7 11 APRIL 2024 In my opinion NIHAL ARTHANAYAKE FUSION EVOLUTION Ramo Ramen’s oxtail kare-kare (left); Mambow’s pineapple treacle tart (below); Dai Pai Dong’s Hainanese chicken (bottom) rhubarb, and wild garlic. Then we’ll do pies such as a Howgill beef pie with mash and greens for the bar menu. “My German heritage comes through in baking, things like our pretzel bread, and often a canapé will be topped with sauerkraut. The older I get, the more natural it is to me to cook what I know best and enjoy most. Life’s too short not to.” ABBY LEE Chef-patron Mambow, London “I think I’ve found my voice as a chef. I got swept up thinking you should always uplift tradition, but you must make food your own too. “My parents are Malaysian, and I grew up in Singapore, then moved to London at 15. I trained at Le Cordon Bleu, then che ed in Italy, then back in London I cooked Italian with what I barely understood to be Malaysian food. Cooking with my auntie during Covid in Singapore was the awakening. She had all my grandmother’s recipes. Now I’m inspired by my Malaysian heritage, European training, and living in east London and eating Turkish food – I had to have barbecue lamb on the menu! “My kambing sioh [lamb ribs] with tamarind, coriander seeds and dark soy has fermented kumquats and pickled rainbow chard for freshness. And my pineapple treacle tart was inspired by snacks eaten for Lunar New Year. That’s my British and Asian homes coming together.” RAMAEL SCULLY Chef-patron Scully St James’s, London “I was surrounded by so many cultures growing up in Australia [to parents of Irish-Balinese and ChineseMalay heritage], and as a chef, I’m classically trained. As a young chef, I fell in love with European-style cakes and rich sauces. Then, in my early twenties, I thought: ‘What if I put Mum’s sambal in this, what if I mix things up?’ “Other chefs would say: ‘That’s wrong, stick to the recipe,’ but working with Yotam Ottolenghi at Nopi gave me freedom to experiment. My pork belly dish is from those days – slow roasted, cooled, cubed and deep fried, then coated with sh caramel and rhubarb and served with cabbage slaw with sweet-sour dressing. “I serve gurnard with a black bean vinaigrette like in a Chinese restaurant, but I split it with burnt butter and add merlot vinegar which is more classical. I look to classical approaches and spin recipes so they become mine.” DAN LEE Chef-owner Dai Pai Dong, Hockley Social Club, Birmingham “I was brought up in the Midlands with Chinese, Irish and English heritage. My Chinese ethnicity is Hakka. We’re nomads, we adapt, and that shows in my cooking – it’s natural for me to blend cuisines. “I sweeten char siu roasted pork bao with a maple base, the theory being that when Hakka people moved to Canada they would have used maple instead of sugar, and my soy-cured beef with Irish champ mash is one of the most popular dishes. “My auntie taught me Cantonese cooking. She’s traditional and when she sees my food, even when I was on MasterChef The Professionals [Dan won in 2021], she said it was wrong. But my food is never going to be purely Chinese or purely British.” I’m a middle-aged man, but 30 years since leaving my Essex comprehensive, just the thought of school exams sends shivers down my spine. The ritual of filing into a sports hall and finding a desk is as vivid to me now as it was in the 80s – rows of pupils, the good, the bad and the indi erent, with hawk-like invigilators prowling the spaces in between. My academic career is one of wasted potential and embarrassment whenever my scholastic mediocrity was made o cial. I entered those exam halls knowing I had left it too late, realising that by failing to prepare I would have to prepare for failure. Every August since, I shudder as the news shows teenagers shrieking with joy as they open envelopes. Now my eldest is about to sit his GCSEs and he has been studying hard over the Easter break. I’m trying to be a zenlike presence around him, and not transfer my nervousness to his world. And I won’t advise him not to worry ‘because I did terribly and my life turned out all right’. Nor will I try to live vicariously through my son’s academic achievements, like the football dad who acts as if his eight-year-old is playing in a Champions League final. Luckily, I have a self-motivated son who relishes the opportunity to garner knowledge, then prove how well he has processed it. I wonder, though, if burdening children with such a volume of exams is counter-productive to the pursuit of knowledge. For 16-year-olds to be expected to analyse information as eclectic as di erential calculus, the Battle of Stalingrad and cosmic microwave background radiation feels unduly oppressive. Shouldn’t children be taught that education, and the expansion of the imagination that results, is a means unto itself, rather than a way of measuring future job prospects? To be branded with the symbols that denote academic weakness is no way to encourage a lifelong love of learning. As GCSE pupils burn the midnight oil, and parents watch them display worrying levels of stress, is it worth reconsidering the models we have? Should we wait until they reach 18 and have slimmed down their academic pursuits to three or four specialist subjects, or should we give equal value to vocational courses? As you read your copy of Weekend, imagine being tested on every subject in it for a timed set of tests. A terrifying thought. Nihal’s book Let’s Talk: How to Have Better Conversations (Trapeze) is out now. @therealnihal ‘As GCSE pupils burn the midnight oil, and parents watch them display worrying levels of stress, is it worth reconsidering the models we have?’ The broadcaster and author airs his views
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