I am treated like a queen at Flovie. Despite the long queue of people desperate to get inside the newly opened florist café, I have a lovely little table in the corner to enjoy my rose tea latte and Little Mermaid perfume mocktail. Lush. When there is a lull in service, Hiroshi, or Hiro, comes out for a chat. A gentle soul, Hiro is an artist as well as a chef and not only is he plating up beautiful Asian fusion dishes, he also designed the logo and signage.
Thank you for coming out to talk to me, Hiroshi, especially when it is so busy, but they said it’s always this busy.
Especially at the weekend.
How long has Flovie been open?
A month.
It must be a blur, because if it is this busy every weekend, it must be crazy.
It is crazy. I haven’t had a day off since we opened.
You must be exhausted.
Not really. It’s a café job so I have my personal time at night. In a restaurant you work all day and night.
Where were you before here?
Some other cafes. I have worked in a three hatted restaurant before but I left after two weeks. It wasn’t for me. I felt like I didn’t belong.
How long have you been a chef?
I started culinary training in the Philippines; hospitality. I graduated in 2010 and from then I had graphic design jobs and chef jobs.
That’s interesting. Do you think some of the principles of graphic design shape the way you work with food?
Of course. As a graphic designer, your client is your boss and here the boss is Jia (Wang), the owner and also the customers, so I had to design a menu especially for the market, which is Asian infused dishes.
Is this your first head chef role?
Yes.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
How did that happen?
I worked with Jia in another café and he asked me to be his head chef and I was overwhelmed and happy.
How did you go about creating the menu?
I had some ideas before. I always have a small notebook with me and when I go to restaurants I take notes, so I have a hidden repertoire. So this was the time for me to showcase what I can do as a chef. I love art as well, so I wanted to do a fusion of art, design and food.
I was thinking about the fusion aspect before. There’s a fusion of flowers and food, Asian fusion and then your art fusion. That’s interesting.
Do you have any influences from your Filipino background in your food?
The French toast casserole. I use coconut. There are mostly Asian influences; Japanese, Chinese.
I really love cooking. That’s my passion…The art of it. The creation, I really love creating.
So now that you’re the head chef, how did you go about choosing your suppliers?
First, in a café, one thing I have to consider is price and then availability and quality. The café business is so big time in Melbourne, it’s so busy, you need to prep a lot every day, so you need large quantities of supplies. You don’t know how many of each dish you’ll do. You just guess. Yesterday I looked at what we did last week. We sold 30 char sius (Char Siu pork benedict) so I have to make sure I order enough buns.
What is the biggest seller? Is it the Char Siu?
Yes. And the crab poke bowl.
I had the crab soba noodle salad.
How was it?
It was delicious. I love crispy tofu, it’s so good.
Actually, that one has a Filipino influence as well, the ginger dressing; tofu and ginger.
I was speaking to John Rivera at Lûmé. He has taken over from Shaun Quade and is introducing some flavours from the Philippines because that is his heritage as well.
That’s good. I don’t want to use the word, exotic, but it is good to have more out there.
How do you go about leading the team now that you’re the boss?
I don’t want to be the boss. I’m keeping it all level, keeping it at a friendship level. I don’t want to say, oh I’m the head chef. I don’t have the head chef ego. I’ve never really considered myself as a chef. I love cooking but I don’t love the culinary world.
What do you mean by that?
A lot of it is about ego. It’s a business and it’s about money. But I really love cooking. That’s my passion.
What is it that really draws you to cooking? What do you love about it?
The art of it. The creation, I really love creating.
This is one of those cafes that Instagrammers love. Does that put pressure on you to make the plates look a certain way?
Yes. As an artist…I consider myself an artist as well…I paint and draw. I have a hidden Instagram account, but it is just for me. I don’t let anyone see my art…yet.
That’s fascinating.
I’m still not ready to put my art out there. You can’t duplicate art, like you can’t duplicate the same dish. It can be different on different days, like the plating. People expect the dishes to be the same as they saw them on Instagram and it is hard to maintain that expectation from customers. Sometimes I have used a different plate and the customers ask why it is different from what they have seen.
Really? You mentioned the culinary world and then there is also this foodie world now where the public has such a different perception and relationship with food.
It’s more demanding now, I think. Because of social media.
Do you read reviews?
Now yes. I don’t usually care about reviews. Especially for me, if I go to a café or restaurant I just look at the rating, I don’t read the reviews.
It’s different for every person and then for each of those people it could be different on any given day. Reviews can be tricky.
Yes, reviews are so subjective.
You’ve been getting good reviews, though. Are your parents still in the Philippines?
My mum is still in the Philippines and my dad is in Japan. I’m half Filipino and half Japanese. I was born and raised in the Philippines, but my citizenship is Japanese. It’s weird because I grew up in the Philippines and people there saw me as a foreigner, even though I consider myself Filipino. Then I lived in Japan and my citizenship, my name and my face are Japanese but the Japanese people when they talked to me said I wasn’t Japanese because my Japanese is not that good.
So you’re a citizen of the world. Now you’re here. When did you move to Melbourne?
Two and half years ago. I came on a working holiday.
What brought you here?
Because of the food and I just wanted to escape Japan. It was too much pressure for me.
You were working as a chef in Japan? What sort of restaurant?
Mostly European, Italian. I worked at Eataly, one of Mario Batali’s restaurants that started in New York.
And you were in Tokyo?
Yes. I worked there for two years doing pasta and pizza.
Is there a different pressure in Japanese kitchens?
Oh yes. Here it is friendly but in Japan there is hierarchy in the kitchen…there’s hierarchy here as well but it is different.
So it’s like the old system we used to have in kitchens here and in England?
It’s still there in Japan. It’s very old school.
You seem like a gentle soul and you just want to create. It’s good you came here.
It’s hard for me as well to work in that kind of environment because physically I don’t look like that manly kind of chef with tattoos and who is a bit scary. That’s a disadvantage for me but I am happy to be in this kitchen. Jia has given me this opportunity.
What’s your favourite thing on the menu?
Chorizo eggs. That’s the first dish I made.
That’s an interesting one because it has chorizo which is more Spanish and then aioli.
Chorizo is Spanish, but the Philippines were colonised by Spain for 300 years and we use Spanish words in our sentences. If you talk to a Filipino person, you’ll hear a bit of Filipino language mixed with English and Spanish.
That’s so great. Do you think about food all the time, constantly having ideas or are you able to switch off?
I switch off. I can’t do one thing all the time. I need variation. I have art classes on Monday and Wednesday nights. Wednesday is CAE in Flinders Lane and Monday is in Footscray at a place called Art Room.
How amazing.
It’s really cool.
261-263 Queensberry Street, Carlton