intheLIFESTYLE
intheLIFESTYLE
At the Helm of CUT
Running the house of CUT by Wolfgang Puck is Executive Chef Joshua Brown, a genuinely
forthright man whose charisma is reflected in each exquisite dish he creates. It is easy to see
how Chef Joshua Brown stands out from the pack once we talked to him. Read on to find out
his take on food and what CUT has to offer.
Q: Tell us more about yourself.
I’m from California. I’ve been in Singapore for
4 years in April. I love Singapore and honestly,
I don’t ever plan on moving back home. I plan
on staying here because it’s a fun place to be.
There is a great food scene, nightlife is usually
pretty entertaining, and you meet a lot of different interesting people from different cultures
and countries. Coming from LA in the States,
you grow up and you hang out with the same
people you grew up with. I don’t want to say it’s
boring, but it’s just kind of stagnant. Here, things
are a little more exciting.
Q: What is your favourite restaurant?
I don’t know if I have a favourite restaurant. It
really depends on what I feel like eating that
day, because I don’t just like one specific restaurant for one type of cuisine. Generally, I eat
more local fare. I don’t really go to restaurants
that much.
Q: At what age did your love for cooking start?
I don’t know about cooking but I can tell you
when my love for food started. I can still remember a couple of my first real experiences tasting
really bold, new flavours. I think that was when
I really started opening my eyes to food. But as
far as cooking, I just figured since I like food and
I was working in construction before this and I
did not want to work with concrete my whole
life, I decided to go to school and do cooking.
Q: Tell us more about your role as Executive
Chef of Cut.
I’m pretty much responsible for the whole restaurant. Wes, the General Manager here, and I
have a great working relationship. We share a
partnership in the restaurant, where essentially
we share responsibility both front and back of
the house. If I see something in the front of the
house that he didn’t notice or wasn’t around to
take care of, I address it. Same thing with the
back of the house – if there is an issue back
there, he doesn’t address it directly himself. He
would go to my executive sous chef, and I will
address it with him and we can work on it there.
A lot of restaurants are very divided – this is your
Weekendin 76
world, here’s my world – but it’s different here.
You need to be aware of everything that is going on at all times.
Q: How is it working with Chef Wolfgang Puck?
It is good. I’ve worked for Wolf for 12 years.
When I first started working with him, I actually
worked with him in the same restaurant. He was
in everyday; it was like that for a couple of years.
And then he started travelling a little more, but
it’s fine. Most of the people who are in the managerial position within his company have been
with him for at least 8 years, I’m guessing. It’s a
good company to work for, because he is good
to work with. He can be extremely demanding,
but you don’t get to that level without being
real crazy. So it is totally acceptable and normal.
Q: Is he one of your mentors?
I guess. But my real mentor would be Chef Lee
Hefter, who is Wolfgang’s right hand. He would
essentially be the one.
Q: What are the differences in managing a
restaurant in the US compared to Singapore?
Logistically, there are other issues here as far as
bringing in ingredients and having products
available. I could order some right now and
have it in a couple of hours in the States. Here,
since everything is imported, it’s not always in
Singapore. So it takes a little more planning and
projection on business levels on what you are
going to actually want to use. As for staffing, I
think working with the staff here is far better
than working with the staff in the States.
Q: Is there a difference in the working culture
between Singapore and the US?
Everyone here just seems more eager to learn
and they genuinely love what they do. I worked
at Beverly Hills, where almost everybody who is
working in the front of the house all wanted to
be actors and models. So they didn’t really look
at it as a job, it was just something they did to
pay their bills. On the other hand, the people
that I am working with here truly want to do
what they are doing. They are eager to learn,
they accept constructive criticisms and the attitude I had to deal with in L.A. is not there.
Q: What is the most creative dish you have
ever constructed?
We have a dish that we just recently put on
the menu, which is pho that we deconstructed
without the broth, so it’s a steak carpaccio in a
way, with a lot of Vietnamese spices. The flavours
of the pho are there, but it’s just a different spin
on that type of dish. When I first started cooking
with Wolf, it was about how many ingredients
we can put on one plate – that was what we
thought of as creative. Sometimes you over do
it, and it mellows everything down. So it’s really
more about sticking to the true flavour of the
ingredients that complement each other. Not
necessarily keeping it simple, but more about
knowing when to stop.
Q: What is the most challenging dish you
ever had to make?
Rabbit in 5 different ways in one plate. It’s basically taking down one rabbit into a bunch of
different pieces and cooking each piece in a
different way, with a different sauce or a different roasting method. It all comes together on
one plate at the same time. We did a roasted
loin, did a ragout with the shoulder, skewered
the innards, such as the heart, the gizzards and
the liver. We also did a stuffed roasted leg. It was
very challenging, having 8 or 9 sauté pans on
the stove at one time just for one dish. That one
is a pain.
Q: How is steak best cooked in your opinion?
Season it full of salt and throw it on a burning
grill. That’s it. You just have to use good quality beef; it’s not rocket science. Just buy a really
high quality piece of meat, season it properly,
get a nice grill and cook it there. It’s easy.
selects all the meats for all the Wolfgang restaurants. We get the top 1% of the prime beef
that is available to him. All our steaks are farmed
Wagyu from the US, and