AsiaLIFE

After three years at Moscow’s prestigious Ararat Park Hyatt Hotel, Emmanuel Garde accepted the offer of becoming Executive Chef at Raffles Hotel Le Royal in February. AsiaLIFE’s Lou Hayward asks the French chef what he hopes to achieve here.

“I’d never been to Moscow before either but I liked it,” says Emmanuel Garde of his decision to take up his latest challenge. “I had the opportunity to come to Phnom Penh and I had a good feeling so I said let’s go for it.”

Although clearly not a man to shirk challengers, his original choice of pursuing a career in food was quite natural. “All my family is in the food industry – I was born in a bar and my brother had a delicatessen business,” he says.

After obtaining his diploma, Garde worked a season in a seafood restaurant in the south of France, home of the Mediterranean-style cuisine he loves. The next seven years he spent honing his skills in the south of Paris, working in a number of different restaurants including the celebrated Croquembouche in Fontainebleau.

“These were very typical ‘French’ places,” he says. “They were very small and served homemade, family style food. The chef would be in the kitchen whilst his wife worked as front of house. You had to learn to do everything.”

In 1998, Emmanuel moved to London, as much to improve his English as to develop his talent for cooking. He began working in a small French restaurant in Holland Park before taking on positions in high-end kitchens in Selfridges and the Hilton Park Lane.

This marked a turning point for Garde, who realised his future lay in the hotel business.

Returning to Paris two years later, he took up a position with the Park Hyatt hotel group, working first at the Hyatt Regency Charles de Gaulle before helping to open Vendôme at the Park Hyatt Paris in 2003. He stayed there for more than four years.

His culinary wanderlust then took him to Moscow where, after eight months, he accepted his first position as executive chef.

“In food you are always learning,” says Garde. “You can be the best chef in the world, but there’s always more to learn. This is my first experience in Asia and the products are completely different to those found in Europe.”

Despite the twin challenges of obtaining ingredients in Cambodia and maintaining a level of consistency, Garde believes it is important to make the most of what the Kingdom has on offer.

“You have to preserve the identity of where you are,” he says. “What I want to do here is to get the best out of the food that is available – if you have a quality product you can always create good things.” To that end, locally sourced vegetables, chicken and pork, and seafood from Sihanoukville are utilised alongside imported goods.

Having already introduced a highly successful seafood evening Emmanuel is looking forward to combining flavours and recipes from his experience in France, London and Moscow with more traditional fare – whether it be using Dover sole and Russian beetroot or developing a special Kampot pepper foie gras.

From elegant Restaurant Le Royal to airy Café Monivong, each of the hotel’s distinctive bars and restaurants has a reputation for excellence that Garde is dedicated to preserving.

“All over the world, everyone knows Raffles,” he explains. “Quality is everything and I push my staff to cook the right way. For me, unless it’s done properly, it’s not worth doing at all.”

Raffles Hotel Le Royal, Tel: 023 981 888, Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it