Winston Zhang

Conversation with a chef: Winston, I spoke to you in 2019 when Akaiito first opened, I wrote about it for Broadsheet. I came in for dinner and had a chat. You've been open for quite a long time now.

Winston Zhang: Five years now. Time's flying. 2019 was a hectic. Then 2020 was the lockdown. Basically, the team was separated. Then we did two years of lockdown deliveries, just me and another chef. I would just hang there kill some time. And 2022 when we reopened, we were doing a totally different menu, a cheaper feed me for $55, because no one knew what was going on. Then it was super busy, so we actually moved that concept to downstairs and we started doing a new concept which is a sort of Asian inspired menu and we named we named it Otoro downstairs. Akaiito is still Akaiito, but it has changed from a la carte to to degustation. This is what we have been doing since last year. The concept is omakase at the table. We are doing French and Japanese inspired degustation. It is very interesting. I think we're doing very well. The concept is quite trendy in Europe and Singapore. Now we have this new area we call the living room area. All the guests come in here first and have some canapes to start. We serve all the canapes here with champagne on arrival. Very fancy sakes.

It's really good. We want people feel like they are coming to our living room basically. We have six different individual canapes. And then once the canape is served, we will move you to the dining tables. We have seven courses, and each course is explained by the chef and we finish all the sauces and dressings in front of you. I think that concept has been running for almost six months now. I think people have received it well because I think the connection is very important for us. When you work in the kitchen for more than 10 years, you rarely see any guests you actually cook for. Here it's a very small kitchen and it's an open kitchen. Basically everyone can see you and we can see everyone as well. Then we step it up a little bit and come to you and meet every single guest and all the kids love it. As a chef the most important thing is to see who actually enjoys your food and they tell you the feedback straight away. That's what we are doing right now.

When you say French and Japanese, obviously you've got the canapes and then when people are sitting down having seven courses, is it still the omakase sushi and sashimi?

No we are not doing sushi any more. The menu is designed more like kaiseki style, but technique-wise, the sauce and the preparation is very French based. I trained in Australia in Western kitchens, all the cookbooks or the Cordon Bleu, they teach you the French classics. Then from seasonality and from the kaiseki background, we serve the first course as fresh sashimi, but we cure it in a Japanese way, smoke it in a French way, dress it with fresh ponzu, which is Japanese, but we add a little bit of truffle oil we preserved from last season, so that is French as well. Next course is chawanmushi. It is very classic Japanese. But I think in Western culture, not many people accept an egg custard dish. They don't like the texture. It feels weird to them. They don't understand it. So we actually change it a lot to make sure people accept it and also understand why we're doing it. I was just discussing this with my sous chef as well. The ratio of the eggs and the topping is so important. The eggs are very classic: eggs, dashi, we are using soy milk instead of normal milk. Then the topping is very French foie gras, handpicked spanner crab from Queensland. We have some Hokkaido scallops inside and the topping is the dashi, but we actually infuse some smoked pancetta. So there is that Western flavour into a very traditional dashi.

I imagine it's very small.

It is very small.

You're packing a lot into a small thing.

Every single bite, you actually try a different aspect. Today I went to the South Melbourne market and bought some uni as well. So on top of all that is a very nice uni from Tasmania. You can imagine all the seafood flavour packed into little small bites. It's small, but every single spoonful you try something different. The flavour is not dominated by just the eggs.

It feels like there's some really delicate things in there as well and it's really textural. Is that something you have to try out a few times or did you know it would work?

No. At the end of the day the food has to be delicious. Delicious is not something coming from your head. It has to be the whole experience. You taste it, you taste it with your team, you taste with your guests, you're getting feedback every single day. I think that's why it's super important that we can see if the customer is enjoying it or not. If they're not enjoying it, then we need to find out why. Every day the menu is always slightly changed. It depends on availability. Sometimes we have some mackerel, sometimes we don't have mackerel, so we've got some kingfish. But the basic techniques, the structure of the menu, we don't change. We change the garnishes depending on the seasons.

After the chawanmushi, we have our all-time favourite tooth fish. Tooth fish is called the wagyu of the sea, and a lot of restaurants are using it. But the price is super high. A fillet costs around $120 a kilo.

Where does it come from?

It's 2000 kilometres away from the Tasmanian Sea. It's a really deep sea fish. It's a 51 tooth fish. It is very unique just to Australia. It lives far more deeper than cod. Beautiful texture, very buttery. It's very traditional. We use a miso marinade. Every restaurant, Kisume and so on, they're using miso marinade with cod. Ive had a lot cod, but this is next level. Traditionally cod is sliced, but we actually turn into a shape, into a long shape, so every single portion is super unique and inconsistent and French sauce, we're using beurre blanc, so a very classic French sauce mixed with some chives, black caviar and some peeled white walnuts. It is topped with some diamond clams from New Zealand. The diamond clams are super fresh juicy, textural.

Where in New Zealand are they from?

I think it's from Christchurch. So that's the fish course then we have the palate cleanser. The palate cleanser we have here is quite unique and it's oyster ice cream. Our pastry chef made up this one because one season we had a lot of functions and one day we had a lot of oysters left over from the function. We made a little challenge what to do with them and we came up with our oyster ice cream concept. It's weird but it's delicious. We mixed in some sea herbs for texture. And underneath we have some watermelon flavoured granita and some watermelon foam. So we play around with the textures and some skin of the watermelon to add a bit more texture into the dish.

And after that we have marron from West Australia and they are always on the menu in every season. This season we made tomato salad using three different tomatoes. Aroma, Roma and cherry tomatoes. But we cooked them three different ways. We have some dehydrated, some sun dried and some fresh. Then we dressed them with vinaigrette. We make a house made dashi vinaigrette then use the shell of the marron to make a beautiful shellfish oil. It is slow cooked for around four hours with a lot of mirepoix vegetables, slowly, slowly until the flavour comes out. Then we strain it and just pour the warm sauce over the marron. It's beautiful looking visually.

Then two main courses: duck, our signature 14 days dry aged served with some beetroot. Again, it's a western philosophy, but the duck is to die for. You cant beat our duck. Its so good. Then there is steak and we serve it with a seasonal garnish. This season we have some black garlic puree, some water celery. Again, it's a very unique vegetable, not many people are using water celery. It's in the celery family but lives underneath the water. It's sort of a forgotten vegetable, but it's very bitter. It's very classic to go with the beef flavour. These two just match very well. Then we have our own sauce for each dish: the beef with some teriyaki sauce, as a beef jus and the duck has a duck carcass with red wine reduction. So, two dishes using two different sauces.

Each dish is so labour intensive.

Yes. This is a small kitchen and we have around 4 full time staff members.

Is that all? To do all of that?

Yes. Each person is in charge of three dishes.

And how many diners can you serve at once?

At the moment, we only want to do maximum of 25 per day. I think that's what we can handle. We do five courses per person for $178 and seven courses is $228, which I think is a good price range.

Well there's a lot going on there, a lot of ingredients.

We are only using the best ingredients; tooth fish, marron, duck, steak, caviar, foie gras, fresh seafood every day. And six different canapes. Dessert is three petits fours. If you really count how much you eat, it's going to be around 20 different courses.

That's a lot of food.

It's a lot of food, but it's all small bites.

That's true. And you're here for the evening, aren't you? How do you put together a degustation menu and make sure that it's not too much or that it's balanced?

I think course by course we know from the light to the heavy and it depends on the customer. We have Asian customers who don't drink a lot, two glasses of sparkling water, maybe a mocktail. They want more food because without alcohol obviously they dont get as full. Then the portion size with alcohol, I think by the end of the meal they will be full.And don't forget, I havent mentioned the house-made miso brioche bread. Theres a lot going on. We bake our bread every single day, fresh before service and make the dough every single day as well. It keeps us busy from 1.00pm all the way to 11.00pm.

How many nights are you open?

Six days. Tuesday to Sunday.

And so you started your training here?

In Sydney. Yes. Back in Sydney since 2008.

And you are from Shanghai? When did you decide that you wanted to be a chef and why Australia?

That's a good question. I finished my university degree as an IT designer at 22, 23. I got a job in Shanghai and six months later I always wanted to go overseas to study a little bit so I went to a language school in Shanghai, and met a couple friends who asked me the same question, why do you want go to Australia? First because I wanted to be independent, back in Shanghai, you are looked after super well, I didnt have a casual job as a kid. I had never had any job before university. I had always told my mum I wanted to go somewhere. In high school, I had an opportunity to go to the UK. I got an offer from Manchester. But financially wise, for my parents it would be a bit of a struggle because back then it was not cheap.

So my plan was delayed all the way until after university. So I wanted to go to Australia because it's closer, and the weather's better. And I had a lot of high school friends actually moved here to study. So at least I knew someone in Sydney, I had someone to pick me up from the airport.

I said to my parents just give me 1000 bucks, pay the first semester school fees because I choose TAFE for commercial cookery. Then see how I can survive. I had no idea.

Did you cook at home?

Never.

Wow. That's a bold move.

Never, because like I said, in Shanghai, we were looked after so well. We had nannies, my grandmas, my parents basically cooking every day at home.

So what was that first day like?

Oh, that's a long story. $1,000 in my bank account. First week I was living in my friends house in Sydney, Rockdale one week, then I moved to the city. I was living in the living room paying something like $200 per week. I was in the city just behind the UTS. I still remember I was sharing with three people. I was in the living room, there was a little single bed and at night time, you can see the cockroaches just walk by you. I said to them, okay, I'm going to leave you alone. I'm not going to kill you. You do your life. Just leave me alone. And after that they actually went around me

The first day I moved to the city, I got a job from my roommate. He was working in an Italian restaurant in Paddington, the best Italian restaurant back then called Lucios. Two hats. I had no idea. He just got promoted from kitchen hand to chef, so I went in as the kitchen hand. He drew me a picture of the kitchen, showed me how to use the dishwashers. He asked me if I knew how to use a dishwasher, I said No. I was there at 4.00 pm and started washing dishes for the first time in my life. I remember that day I finished at 1.00 am. I almost cried. I sat out on the stairs after putting out the bins and had a cigarette. I was very dirty. I was there for two months then I got promoted to chef. I was a quick learner. I was the fastest I think in the kitchen, and I stayed there for two years through larder, dessert, pasta, every single pasta they made in house.

Then I went to Icebergs. Lucios was better than Icebergs. Icebergs is famous for the view. But it's a nice kitchen, a huge kitchen. 20 chefs, back at Lucios there were only four like here, so you can learn everything. With 20 staff in the kitchen, you're doing your parsley chopping for the whole morning. I was still a student back then doing 20 hours a week: four day roster, five hours per day. I was leaving Hurstville, driving all the way to Bondi Beach. It took me over an hour in the morning. Beautiful place. Id see the sun rise every single morning because I'd be there at 8.00am after waking up at 6.00am and then Id finish around one, then drive back. It was a good experience.

What did you like about it? Because it sounds like it was hard work. What kept you there?

I think just making my own money, being independent. I didn't need to ask my parents for anything. I was paying everything, paying my school fees, I got an apartment in the third year and three or four years after I bought another apartment.

Why didn't you pursue IT?

I didn't see it as really fitting me. Because I was active. I didn't see myself sitting at the computer the whole day long. I could see that I would want to quit at the end of the day. But hospitality, when you are really passionate about it, of course you feel tired, but back then I was 20-something, full of energy. Even if you are working 12 hours, 14 hours straight without any break, without any meal, you're very exhausted. But the next day you wake up, you're still fresh, you just pursue the goal.

I didnt stay long at Icebergs, just six months. Then I left there and worked in sme smaller restaurants in Darling Harbour. I worked atDezertz Brighton Le Sands, a Greek restaurant. I was casual for almost 10 years in that restaurant because I really liked the food. The bosses trained me very well. I had a full-time job somewhere and I lived in Rockdale, so it was very close. So I was just there two, three times a week. By the end I was the head chef there. That was my first head chef job. It was a small kitchen with only three chefs. On Sundays you only had one chef doing 250 covers by yourself.

How do you do that?

Magical. But you just do it. You get used to the menu. It's very traditional. Everything was made in house, very small kitchen, small restaurant, 50 covers. But people came and went all day in summer, next to the beach. Then I went to Merivale. Merivale actually sponsored my Visa. I stayed at Merivale for seven years. I got my PR from Merivale, from CDP all the way to when I left I was the head chef of the Grand Hotel in Georgia Street. I was the sous chef for Esta for almost four, five years. So I know Dan Hong very well. They actually wanted me to go to Mr. Wong, but I'm Chinese, I wanted to go western. Maybe I shouldn't have. Everybody I knew back then was a head chef somewhere.

So that was the Sydney time. Then after I got my PR, I did another two years at Merivale. I think seven years is enough. I went to five star hotel on Darling Harbour, the Hyatt Regency. I did around three years as chef de cuisine there. I was in charge of all the restaurants, all day dining, including breakfast, lunch and dinner operation. Hotel chefs and restaurant chefs are totally different: the philosophy, the timing is different. I think it is most important as a chef to get timing right. It doesn't matter whether you do a brunch cafe or you're doing a la carte, or fine dining or you're doing like we did in a hotel every day, breakfast, 700 people minimum with four chefs. Sometimes we would have 1400, 1200 for breakfast. The Hyatt Regency was the biggest hotel in Australia back then: 905 rooms.

How do you do that many with four chefs?

You have to be organised. It's a buffet style. 80% of the food is ready by 5.45am. Again, it's the timing. And thenyou are organised. We had some runners to help refill the buffet. I was just running around making sure everything is topped up and nice and tidy. I learned a lot of big scale catering: dinner for 600, 800 covers, three courses, five courses, weddings, and all that. I did three years there.

Then I met Christine, who is my partner now. In 2018 we opened a restaurant in Shanghai together. She's also from Shanghai. We opened a restaurant in Shanghai which was really successful: Thomas Train, which was a kids cafe. Then in 2019 we opened Akaiito and then Covid. Unfortunately, the Shanghai restaurant closed in 2023 because of Covid. No one's sending kids to that kind of environment anymore. It has changed over the last five years. I've changed as well, my philosophy and vision too and I think my management skills are much better. I have more understanding about the staff from that perspective to think about it any problems and what we should do for the next move.

The whole journey is I would say 40% self-taught, eating out a lot, and tasting a lot with Christine. She's a great cook, always thinking about how we can improve. Thats it. That leads me to now, 2024.

It is going quickly, isn't it? On your days off, do you cook?

Honestly, not really, no. Because Christine is a great cook. She cooks all the family meals at home. Even when we finish 11 o'clock, she can finish everything in 15 minutes; three, four dishes. I can't do that. And she doesnt allow me to cook. I have to do a mise en place for one hour, et everything nice and organised, all the chopping containers – 12 containers – then start cooking for half an hour. Then I don't like washing, I'm very clear on that. So she said Stop.

Perfect. And just to finish off with then, because you've had all these great experiences, what would your advice be to a young chef who's starting out?

Depends which year you're starting. If youre a teenager, we have two apprentices, who are 18 years old. My suggestion is put your head down, learn all the basics. That's super important for every beginner because these days, everybody is trying to be a master chef so quickly. But back then, the only way to learn a new recipe was to walk in the kitchens. These days everything's online, but without the solid foundation of cooking techniques, you can't build up, even though I could give you a head chef job, you're going to crack in two, three months, because you can't handle that pressure. So for any young chef who wants to pursue this career, I think the first four years, put your head down, learn all the techniques. When you reach CdP level, then you can question things. At the beginning, don't question. If they give you a recipe, there must be a reason for it. Don't always ask, why, why, why? Just go ahead and do it. Until one day you feel like, okay, I have really mastered this skillset. Then you start questioning. Because that will become your style. Because we are all doing the same, even at school, they teach a recipe. They want you to learn to copy. So if you do this dish 1000 times, to make it your own dish, then you can pour your own signature or character into it. Then it becomes your dish. Before then, it is somebody elses dish. That's why in a lot of restaurants, everybody is doing the same things. Beef tartare, everybody is doing beef tartare. It doesn't matter if it is Korean style, or Japanese style. You want to be unique so straightaway people can see its your dish, thats Winstons dish. It's not everybody elses. It's hard to get to that level.

Akaiito, 340-351 Flinders Lane, Melbourne