Esca Khoo

Hi Esca, it’s so great to talk to you again.

Hi, Jo. It’s so good to talk to you again. It’s been a while.

I listened to our conversation again this morning and I reckon it’s one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with a chef. You were so open, honest and real and inspiring. It was such a great chat, so it’s really nice to see you again.

They were great questions from you. I really appreciate that.

Not long after I spoke to you in 2021, you left and went travelling. You’ve been all over Southeast Asia?

Absolutely. Although the position was a head role, I was really there as a culinary advisor to set up what I dreamt of cooking and further develop that. I left with what we agreed in the contract to go to Southeast Asia and really experience it. COVID had just opened things up. Once restrictions were off, I went to explore and discover Asia properly.

How did you do that? Pop-ups, collaborations, contracts?

It all leads one to another. I already had experience collaborating and doing pop-ups with small venues. Before leaving Melbourne, I did a six-month pop-up with some great restaurants like Hardware Club and Moonhouse. That kicked off an even bigger dream to explore Asia and now the world.

What does that mean in practice?

I get to cook what I cook and learn from people in different kitchens with very different circumstances compared to Australian kitchens, which is what I’d always known. I’ve been working since I was 14 in Australia, with a little time in Malaysia in small cafeterias. I’m very happy to be here sharing those experiences.

How long have you actually been away?

Nearly four years since I’ve been back to Melbourne. It’s really good to be back.

Why did it feel like the right time to return?

COVID had passed, and I wanted to come back to share what I’d learned in different kitchens with different business owners, and to make Melbourne exciting again for food. My take on food has always been different, and I’m excited to share everything again.

I came to the launch of Tyga and thought the food and atmosphere were incredible. That playlist today even, it’s my vintage: 90s DJ playlist. I haven’t stopped thinking about the wood-fired bone marrow and so I’ve just now eaten it again. I kept thinking, when can I get back to Koornang Road to eat it again because it is so delicious. Tell me about that dish.

Originally the idea was to create roti canai, from India but very popular in Malaysia. I tried changing flours, I played with buckwheat and rye and even coconut flour but the hydration required for those flours made it very difficult. It is interesting to work with. It requires a very high skill and a certain speed and timing. I took an original recipe from Kuala Lumpur and edited it in a Melbourne way. We have flat bread and puff bread here, so I thought to add coconut milk, coconut water and coconut nectar and create something that is Melbourne but at the same time when you close your eyes, it tastes like Malaysia, and, of course, in Malaysia, you have to eat dahl, sambal curries with roti. Bone marrow is such a Melbourne thing and topping it with crab sambal made sense. It has been great to have Malaysians eat it and accept it and give great reviews about it

We talked about that a little bit before, about going beyond fusion. Your Instagram handle @foodtureproof says it all and we talked about the future of food. And that it was really about appreciating the flavours of one country and using those and recipes from another, and that that’s okay, and that is actually the future. Has your thinking about the future of food evolved? 

Foodtureproof is just a little play on food and future proof. It has nothing to do with what I perceive it to be or what other people think it should be. But even more so now, the merge of ideas is as open as it can ever be. I’ve had a few chats with different chefs and to look at what is authentic cuisine, and what’s not. Could this be the new authentic cuisine now, coming up to 2025, where we take culture merging with flavours and ingredients and making it as natural as it can be. I’m really excited about that. 

Can you walk me through some of the things on the menu? We ate so well, and I’m just looking at the table now. The table’s very tiny, but I felt like we had lots of food. You had that really amazing wood fired chicken as well. The caramelisation on that was insane. How do you how do you achieve that? Without giving away your secrets? 

In all my kitchens around the world, I run mother sauces of Asian cuisine. All of these are learned through working with great chefs or learning through kitchens in the streets, recipes from tours. I’ve applied it to here. Obviously, having a bit of Western European background training, I learned that mother sauces are crucial to French cuisine, Spanish. I thought I would create my own mother sauces, everything is made from scratch, and to apply it to my cooking. In this case, the chicken is slow cooked, and then grilled at a really high heat with a few of my mother’s secret sauces. And also to mention, I do have my own mother’s sauce in the mother sauces. Growing up, my mother always cooked amazing food but I never measured it or asked her. You don’t question what your mother does. Then one day, I thought, this hits the spot, I’m going to try and record what she does. Because, to be honest, she doesn’t even know how many grams she puts into a dish or the mixes she does, but she knows that the taste is right. So from then on, I learned from her via recording. Just like all the top chefs would do. The chicken has Nam prik pao. We char the capsicums really, really hard, and then we turn them into a nam prik pao. We apply that same thing as a Thai would, but with local capsicums.

What’s the thread running through the menu?

The concept behind this new Asian food has always been me. I’ve always wanted to do Asian through a different lens. and through a lens that’s had discovery and exploration into what really is Asian cuisine and what it can be with understanding the foundations. Throughout the past 10 to 12 years, I really took time to read history, cuisine, and culture for Asian cuisine. My love has always been there. It all goes back to when you look at Asian cuisine, you can never be taught Asian cuisine, but coming to Australia with such open arms from Australia, you welcome so many immigrants from all over Asia. I you don’t know this story, one night after service, me and my crew just went out to Supper Inn, and I sat down, and I looked all around me. It was all people from all over Asia. Here I am in Australia. I think if I was in Malaysia, if I had never migrated to Australia, I think I would never have been exposed to so many cultures and cuisines. At Supper Inn, I was just amazed that there were people from Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China, Malaysia, Vietnam. It’s just so amazing. I thought, wow, I get to learn so much from them, but why is it so difficult to learn Asian cuisine? Why is there no school teaching you Asian cuisine? You can only learn it from being there, and also coming growing up in a family, coming from that particular cuisine or that country. I’ve always been inspired by Asia, and I guess the cuisine here is me, in a way. It’s inspired by Asia, inspired by culture, people, places, colours, cuisine, history. This all stems from having the icons, such as Renee Redzepi from Noma, all about using local produce and exploring ingredients and to look at things in a natural way. Of course, another icon, Heston Blumenthal with history and recreating recipes from the past to what it is now. And chefs like Andre Chang in Singapore, where he looks at things like an art form. He breaks down things in terroir, in soul, in memories. and merging it with chef David Chang, how he looks at food. I’d say if you can put into words what, how I morphed into this person, it would be thanks to these four chefs, chef Rene Redzepi from Noma, chef Heston Blumenthal from the Fat Duck, and Dinner by Heston, chef Andre Chang from Restaurant Andre, and then, of course, the elite David Chang from Momofuku. These are the only four favourite chefs I have ever really, really looked up to.

I look at the kitchen as a sport, similar to football or soccer. Every player in the team is very, very important, especially when it’s performance time. I blend in kindness, happiness, comedy, seriousness, and push and drive all in one space. In this kitchen, we look at them like professional athletes in the cooking world, and we only want them to be better, to grow, to improve, and to leave this kitchen a better person, and a better player. Everything has to be honest, transparent, and as best as you can do. I really believe in that.

Esca Khoo, Tyga

It sounds as though you do quite a deep dive into things, and you obviously like to read up on it and do all your research. How are you holding that knowledge? I remember looking back through some of your Instagram stories and there were so many images, so you’re obviously very image-based. But do you also take notes or how are you, how are you distilling the things that you’re learning from those four icons and from what you’re eating and drinking and seeing? How are you holding onto those ideas and making them your own? 

First of all, I jump into the country itself. I look at the dishes from north to south and I really like truly taste it 1st. I guess first and foremost, you have to be in the country and taste it. Then you can start to filter out and distil it in your own words how they do it. But really, to be there, to experience it is the first and foremost fundamental thing you have to do. Then the second thing is to pair it with reading these iconic chefs’ books, but also to experience their kitchens, how they do things, and how they’re developing things. Merging all four components of those chefs with the foundations of the cuisine in the country. It’s just a lot of imagination and merging things and giving it a go. 

How do you hold onto all that knowledge? Are you just absorbing it then? Do you not write it down? 

I do write it down. I write it down every single moment I get. Every experience I have, I write it down in my own words, and I develop it again and again, and it becomes my DNA. But these days, I don’t really have to write it down anymore. It’s absorbed into my blood. It’s the same when I dropped out of school. I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to learn what I needed to learn in school. What I wanted to learn was to become really good at cooking. And going back to our conversations, cooking taught me everything in life. 

I also liked how you likened it to playing soccer and being in a team. And since then, have you watched Ted Lasso? I listened to the chat this morning and I really went on such a tangent with the Ted Lasso thing. 

I totally forgot about it, but I will listen to Ted Lasso and thanks for the recommendation. 

It’s because you talk about belief and integrity, and you seem to me a person that is really into kindness and those things are really important to you. We also talked a lot about toxicity in restaurants. Since I’ve seen you in your experience, has there been any improvements? 

Absolutely. It’s improved even more. I look at the kitchen as a sport, similar to football or soccer. Every player in the team is very, very important, especially when it’s performance time. I blend in kindness, happiness, comedy, seriousness, and push and drive all in one space. In this kitchen, we look at them like professional athletes in the cooking world, and we only want them to be better, to grow, to improve, and to leave this kitchen a better person, and a better player. Everything has to be honest, transparent, and as best as you can do. I really believe in that. I’ve applied this to everywhere around the world. London, Russia, India, Japan, Hong Kong and more. And I continue to do so. As long as you get the results, you’re fine. My chefs come in as they please, and they leave as they please. But as long as they get the results done, I can’t say anything. As long as you become a better player or a better chef, I can’t say anything. I’ll be even more proud that you’ve really excelled and grown so much in what you do, and to be honest with you, I’m going to die one day. I’m not going to hold any recipes. What I want is for everyone to just have fun and to enjoy the moment, and just to be better at what you do. If this is what you really want to do, then fantastic. Then I’m happy for you. But if this is not what you want to do, then I would like you to do something that you really want to do but be great at it. It’s a kitchen full of joy and immigrant kitchen only. Also, for Asians only. 

I was going to ask you about that, because that was a big thing for you when I spoke to you last, you really wanted to champion immigrants, and having had that experience yourself, which was very challenging, with visa concerns, and all of that. But how do you do that, you can’t advertise for immigrants only, can you? 

No, you can’t. We’ve had a lot of incredible CVs come through to apply for the job, but unfortunately, they don’t match with what I want to do, and I wanted to give hope and progression to chefs from Southeast Asia and East Asia and South Asia, a chance to develop and grow in a place where they feel belong. I know that if I had that opportunity back then, that would have been great. Unfortunately I didn’t. So here I am. I learned and I’m giving them an opportunity. A lot of chefs here come from decent kitchens and some even better, but they fit into the culture and the way of cooking and style I like them to be in. And I’m pretty happy with the kitchen right now. We have chefs from Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Thailand. 

You are so great. You’re the best person in the world. That is so thoughtful. I remember that you wanted to be a role model. You could have come back and been all swaggery andhave the attitude that you are this great chef, but that’s not who you are. You’ve used what you’ve learned for this beautiful thing. That’s amazing. I saw how emotional you were with the firecrackers and the Lion dancing on opening night. I thought, wow you really care about things, don’t you? 

I do. I care about a lot of things that I think, I think anyone in the world would, if they were to put 8 days a week into something, and to really believe in something and we’re all human and in the day, and emotions kick in, it was a beautiful thing to finally see it open through all the all the tough times in opening up a restaurant and just the amount of work that goes into opening one place is really, really not easy. And I hope they can feel it, and I’m sure you felt it and I really appreciate that you felt the energy. 

You said suburban, and it is a suburban restaurant, but this is an amazing strip for food. 

My first time here? 

Oh, it’s excellent. But it doesn’t feel suburban here. You’ve really created something. It’s very special. I love that there’s a built-in DJ deck as well. It’s got everything. 

Friday and Saturday nights.

Your food is next level and I love that you’ve got such a harmonious team. 

They are pretty special people. Everyone that walks through the door are really extraordinary people. From the owner, that decided to create something for Carnegie, to believe in Carnegie, to want to open something like this, rather than in the city. It’s extraordinary to take the risk and gamble to open something like this, and as we all know, in Australia, it’s not cheap to open a place. And it’s difficult to keep it running. Luckily we had the support from these extraordinary people that walk through the door, such as of people that help us day in, day out to run this place. And of course, the beautiful people of Carnegie and around it to have their support. We have lovely, genuine people coming through the door, just wanting to have a good time, and they’re so happy that this now exists rather than in the city. So they don’t have to go to the city now and find parking and hopefully get a reservation and then pay CBD prices. It is pretty expensive now in the city. So for them to have something in the neighbourhood, I think it is great for everyone. 

Ok, we’ve only talked about two dishes and people like to hear about food. So, if someone comes in, obviously they have the bone marrow that’s amazing, and the chicken. But what’s the ideal way for someone to work through the menu? 

You really need to look at the combination of countries in the cuisine. Right now, we are doing Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. I think you work from the small plates in having a dish from Malaysia, a dish from the islands, a dish from Thailand, Vietnam. And the same applies to the larger size and the dessert. It’s a of dishes, to be fair. It’s 35 dishes. Originally we said 22 dishes, like a normal neighbourhood place. 35 is huge, but we couldn’t take anything off. Tommy couldn’t decide what to take off. So I thought, we’ll take the challenge. We’ll put 35 on, and then we’ll run it smoothly. And then from there on, we’ll see what the crowd likes, what they don’t like, and then hopefully edit it. But I think that’s probably the best way, maybe two dishes from the small, two dishes from the large, two from the sides, and then maybe one dessert. And then it keeps them coming back again and again and again, and this is what we want. This place is inspired by the hottest and trendiest restaurants in KL, Malaysia, Saigon, Vietnam, Bangkok, Thailand. In the future, we’ll probably bring in more from Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines, maybe East India, perhaps. And to develop this concept, this idea, into something more. Our style is fun, elevated, it’s cool, it’s cheap, it’s trendy, and this is what we want, I guess, to give them a bit of a slice of the cool in Asia. 

Well, it’s very cool, and I love it. I’ve told everyone about it because it’s so great. Just to finish off then, with all that you’ve experienced in the last few years, and now that you’re here, and you’ve got your ideal kitchen, and you’re able to do what you want to do, what would you tell your younger self? 

I think if I met my younger self, I would tell him to never doubt yourself, to continue to love what you do and to never let difficult times hold you back and to stop you from what you really, really want to get in terms of your objective. It’s not the destination and it’s all about the journey. A lot of the times I think of a destination, but the journey really surprises me a lot and being able to travel the world to do what I do, is part of the journey. I think when I was really young, I was just so determined to get to the destination or just the go, go, go, go, go. But throughout this time, I’ve grown a lot as a human, as a professional. So that’s probably what I would say to my younger self. 

Tyga, 91 Koornang Road, Carnegie