SHANMUGANATHAN SONGAPPEN (EXECUTIVE CHEF)

Chef Shan has an impressive resume: 30 years of culinary experience – including 12 as an executive chef – are feats most chefs would strive to achieve. But this remarkable journey started off at age ten, as helping his mother to chop veggies around the kitchen ignited an interest that manifested itself into a vocation. After completing his culinary training in Penang, he spent the next few years working in both standing restaurants and hotels, which he describes as “two different ball games”

While working in Hong Kong, he became close with Rolf Jaeggi, the Group Executive Chef for Marco Polo Hotel. He describes their close friendship being a result of chef Jaeggi’s approachability, which differed from other chef’s more stern and firm attitudes.

After spending half of his career in KL, he arrived in KK in 2012 and has been working with Hilton Hotel for over four years, where his job now consists mostly of managing, planning, and delegating, as each outlet under him has a chef. He enjoys the mentor-like aspect that comes with it, citing the most satisfying part of his job as changing the lives of young chefs by training them up to reach their career potential. However, his high position inevitably signifies less time in the kitchen than when he was a full-time cook, something he does miss. When he is able to get back in the groove every once in a while, his speciality dishes are Italian, Mediterranean, and Indian, which he loves more than anything else.

The grey to this seemingly blue sky? Having to make tough decisions. He explains that food is a very highrisk industry, with dire consequences if hygiene and safety procedures are not followed by the book. A client getting food poisoning, for example, would greatly tarnish the Hilton’s high F&B reputation and result in a loss of trust from the public. For this reason, he must be assertive with his subordinates and reprimand them when needed.

Outside of his busy schedule, he travels the world over for training and promotion purposes, taking inspiration from Vietnam and Thailand, whose spiced cuisine he adores. But much of his downtime is spent with his wife and two sons, where the family enjoys going fishing together.