CHEF
about
Global Culinary Odyssey
Gabriel’s interest in cooking started when he was very young. He would spend time after school in the kitchen watching his mum preparing meals for his family.
He started experimenting different cuisines on his own about 10 years ago. He would watch cooking shows, read cook books and also patronize restaurants with good food reviews. And when he travels, he would dine in different restaurants to try different way of cooking by renowned Chefs, in particular restaurants in Europe, US and Japan.
He fell in love with Italian cuisine due to its simplicity and the genuine flavor from the fresh seasonal ingredients. He also finds the harmonization of different flavors and textures, simply authentically amazing. As he continues to experiment, he starts to develop his own cooking style and create his own dishes.
Encouragingly, he received many compliments from friends whom he hosted at home for festive meals. This, together with his passion in continuing experimenting and creating new dishes, have led him into pursuing Cuoco (Chef) Certificate from Chef Academy in Terni Italy in Feb 2014, followed by an internship at Kingham Plough, an Award Winning English Fine Dining GastroPub in Oxfordshire village of Kingham, England.
He was very impressed with Chef Academy’s educators and their strong passions in both cooking and teaching. Everyone brings with them very different and unique style of cooking techniques as well as plating their dishes. Their abundant knowledge and experience in the culinary industry have greatly exposed him to so many different aspects of culinary.
Gabriel’s internship at Kingham Plough was very insightful and practical, under the guidance of Executive Chef Emily Watkins and Head Chef Ben Duller. He learnt so much within the 3 months from all the chefs, this is also where he started to realize that Chef profession is a really tough career to pursue, unless you have very strong passion.
Upon his return, he started operating and hosting private degustation dinners with wine pairing at his own home in Singapore in Aug 2014, which was a fairly new concept during that time. In the meantime, he also took the opportunity to work as CDP at Forlino (an Italian Fine Dining Restaurant in Singapore) in Nov 2014 for 12 months to hone his skills, while he continues to operate his private dining service.
It is from this private dining business that he had established a loyal group of customers who enjoyed his creations. Due to space constraint at home, he was only able to accommodate up to six pax at any given time. As the demand to host larger group increases, he decided to further live his dream by setting up a physical restaurant, 8picure which offers similar cosy and relaxed ambience like his home while providing tasty dishes and joy to his guests.
