our chat. What I found most interesting was how this catering college trained, cruise liner kitchen experienced chef, who runs a comfort European food (their definition) restaurant kitchen, keeps running to his mother for culinary advice and inspiration.
I decided to use the opportunity to get you some kitchen tips from Glyston. He showed me how he planned to marinate the pork belly which he was going to braise for the Christmas specials at Smoke House Deli.
You can check that video here:
Do let me know how you find the pro-chef series. Can we continue the way we have so far? What changes would you like to see? Whom would you like us to feature next (Mumbai currently)?
Please subscribe to the channel if you like what you saw, click like on the video and leave a comment.
