Dinner and a show
USUALLY, a little creature scuttling near your dinner plate is quite the nuisance, but at Le Petit Chef, he’s the star of the show.
Le Petit Chef tells the story of a tiny chef, about the size of a finger, who cooks dishes in different settings. His story is projected onto tables and plates precisely lined up below a projector, so it seems as if Le Petit Chef is cooking for you, throwing ingredients on a plate; after which a server arrives and places a close approximation of his work in front of you.
The concept began in 2015, through the Belgian-based company Skullmapping. “In April 2015 we came up with the idea to project a little chef onto your plate. We made a video of ‘Le Petit Chef’ at our studio in Belgium, to show restaurants what the possibilities are with this concept. After we posted the video on YouTube, it went viral and currently has over 30 million views on social media,” the company said on its website. The concept has been exported to several cities from Cairo to Berlin.
BusinessWorld had a chance to sample Le Petit Chef’s offerings at the Grand Hyatt Manila. The restaurant sits on one of the hotel’s top floors, the hotel serving as its only home in Manila.
The concept had been in the works since 2020, according to Grand Hyatt Manila’s General Manager Gottfried Bogensperger, but as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic halted those plans, along with many others. He said that the hotel never really closed, but they had been opening and reopening outlets as the lockdown situation changed. “Open, close; open, close,” he said in an interview with BusinessWorld last week. He was proud to say, “We never fired anybody. We did not let go of anybody. Everybody who needed a job had a job throughout the two years.”
Back to Le Petit Chef: a host introduced the little chef, and said that he had flown all the way from Marseilles. A scene projected onto our plates showed him puttering around a garden, battling with moles, while throwing ingredients of red and green onto a plate. The first course was an Italian Burrata (a creamier cousin of mozzarella), with pickled radish, arugula leaves, pink grapefruit, eggplant puree, and a 15-year aged balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. The burrata was predictably delectable, and the grapefruit wakes up the cheese. This was paired with a Cadet d’Oc 2016 Chardonnay (fragrant with a scent of green grass). The eggplant puree had a smokey seriousness immediately tempered by the Chardonnay, while the wine pairing and the grapefruit together cut through the cheese’s inevitable creaminess.
The second course transported us to the chef’s hometown of Marseilles, where the French seafood soup Bouillabaisse was supposedly invented. No surprises there when the chef tossed seafood into a plate with orange broth (angering an octopus in the process — that was also thrown into a plate). The server appeared and put in a real plate of bouillabaisse in front of us. It was very fragrant with a scent of saffron, and was surprisingly tart and light, given its heavier shellfish ingredients.
The third course puts the chef on a camping trip in a forest, where he cooked chicken on a campfire. Le Petit Chef’s menu isn’t static: around the world, the dinners rely on how the chefs interpret what is shown in the projection. In this case, this dish, a Smoked Chicken Foie Gras Ballotine, was truly outstanding, containing a memory of Grand Hyatt Manila’s Executive Chef, Mark Hagan.
He told BusinessWorld that the video reminded him of taking camping trips with his mother, who worked with scouts. “There was something nostalgic,” he said. He relied on his memory of his mother’s own campfire chicken, turning it instead into a ballotine with luxurious foie gras. “Of course, you have to add a little bit of je ne sais quoi,” he said. This had a robust smoky flavor, with a strong earthy taste from the mushrooms. The chicken ballotine wrapped around the foie was deceptively simple, but was artfully complex with several nuances in its flavor — it shines through, perhaps, because of the very real events that inspired it.
The main course, the Char-grilled Australian Beef Tenderloin, took off from the tiny chef preparing a steak on a grill during a summer afternoon picnic. A sweet treat was introduced with the chef throwing spices into a plate — this was interpreted as a mascarpone and rice pudding crème brûlée flavored with saffron and cardamom.
Finally, the dessert showed Le Petit Chef in a winter setting, pulling ingredients out of a sleigh and throwing them onto a plate. The result was the Homemade Baked Alaska, which had chocolate and vanilla ice cream under a meringue with raspberry sauce. The flavors played together like a symphony, dominated by notes of chocolate.
The playfulness of the show gives the refined dinner a sort of playful effortlessness (which is a testament to the talents of the actual chef). They both play together, rather than taking away from experiencing the other. Mr. Bogensperger explains that when one dines, one has to have a good time, and not just a good meal: “We believe that dining is more than just eating a plate of food. You want the fun and you want to create memories.”
Le Petit Chef will be performing two shows per night – the first scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m., and the second from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., every Tuesday to Saturday at The Peak’s Veranda Room, which can accommodate 16 people per session. Price starts at P5,800 net per person for the six-course Classic Menu which features Italian burrata, bouillabaisse with fresh premium seafood, smoked chicken foie gras ballotine, char-grilled Australian beef tenderloin, mascarpone crème brûlée, and homemade baked Alaska. For patrons who opt for an Australian wagyu beef in the steak course, they may upgrade to the Premium Menu priced at P6,300. The First Class Menu at P6,800 features a premium set and switches the tiger prawns for lobster tails in the bouillabaisse course. A special six-course set menu is available for kids. — Joseph L. Garcia
