Soon Lim

Hi Soon. I saw your profile piece on the Vaporetto Instagram page where Greg has been putting up stories about the staff who work here. It looks as though there are a lot of staff.

There were more pre-Covid.

How many are there?

Pre-Covid I would say in the kitchen we have around 12 to 14 and now we have ten. Front of house, you double it.

I have been loving reading all the stories giving a background to the staff, where they are from and what they do outside the kitchen, but as you say, you've been affected by Covid and staff shortages. It's so hard. How long have you been head chef here?

Since Day One. Since this site was a construction site.

OK. It has been around a while now. When did Vaporetto open?

Six years ago. It has been a while. Before that I had already worked with Greg. So when I heard he was going to open this place, I knew I wanted first shot.

Had you done Venetian Food before?

No, I had never done Venetian food, but I had cooked with Greg for a couple of years, so I knew his style. Once you have worked with people for a while you can copy or predict what they do. I already knew his style. I had to buy a couple of books and learn how to cook Venetian food. Then a few years later they flew me to Venice. We all went to Venice to eat and dine like a local and to capture the beauty of it and all the little things that make it Venice.

That is really interesting. So you had already been cooking the food when you went there. I wonder whether it is like me learning French at school and then when I went to France, everything fell into place. What were the things that really struck you when you went to Venice and made a difference when you came back?

It is very hard to put into words. Funnily enough, I think it is when you touch down in a place and the door opens and you catch a whiff of the air. I always find that air smells different in different parts of the world. And then instead of roads, there it is waterways. We had to take a ferry to Venice and when I first stepped out on cobblestones, I thought, holy shit, these cobblestones are really historic; Jesus might even have walked on these. It was so beautiful. The people, the mood, the water, how it tastes. I was born in Malaysia and the water tastes different and I grew up in Christchurch, the water tastes different, different temperature, just really different. So all those little things and the mood of the people and finally, going to the restaurants and eating their food and comparing it to how we serve it here and the little twists that they have and then bring it back. Some stuff you can't bring back because it is not suited to the Australian market; it is very simple and very traditional. One of the funniest things about Venice is that they have all these shops and delis around selling pastas, one would say they are selling bigoli, which is a very thick pasta, a Venetian type of pasta, and then two doors down it looks like spaghetti but they say it is bigoli. They just do what they want over there, I really noticed that.

And what are the main features of Venetian cooking that set it apart from other Italian cooking?

It's the usage of spice. It was on the spice route, so merchants were coming through from Asia. I am from Malaysia from a province called Sarawak and my state is famous for black pepper. Funnily enough when I was in Venice, they were selling black pepper from Sarawak and I thought holy shit, I am so proud about that. All the way from a small little state in the world and it is right in Venice, selling that specific spice from where I am from. So the food is a bit more spicy, a bit more exciting in a way, and there is more you can play around with.

And a lot of seafood and fish?

Yes. A lot of the dishes are very seafood based because when you go there and you see the markets, the fish is all locally caught.

Not from the canals though.

No, not from the canals. I don't think you would want to eat fish from the canals.

Ha! So you said you had been with Greg for a while. Where did you train? In Christchurch?

Yes, in Christchurch, at the Polytechnic, CPIT. I did two years there and then I decided to come here.

You were born in Malaysia, when did you move to Christchurch?

My family sent me there for higher education because dad as a Civil Engineer, as you know when you are young you look up to your parents and want to be like them and I wanted to be a Civil Engineer. So they sent me to Christchurch to go to University.

And it is a really good Engineering school.

Yes, but funny enough when you grow up a little more and hate Physics and you hate calculus, and if you can't do that, you can't do engineering. So I was sent there for my studies at the age of 15. I was pretty young. I finished high school and did Bursary and went to Uni, I did two years of Uni but I hated it and had to say, sorry Mum and dad, I am going to make you so mad but I am not going to go to Uni, I am going to cooking school.

Why cooking?

I always liked it. I always wanted to be a chef. the funniest story is that I learned how to fry rice at six years old because my mum couldn't do it properly. We had a maid and I was always observing the maid and how she did it and my mum and how she did it and comparing it to when we went out to restaurants. I was too short. I was just a little kid. I wasnt even tall enough to reach the stove top so I have to grab all those mandarin crates so I could stand on them and start cooking. That's where it began. I always wanted to be a chef and I was always naturally proficient at cooking and I was interested as well.

So you are doing Italian food now but was there a first love for a cuisine?

Not really. I have been asked that a lot of times, what is my speciality? I can't really answer that question. Every type of cuisine has its secrets, you know, like Thai food has the balance of polar opposites, the bitterness, sweetness, sourness. Chinese food is all about heat control, Japanese is about ingredients and techniques. French, well we all know French, I can't explain it in one word. Italian is simplicity. All the different kinds of cuisine have different ways to do things and I like to know about all of them. Then you find the best way and that is your way. That's how I see it.

And to get that inspiration and learn these secrets, do you have lots of cookbooks at home or do you watch television or what is your way?

I have heaps of cookbooks. And social media, Instagram, you see what people are doing and I can see what my peers are doing. TV, anything; as soon as you see something you start creating an dreaming about that and wonder what we can do with that and whether we can do it better.

What's on the menu at the moment?

There has been a management change so we have brought back the classics from over the six years to remind customers that the management might have changed but the food is the same. So we have put on the dishes that people have loved.

What is an example of that?

Bigoli with duck. Bigoli is a thick udon-like pasta. We always have gnocchi lamb. It is our signature dish. If we took it off there would be a riot, and then we have simple stuff like mushroom risotto. In this area, everyone does mushroom, pumpkin, cauliflower, it is so comforting, so yes, basically we are doing really comforting stuff. We also have the pappardelle crab here which is actually a tweak from a restaurant on Burano in Venice, the restaurant is called Trattoria al Gatto Nero which means black cat and there is an old chef who has been there from Day One from when he was young until the age he is now. He does risotto and then he has this saffron pasta with scampi. We can't really serve scampi here, it is too expensive and so not profitable, but everyone likes that dish.

Delicious. What's your favourite to eat?

I would say the saffron pappardelle with the crab. It is very simple but as simple as it is, it is very technically challenging to cook. The hardest protein to cook, if you don't know, is chicken, because everyone knows how to cook chicken and you can't overcook it or undercook it and so everyone knows when it is good or bad, whereas the other meats have a bit more margin of error. When food is simple, it is harder to cook.

True. It sounds as though Greg has been a great mentor and friend.

Obviously.

And so you, as a head chef, what style of leadership do you have?

I like to say that I'd like to be the head chef I wish I had. So all these years working under people, the good and the bad, I have analysed it and one day I told myself that I wanted to be the head chef I would wish to have. I like a flatline structure, so everyone is equal. I always tell my staff that we are all the same, but I get paid more to take the blame. I don't like treating anyone like a number, everyone has their dreams and their insecurities, everyone wants to be someone so why not help them instead of stopping them or belittling them. That doesn't work for me. I would like to be patient and mentoring and aways there.

I remember sitting up at the counter and everyone in the open kitchen was beautifully choreographed and no one was getting in the way or grumpy and it was lovely to see.

That's great. That means I have done my job.

I loved it. What would your advice be to a young person who was thinking about becoming a chef?

It is hard to make that answer short. For a young chef, don't worry about the money. You have to be thirsty for the knowledge, be patient, be understanding and try and put yourself in other people's shoes. Be kind and be courteous and the money will come once you have the knowledge and the maturity. It takes time to build these things. There is no such thing as a genius in cooking, it is proven by time and training, how you overcome failures and how you handle your glories as well. You have to be humble. For young chefs, be a sponge; absorb all the knowledge and go to good places to work. Knowledge is the key.

Just a final question, how are your parents now about you being a chef?

They are happy.

Have you cooked for them?

Yes I have. They like it. They like to compare my cooking against a lot of restaurants in Asia and they say that their son's cooking is better. [laughs]

So it worked out well.

It worked out well which is good because I worked really hard for it. I'll take it.

Vaporetto

Rear 681 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn