Tong Li grew up in China and wanted to learn how to cook Mexican food. So he packed his bags, bought a one-way ticket to Mexico, learned Spanish and cooking pretty much at the same time and has been cooking up a storm every since. Now he's at in Port Melbourne and boy does he have a great story to tell.
Let’s start with how long you’ve been cooking.
My whole career started in Mexico in 2006, so over 10 years now.
What made you become a chef? Was it something you always wanted to do?
Absolutely. I was very interested in cooking since I was little. I think it had something to do with hanging out with my grandma when she was cooking. That kind of thing was always very interesting for me. I actually started an economics degree at University but halfway through I thought it wasn’t for me so I decided to go on a different path and pick up the culinary side.
I pretty much finished uni, packed my bags and bought a one-way ticket to Mexico. At that time I was very fascinated about Latin American culture.
Ok and where are you from originally?
China.
Is that an unusual leaning? China towards Mexico?
Absolutely. I haven’t met anyone else in China who wanted to go and train to be a chef in Mexico. I got really lucky and had a whole lot of opportunities. Basically I went to Mexico and started learning Spanish. I had no idea how to speak Spanish when I started and I didn’t have much idea about where I wanted to live in Mexico. I heard there was a place called Oaxaca which is beautiful so I just went there. I studied Spanish for about a month. I went to dinner at the best restaurant in town and the head chef came out and said they didn’t see many Chinese tourists there and asked what I was doing there. I told him that I was learning Spanish and that I wanted to learn Mexican cooking. He said, cool, and asked what I was doing the next day. When I said nothing, he asked me to come by and have a look in the kitchen. They have a lot of exchange chefs from America coming to the restaurant so they are very used to foreigners in the kitchen. I started as an assistant in the kitchen just doing salad to start with and then in about half a year I was a sous chef there.
That’s amazing.
It was the best two years of my life. I think I learned so much. I worked really hard and I’d go back home and study Spanish. In the beginning I didn’t even know how to say onion, cut, knife. I knew nothing so I learned everything from scratch in about half a year. That really allowed my interest to develop into something. Luckily I’ve got a bit of talent. [laughs]
That’s so impressive. Really with all of those obstacles, it must have been really hard sometimes. But clearly you were really determined and you had a real desire to do it.
It wasn’t like I had to force myself to work hard. It all naturally happened because I think I have such a passion for food. That opened a new chapter for me. I was really lucky because I think it was and is still in the top five restaurants in Mexico. I learned my cooking from one of the top fine dining restaurants in the whole country. That really benefitted me. All the little tiny things I learned there have become a solid habit.
A lot of the chefs I speak to have had their grounding in French fine dining. What differences are there between the French and the Spanish ways?
We were doing a new Mexican cuisine, like a fusion, using modern European as well as traditional French techniques merged with traditional Mexican cuisine. We sourced the best of the local ingredients and seafood and used modern techniques to cook it. Overall, I didn’t really have a speciality like French or Italian, I can do Latin American, Modern American, fusion and Asian.
I feel as though all these cuisines talk to one another. They are linked together. You don’t have to follow a recipe exactly to make the sauce but when you understand the ingredients and the flavours and also the techniques, you might have a beautiful piece of fish and suddenly you can have five different sauces in your head. It’s quite exciting.
It’s a bit like if I can speak five different languages, and you can speak five different languages and there’s a word in a language that you can’t really express, you can just use a different language and express it that way. Luckily with food, everyone understands the flavour.
A lot of the chefs say they are produce or ingredient-led, but it feels as though it’s even more so for you because you’re not constrained by one type of cuisine, you’re really led by what will work for that ingredient.
Absolutely. It’s funny though, back then in 2005, 2006, there wasn’t really much internet. Technology has such an impact on modern cooking and you can research all kinds of things and find all sorts of recipes. You can cook Thai food without being in Thailand. For me the most important thing we don’t get from the Internet is the culture. We have to understand the culture to be able to properly cook the food. For example, in Italy why do they cook the pasta or pizza like that. Why is it a thin crust in one region and a thick crust in another region. What’s the story behind it? When you understand the story behind it, it becomes part of you and you understand why they do it.
What do you see as the story behind Mexican and Spanish cooking then?
Every country has a different profile for their flavour based on their climate, their history and their produce. Mexico has probably five different kinds of corn in the supermarket and 50 different types of chilli and some are smoky, some are spicy.
When we talk about local produce…I was in Italy about a month ago and it was the first time I tried Italian tomatoes and now I understand why everything is based on tomatoes because the tomatoes there are so beautiful. I couldn’t stop eating them on their own. I think that’s what it is. When different cultures start cooking, I don’t think they had a particular idea, it’s all from experience and after hundreds of years it becomes their signature.
I feel as though all these cuisines talk to one another. They are linked together. It’s a bit like if I can speak five different languages, and you can speak five different languages and there’s a word in a language that you can’t really express, you can just use a different language and express it that way.
How long were you in Mexico?
Two years.
Ok, and from there did you go back to China?
Yes. I went back to China and again, I was pretty lucky. I met a very good restaurant owner. Initially I was only planning to stay six months to see family and friends. I had been thinking about going to Europe to travel and work there. But I got good opportunities to open restaurants with this guy so we opened four restaurants together. Each restaurant was the best new restaurant of the year and it was a time I used all my skills and my technique to shine.
I think in that time I was very young as well. Everyone was saying I wasn’t an old school chef and I think also from working in kitchens in Mexico, everyone there was loud and played music, that latino culture. I brought that to Qingdao where I am from in China and then I became quite well-known in a short period of time. So I was in the newspapers, on the cover of a magazine, on tv, doing reviews.
Ah, you’re one of those rock star chefs then.
At the time I really enjoyed it. The lifestyle was amazing. I‘d finish service at midnight and go and catch up with friends in the bar and hang out and the next day, repeat, then go on to a new project. My record was opening two new restaurants in one year. From scratch.
You were really living the dream as a chef then. So what brought you to Melbourne?
That’s a very good question. After two years, I got awarded Best Chef two years in a row, Best New Restaurant and all that kind of stuff and then my last project in Qingdao, we were doing craft beer and smoked meat. That was five or six years ago. It’s popular now but I tried to bring that concept to Qingdao and then I realised that it didn’t work that well. It worked but I think the concept was a bit ahead of its time. When Chinese people think about western cuisine, it’s more steak, pasta. It’s a square box thing so I think I had got to the stage where I wanted to do more interesting things and be in a different market so I could use my ideas.
Then at that time my now wife got a job offer in Melbourne. She is a jewellery designer. She’s from the UK, but we met in Qingdao. When she got the offer, it was a quick decision. I just said, let’s go. My parents and friends were really shocked because that was at the peak of what was going on there. But I gave it all up and left it all behind to move on to a new chapter.
You leapt into the abyss.
I think that’s the best way.
You’ve worked at some interesting places while you’ve been here, Hanoi Hannah and United Kitchen, and it sounded as though you were playing with some interesting flavours.
I think the good thing about Melbourne is that there are so many different cuisines and people are very open-minded about new flavours and new culture and new cuisines. I literally have my best Indian restaurant here and have eaten my best Vietnamese food here. I couldn’t think about another city like Melbourne that has all this original and authentic cuisine which was brought here and then they have added their own touch. It’s fascinating for me.
We talked before about how local produce shapes the best food to cook for the area, what do you think about Melbourne’s produce?
It’s a massive country with different climates and different produce in different seasons. We might have mango from Queensland and it’s the best mango for a limited period of time and we might get some sort of fish or prawns from different regions. Overall the meat quality is really good here. I think we have to eat seasonally here to get the best produce from each region for that particular season. I always talk to my supplier and see what’s going on because they go to the fish market or vegie market every day and they know what is good at that time so I work with that.
You came to The Cricketers just a few months ago?
Yes, about three months ago.
Have you completely changed the menu?
We have changed quite a lot. This is my first pub.
Are there constraints in your menu?
We are slowly changing it little by little. [laughs] My background is all restaurant food but I have always been a big fan of pubs. When I was in the UK, my wife is from the UK so we often go to visit and I really like the low ceilings and everyone hangs out there and the food is down to earth and good quality. I like that. That’s the whole reason I took on this job because I wanted to try it.
Obviously it’s a bit challenging for me. The system is different. People order from the bar. It’s not table service so for the kitchen it is hard to control the pace. Basically if people order something, you have to send it out straightaway, you cannot control it. in all the other services I’ve worked in, if 50 people walk in at the same time, the Front of House will try and manage that and stagger it a bit so the kitchen doesn’t get slammed all at once. But here we can’t really control it because we have three bars. You might have five people order their food at the same time from three different bars and it all comes to the kitchen in one go. Because of that I have to design the menu to be consistent and fast but also fresh. Luckily with my experience and the team we are able to do that.
How many in the team?
Four chefs.
That seems small for the number of bars.
My last roster had 15 chefs.
You always have a lot of people in the kitchen for fine dining, don’t you? When you’re talking to your team about your ideas and sharing what you want to do, do you show or tell?
I have a couple of ways. For example, steak came in today and we cut them to portion size and then we can have some good ideas about what we want to do with it. I always ask around. They are all from different countries in this kitchen so everybody has some ideas. I also learn from them as well. We have a guy from Colombia, a Nepalese, Thai, someone from Chile and Peru. It’s very mixed. We do some brain storming and get some ideas.
It sounds like a great environment. You must really love coming to work.
For me the team is important. I’m not the kind of chef who tells other people, ‘do this, do this.’ There’s a system and details and a standard but I want everyone to get involved. I don’t want people to come here and do the same thing every day. I want them, and also me, to get sparks and create something new. Technically, some ideas can take 35 minutes to cook a dish so we cannot do that and have to think about a different technique or cuisine.
Do you think anyone can be a chef or do you need to have that creativity?
When you say chef, there is a range of cuisines and restaurant levels for chefs but overall, all chefs work hard. It’s a labour intensive job. A lot of people in kitchens are extremely stressed so this is the number one thing I try and avoid with my own team. I think it is the worst thing for people to be stressed as well as it being labour intensive. They will never enjoy that.
Being a head chef is more about management. Cooking skills and knowledge is a different thing. That bit you can always improve but your personality and management style is important. It’s a hard job and I have heard of so many people changing career after a while. It’s a pretty anti-social schedule as well. You finish work late and you don’t have much of a social life. But if you love what you do, it’s different. For me, I don’t feel like I am coming to work every day, I am doing what I love every day so that makes it different I guess.
69 Cruikshank Street, Port Melbourne
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