Jenna North has worked her way up through the ranks to most recently becoming head chef at Lucy Liu. Makes sense when you think about it; a restaurant called Lucy Liu deserves a strong female presence in the kitchen. This was Jenna’s first chat with the media and I appreciated her openness and honesty.
Hi Jenna, you’ve been here for four years as a sous chef and recently stepped up to take on the role as head chef.
I started as a chef de partie here and worked my way up over the years. Zac (Cribbes) trusts me to be head of the kitchen now which is pretty good.
How does it work in these kinds of situations? Did that role come up and you apply for it or is it more of a conversation?
It was more of a conversation. We got busier and needed to fill more senior roles. People would fill the roles beneath me and Zac ended up doing more and more outside the kitchen, things that needed to be done in the office and so on and so he needed a senior person to run the kitchen when he wasn’t there, so I fell into it that way.
They can be similar roles, sous chef and head chef, in terms of responsibility and leadership. What would you say is the step up?
The step up is probably more office jobs and more control without doing anything, if that makes sense? I’m not physically cooking so much any more.
How is that?
You do lose a lot. You lose your techniques and that little dance you do in the kitchen but it’s where I’m at.
I guess it’s good to get to a point where you’re coming up with ideas and teaching, and not having to be quite so physical.
Training the junior staff is a big part of it. They take your ideas and grow with it, so you need to be strict with your training.
Are you a show-er or a teller?
A show-er. I learn by doing, so I just expect that everyone else learns like I do.
This is Asian food and before that you were at the Church Street Enoteca, is that right?
Yes. I’d always done Italian until here. I started off at Balzari on Lygon Street and made my way around the pasta world until I found dumplings, it’s sort of the same, folding and so on.
How do you go about learning a new flavour profile for a restaurant?
I found with Italian it’s more about tasting rather than following recipes so that was easy enough to apply with Thai food which is all about balance and taste and you can’t really follow recipes either. You really need to understand what flavours you need to create and then be able to taste that.
It is tough, but it’s a lot of fun. You get a lot out of it when you have done the hard yards and you get to the senior stage where you can put your own stamp on things and get creative.
Did you always want to be a chef?
I don’t remember wanting to do anything. I did work experience in Grade 10 in a pub and then they hired me because they were desperate, so I worked my way up from kitchen hand to working on the fryer section. I don’t know where the decision came from to do the course at TAFE but I found myself doing the course and then I moved to Melbourne, got a job and an apprenticeship and it grew without me choosing.
Do you work in with Zac on ideas for the menu or do you have creative licence?
Zac does a lot of it. He has done a lot of it from the beginning. Between me and the sous chef, we all bounce off each other and come up with crazy stuff and then someone will reel us back in and we work it out from there.
When you say crazy stuff, where are the ideas coming from?
Eating out at other restaurants, things we see on Instagram, cookbooks.
So much of what we eat and smell, is informed by our memories. Chefs must have a whole catalogue of so many flavours and know what goes with what to then work out new flavours, is so impressive.
I don’t know how to answer that. I can’t tell you how that works, you just get in there and put some things together. It helps to have a diverse kitchen. We’ve got Thai chefs, Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese and they all bring snacks from home that they’ve made, and we make those into things we can sell in a restaurant. That’s really helpful. We’ve even got some Indian chefs and we are broad Asian and it can include Indian food as well, so we have dahl, roti bread.
Have you travelled with cooking?
I’ve been to Mexico and Cuba but not so much for the eating, it was more like drinking and eating.
Nice. Are there aspects of the job that are challenging for you?
Managing people is my biggest challenge. There are 20 chefs in the kitchen including six kitchen hands, so to manage everyone and get everyone on the same page, and on the same training level and the same flavour level, that’s my biggest challenge.
When people come into Lucy Liu, what do you want them to experience?
All the favourites we have here are really good. They’ve been on the menu for years. If you come in often, you’d pick the favourites and you’d come back for the favourites for a couple of months, then after that we’ve got the Let Lucy Choose, which is the only thing we really change ad get creative on. We don’t change the menus that often, we change the Let Lucy Choose often. So after you’ve been in a few times, I’d get people onto that, because it is where we all input crazy stuff; different, unique, experimental stuff.
Do you have a favourite dish?
The Nam Khao Tod. It’s smoked ocean trout, crispy fried rice that’s gone cold, fish sauce, lime juice, peanuts, chilli. I’ve never seen anything like it while I’ve been dining out. My bosses went to Thailand and found it and brought it back. It’s really amazing. It’s different.
What’s your advice for young people wanting to get into the chef industry?
Don’t do it. I wouldn’t recommend it. You need to be fully committed or it’s not going to work for you. You can’t be half in the kitchen and half expect a life outside the kitchen. You’re in it for the long run or you’re going to struggle.
Do you regret it?
I don’t regret it, no. I don’t regret anything. It’s fun. I still really enjoy every day here at work. I’ve been with the company for six years. They are the best company I’ve worked for, which has probably helped me stay in the industry this long. It is tough, but it’s a lot of fun. You get a lot out of it when you have done the hard yards and you get to the senior stage where you can put your own stamp on things and get creative.
23 Oliver Lane, Melbourne