Renowned “Nouvelle Cuisine” pioneer Chef Guy Savoy is opening a new restaurant in Asia, bringing his 3-Star Michelin Guide luster to the Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore.
The world-class destination will feature Savoy’s signature cuisine under the direction of Executive Chef Eric Bost, a veteran of Savoy’s Las Vegas success.
To Savoy, cooking is the art of joyfully transforming ingredients with a rich history. His cookery gives tomatoes crunch, coaxes a gelée out of ordinary peas and liquefies artichokes into a soup so rich it demands be to dipped into with his homemade brioche.
“I realized the magic of metamorphosis of ingredients on a Thursday, a day when I wasn’t in school, and I stayed home and decided to help my mother bake ladyfingers,” remembers Savoy. “All she had to do was mix a pinch of salt, sugar, flour, butter and an egg to create beautiful, crunchy cookies that perfumed the entire house.
That afternoon convinced me to embark on this profession. The concrete and instantaneous nature of transforming ingredients through cooking and carving still fascinates me to this day.”
“For many people, cooking is banal, but you have to learn it to respect it,” says Savoy who, since 1987, has happily spent fifteen hours a day in his Parisian restaurant—a calming place that he refers to as “his home.” He still cherishes the time to create his dishes out of impeccably sourced ingredients and to stay connected to the people he serves.
A long established tastemaker, Savoy continues to fulfill the role of a training coach. “I’m in the middle of a team and I have to be sure that the style of the game remains consistent, because naturally each of my 25 team members has his or her own sensibilities and may be tempted to go at it alone. I make sure it remains a collective effort.”
He tests his team of cooks regularly with new recipes to keep their creativity in peak form. “I don’t keep menus from the past. The recipes have to evolve with me. It’s a great satisfaction for me that today those very recipes are desired at the other end of the globe, in a new contemporary space in Singapore.”
