A blend of cooking theory and practice has helped executive chef Nitin Kumar rise swiftly through the ranks.
By Veronica Johnston
Nitin Kumar did it the hard way, but he’d do it the same way all over again if he had to. After graduating with a diploma in hotel management in Mumbai over ten years ago, he’s gradually worked his way to the top to become the executive chef at the Hyatt Regency. His swift meteoric rise to executive chef comes down to a well-balanced theoretical and practical education, a lot of hard work and a strong commitment to cooking.
The three-year diploma covered three main areas: applied nutrition, catering and technology. When he wasn’t taking notes and doing exams, he was practising his cooking, serving and housekeeping skills in a fully functioning three-star hotel attached to the school. Part of his training involved working and rotating round each department of the hotel for six months.
So full-on was this training and education that by the end of his second year, he’d already learnt the basics of French classical cooking, pastry making, quantity cooking (preparing meals for his classmates), and banqueting – skills that would serve him well throughout his career.
Kumar has always worked in hotels. His first job as a commi pizza chef in a Mediterranean restaurant called Olives was in the Royal Mirage Hotel in Dubai. The sea-facing restaurant had a big display kitchen and a wood-fired pizza oven. This was no holiday for the new recruit. He recalls how he had to do 250 covers for breakfast, 180 covers for lunch and 300 for dinner daily.
A shortage of pastry chefs in the hotel’s pastry kitchen a little while later saw him transferred to work directly under the head pastry chef. So high was the expectation that he perform well that he “cried every day for three months.”
Kumar says he longed to be at least 10 per cent of what his pastry chef was and though he had had some pastry making training already, he still had a long way to go. “I knew the dishes but I hadn’t worked in a place like that before. So I worked under him and for three months, I struggled to keep up with him.”
The pastry kitchen had to churn out all the bread and pastries for the hotel’s two restaurants. Keen to learn though, Kumar stayed behind at the end of each shift to practise and perfect his pastry making techniques. Naturally, this didn’t escape the attention of the head pastry chef who then offered him the chance to be “his right hand” and slowly started teaching him more challenging techniques that he had previously not shown him.
But as luck would have it, a vacancy back in the hot kitchen that he had previously begun work at soon came along. His pastry chef encouraged him to take the job and leave the pastry kitchen, since he was still young and had so much more to learn – much to Kumar’s dismay – who had by then decided he wanted to specialise as a pastry chef.
He followed his chef’s advice though, and to this day, is still glad he did. His new post back in the restaurant’s display kitchen was hard work with no zero time to learn or up skill. “From the first day, I was doing 200 breakfast by myself…and by 10:30am, I had to start clearing and getting ready for dinner.”
A strong desire to keep learning and a lack of enthusiasm for cooking in full view of his customers saw him return to India, where he secured a job as a chef de partie at the Hyatt in Delhi. The restaurant, a live seafood joint called Stacks, had seven different tanks that guests could pick their fish dish from including snapper and freshwater scampis.
Change soon beckoned again however, when he decided to leave seafood cooking for banqueting, something he was once again, trained to pursue. After working as a sous chef for seven to eight months, he was soon promoted to banquet head chef. But a shimmering interest in more western ways of cooking led to a transfer to the Hyatt Auckland in 2005, and the rest is history as they say.
Once here, working in New Zealand presented a new set of challenges – one of those being half the amount of manpower that Kumar had become accustomed to in the kitchen. Though the expectation to produce the best possible dishes in the same amount of time is the same here as overseas, Kumar says this just means he has to be “better organised, plan ahead more, be more effective and controlled, and be able to multi-task at the same time.”
These are all qualities he looks for, as well as commitment and focus, in the apprentice chefs he hires. “Everyone is passionate about cooking,” he says “but you hardly find someone who is committed – commitment is the key.”
Not surprisingly, he also encourages his apprentices to keep studying and learning. “The apprenticeship is a good way [to learn] if you really want to be focussed, but again, you’re missing the management part that I learned as well. If you do the practical and study the theory, it’s much easier to understand the trade.”
Q + A with chef Nitin Kumar
Biggest challenge working in a hotel restaurant?
The ability to consistently provide the same high-quality products to guests any time of day – the hotel restaurant generally operates 24/7.
A recipe you’d ask your mum or dad for?
When I first came to New Zealand, my first project was to host an Indian food promotion. Up until then, I was more used to cooking western cuisine. So I had to call my mum to ask her for some of her homemade pickle recipes which became one of the culinary highlights of the promotion.
A food trend you find bizarre?
I find the concept of foam sauces a bit bizarre. Sometimes it simply doesn’t do justice to the nice, rich flavour of a sauce. There is still no replacement for a traditional sauce – foam doesn’t provide the same character to a dish as a full-bodied sauce does.
An ingredient you’d like to find in NZ?
Alphonso mangoes. I would love to use these mangoes on my menu especially in the summer as they are a very versatile ingredient that you can use in salads, desserts and salsas for example.
A city you’d like to visit to learn more about its food?
Venice. Italian cuisine is quite diverse in terms of its flavours. I would like to see their basic traditional preparations and to learn more about their signature ingredients and dishes like truffles, risotto, cheese and Parma ham.
Ever had an unusual request from a diner?
Yes, in hospitality you come across lot of colourful personalities. We’ve had guests request beef bourguignon (a braised dish) be served medium rare and one guest wanted fillets of whitebait!
The most famous person you’ve ever cooked for?
Michael Sheen, the British actor – he was staying in-house for a month while they were filming Underworld. He’s a fantastic person. I prepared his month’s menu based on his specific diet requirements.
Three guests (dead, alive and fictional) you’d like to cook for?
I would have liked to cook for the famous painter Leonardo da Vinci – it would be an honour to cook for an artist as great as him as cooking is art too. Also Raymond Blanc the famous two Michelin stars French chef from Le Manoir. He is a world-renowned chef in the UK and his food is known for its simplicity in modern cuisine. I’d also like to cook for Mumble the penguin from the children’s movie Happy Feet. He braved the world to put an end to the excessive fishing taking place in Antarctic waters as it upset the ecological cycle. This is an issue close to my heart.