Limitations

One of the perks of this job is the apparent lack of limitations. Rarely do clients get overly concerned with budget issues when fresh lobster or imported caviar is on the menu, just note the preference sheet and have at it! However sometimes it's the sheer scale of this choice that can prove problematic when approaching a new project. How do you clarify your thinking and ideas when money and choice of ingredients is not an obvious limitation.

I supposed I have learned from experience that pre conveived notions rarely work out as expected. Just because your current clients are raving about the merits of your salt baked celeriac does not mean the next ones will agree. Taking too fixed an idea into new client engagements can so often lead to disaster.  Instead it's a far better idea to take the time to better understand the landscape. Speak to suppliers, peer into popular restaurant windows and research what is seasonal. Of course this all takes time, so easing your way in gently and perhaps playing it a little safe those first few days is never a bad idea. 

Sourcing the best seasonal and locally sourced ingredients is a real highlight of the job

One particular lesson I have picked up is to identify the limitations that exist within the contect of your engagement and grow to embrace them. Taking the time to prioritise communication with your clients before you arrive to understand their expectations allows you to better embrace these limitations. This in turn provides the foundations of a framework for which to develop the relationships that hopefully will lead to renegagement down the line.

An example of this was a couple of years back when I arrived for a job in a small village in the south west of France. The clients who owned a beautiful chateau sat down with me to promote the sanctity of the village market. They were lucky enough to be surrounded (as is often the way in the French countryside) with a number of beautiful little market towns, operating on different days of the week, each one boasting a great selection of local produce. I took time to listen to the client and quickly got to understand their genral distaste for the supermarket chains of Carrefour and SuperU, instead taking on board their encouragement to invest my mornings getting to know these village markets and what they had on offer. 

These were the contextual imitations I found myself working with and by embracing them as oppsed to pushing back against them I found my choice narrowed and my vision became clearer. If I was to cook seasonal market produce, the only way to do that would be to head out to these suppliers and ask questions, prod, feel, smell. So more often than not I found myself sitting at some ungodly hour of the morning in a small village coffee shop with an espresso and a pain au chocolat watching the vendors unpacking their wares. 

It was pointless having a fixed idea as it would lead to a muddled innacurate representation of what these market traders were selling. No confit de canard today but maybe they have locally farmed beef short ribs, if the strawberries you had in mind have suffered from an early spring frost, maybe choose the beautiful blackberries instead.

Being lead by seasonality and freshness and choosing things up you know will work together, even if you can't quite visualise how, is never a bad idea...and more often than not selecting a piece of meat or fish on the recommendation of the seller and just cooking it well is a far better idea than trying to make a round peg fit into a square home.

Life on Paxos has its own limitations and it's our job when creating menus to embrace such limitations. Why would I offer 'whatever you want' as is so often the mantra of the private chef if what they have in mind happens to be frozen and shipped from another country. I will rarely say no to a client...actually I never will... buy surely it's our job to advise them as to what's good. Is it important to advise guests that Calamari season runs from October to May and therefore most of it will be frozen? I think so...just as it's equally important to promote what we have on the island, what comes so abundantly and what grows locally.

In the early spring months of March and April broad beans and artichokes grow unchecked across antipaxos, sardines and whitebait can be found abundantly after a full moon and when Thanassis has a whole tuna sitting on his slab I usually won't hesitate to buy it. As for the marbled wagyu lying vac packed for some silly price at the back of the butchers fridge....I'll probably leave it. Just as in the same way I'll choose the more flavoursome but smaller greek lamb legs over the imported new zealand ones.

So this year as last, I will keep my menu small and my advice to my clients honest. We will cook what grows and invest in suppliers who are honest with us. It is only through understanding the limitations of island life that we can give our clients what they should be eating...and hopefully a little advice goes a long way.