COFFEE WITH...Bjorn Shen & Kirk Westaway

SALT mulls over questions about fine dining with two chefs from very different backgrounds.

TEXT TIONG LI CHENG PHOTO LIM MINGLONG VENUE NESPRESSO BOUTIQUE RAFFLES CITY

BJORN SHEN: The opinionated and quick-witted chef-owner of Middle Eastern restaurant Artichoke has been keeping busy with new digs for his fried chicken concept Bird Bird, and a reality TV show The Ultimate

BROcation on channel KIX. His claim to fame: dudestronomy or elevating comfort food with high calibre techniques and ingredients.

KIRK WESTAWAY: As chef de cuisine, Kirk Westaway heads modern European fine dining restaurant JAAN. Under his leadership, JAAN cinched a Michelin star in 2016, and celebrated its fifth consecutive appearance on the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2017. Westaway also bagged the title of S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 for Southeast Asia.

What is the future of fine dining?

SHEN: I tell all my students in culinary school to start their career in fine dining because it teaches you finesse and then after, when you apply those skills in a casual setting, you get a casual restaurant that isn’t sloppy. A lot of chefs cook in casual restaurants and they use the words ‘rustic’ and ‘comfort food’ as an excuse for sloppiness. The best casual restaurants these days are run by people coming out of fine dining.

WESTAWAY: I personally don’t think you learn to be a great cook in fine dining. You got to learn to cook from the basics like dealing with whole animals, and prepping ingredients from scratch. From there you can refine it, get organised and use tweezers if you want. You got to rough it before progressing to the top elegance.

There is always going to be a place for fine dining, though it has changed in the last 15 years of my career. It has become a more refined and lighter, delicate kind of style. We are moving away from the heavy sauces and whole duck breast main course sort of thing to becoming more health conscious.