James Brennan Interviews Scott Price, new Executive Chef, Verre by Gordon Ramsay, Dubai

Of all the f-words running through Scott Price’s mind as he relaunches Verre by Gordon Ramsay in Dubai, fear won’t be one of them. After the annus horribilis suffered by his boss in 2009, getting the former award-winning restaurant up and running again after a three-month layoff for refurbishment may well engender the occasional expletive. But as the 29-year-old new executive chef revealed just over a month into Verre’s new lease of life, he’s up for the challenge.

JB: How’s the relaunch going?

SP: It’s going good. We’re just about where we want to be now. The menu’s been evolving since we got here. It’s all about getting your head around the suppliers, and all the different ways of Dubai. I’ve got a good team in there now, and we’ve settled down.

So the way Dubai works is something of a culture shock for a chef from England?

Well, I was at Claridges, and that’s smack bang in the middle (of London), so if you forget to order something the night before or you run out of something, you’re on the phone at ten o’clock in the morning and it’ll be there by twelve. You do it without thinking. Now, all of a sudden, you have to be five days ahead of yourself, every day and every week.

Has the volcano crisis affected what produce is available to you?

If you’d asked me that half an hour ago, I’d have said no, but the guys have just told me now that some of the European produce is not available. Apparently there’s 250 tons of stuff just waiting at the airport and they can’t ship it. It’s even affected local supermarkets here, so I said to our guys go out and get some herbs or whatever – go out and get them before they’re all gone.

I suppose your guests will be understanding about that?

I hope so!

If you have to fall back on the produce from the local market, what’s the difference in quality? Do you have to change the menu?

If something’s not available, it’s not available. We’d never try to pass off something as an item that we just haven’t got. We run specials daily to try and use the things we have, but it’s just a case of changing things to a different dish, really.

So, you improvise…?

Absolutely, it’s all fresh and natural produce, so if you can’t get it you can’t get it. People understand that – I hope! We’d never send out substandard produce, or anything like that. It’s always got to be top-class or we wouldn’t do it. Whatever we do, we’ll do it nicely. If we have to take a dish off, that’s what we’ll do.

Volcanos aside, how are things progressing now?

Good. We’re settling now. It was a bit of a rush when we got here, because I had literally one day off and I was straight in the restaurant. We had to launch pretty much straight away, I had to get the team together, the organising, the ordering… So, it was straight into it, more or less. But it’s starting to level out now.

Verre reopened about a month ago, and you’ve already had some mixed reviews. Was it reviewed too soon?

It was the first week. I know Time Out came and I spoke to them and they were really nice about it, and promised to re-review the restaurant. Not that there was anything wrong with what we were doing, but it was really early and we were just trying to settle into the menus. It’s difficult to find out exactly what you want and how to get it, and since everything seems to take so much time over here… Hopefully when (Time Out) come back they’ll change their minds.

Do you find that it’s a different approach here than in London when it comes to reviews? I’m sure there you wouldn’t get somebody in to review a place on the opening week?

To be honest about it, this is my first head chef’s job and I don’t really know. I read AA Gill’s review of Petrus the other day, because I was part of the menu opening team for that before I came here, and he wasn’t very nice about anything. And it had only been open a couple of weeks. But whether you’re a reviewer or a critic, I want you to leave the restaurant happy.

Scott Price

You say this is your first head chef role, but you’ve been with Gordon Ramsay a while now…

It was six years last week – not that I’m counting (laughs). I’ve done five years at Claridges, more or less full on, then about four months at Hospital Road, then I came away from there and got involved with the opening of Petrus, but the opening was delayed by six or seven months. It opened last month. It was supposed to open in August last year, and when it came to December time, this job (at Verre) came up. It was snowing in London, freezing cold… Gordon said he’d be happy to let me go, so…

So this job was something you’d spotted that had become available and you went for it?

Well, Mark Askew, Gordon’s number two, said to me there’s a job going, would you be interested? I said, yeah, if I can go and have a look. So I came over for a few days, the sun was shining and that’s it. It’s a different lifestyle here and I’ve worked in London, so… There’s such a mix of cultures here compared to Europe, and it’s good to be in a central hub of the whole world as opposed to a just hub of Europe. It’s nice, the culture’s really different and I enjoy it. I miss cold tap water, but apart from that it’s great.

Of course both Jason Atherton and Angela Hartnett were instrumental in making this restaurant a big success...

Absolutely, and you can see what they’d done for years before, it must have been a hell of a lot of hard work. There must have been so much to sort out here to get it off the ground. It’s still hard now, keeping the standard, but ten years ago when there wasn’t much happening here, it was all new and there weren’t as many suppliers.

Back then it was the first big-name restaurant here, but so much has happened since then with lots of big names opening…

Gordon was always winding me up about it before I left, saying I want to see awards when I come over. But there’s a lot of competition now.

New Chef Scott Price

No pressure, then?

Ha ha, yeah. No, he loves it. But there’s a lot more competition now. That makes people more discerning about what they’re eating. Now you’ve got Pierre Gagnaire, Gary Rhodes, Nobu, Zuma… all these great restaurants. It means that you have to raise your game and and keep yourself on your toes, which is great.

Gordon Ramsay had a tough year, what’s it been like working for him in that time?

Erm, I mean, obviously it wasn’t great. But, in Britain we didn’t close any restaurants, which is great. The consultancies outside Britain that weren’t making any money… Well, you know, everybody trimmed up last year. You’ve got to make sacrifices for your business. But I’m not Gordon so I can’t really say much about the ins and outs of everything. But choices had to be made.

What about Gordon himself, because he said, and I quote, “I was a crazy f***ing psycho”?

That sounds like something he’d say. He’s definitely calmed down a lot, and he’s much more business minded. If you look at what he is now compared to ten years ago, it’s incredible. He was just a chef, and now… for anybody to get their head around it is hard,  especially being in the media every day. I admire the way he handled it. I mean, he gives as much as he gets – don’t get me wrong – but he’s a great guy to work for. He’s full of energy and he always wants to help you and push things forward to make sure things are as good as they can be. He’s a really great guy to work for.

I think, by his own admission, he expanded too much too quickly and spread himself too thinly.

Yeah, but the point it he knows he’s done that, so he’s making changes, I suppose.

How often does he plan to come to Verre? Certainly last year, I don’t think he was around much.

I know he’s coming soonish – I think after the summer – but I’m not exactly sure when.

Does he let you know in good time?

I hope so! That’s the good thing about not being in the centre of London, because he just turns up at any time of day without warning. At least now I know he’s five thousand miles away! But I like it when Gordon’s here. That’s why I went to work for him, I enjoy it. I’m not fearful or scared, he’s a great guy to learn from. If he was here every day I’d enjoy it, because I enjoy the pressure. It makes things better, it makes sure you’re on the ball.

Is he anything like the man we see on TV?

No, he’s helped me out with so many things outside of the kitchen. I had problems with my knee a couple of years ago and he really helped me out with that – and he didn’t have to. Somebody just mentioned it to him and he sent me to his physiotherapist. It really just shows you what kind of guy he really is, the kind of guy that doesn’t come across on TV. That’s a shame, because he’s got a great family and he’s a great guy to work for.

How do you feel about reviving Verre’s fortunes?

I think it’s always been a successful restaurant, but it’s less of a stand-alone restaurant now because of all the other great restaurants opening up in Dubai. But I want Verre to be as good as it can be, and to win awards and keep being busy and successful. We’ve got different things here now, we have a meeting room, a private dining room as well, and the chef’s table, which we’re going to launch next month. It’s going to be a lot more interactive with the guests, I’m looking to get out there and talk to people – give them a really good night to remember, hopefully.

And what about the menu?

We changed the whole menu initially – apart from the minestrone, which looking at the old menus has been there since it opened. It’s really nice and people might get upset if we take it off. We’re going through our suppliers, and we’ve got things like the farmer’s markets opening now (in Dubai), so that will give us a better chance to do what we’ve been doing in Europe with fresh seasonal vegetables that hadn’t been on the menu before. It’s about trying to source them.

So, locally grown produce, in Dubai?

Yes, I do actually think it’s possible.  The bigger Dubai gets, and the more chefs from all over the world that come here… there’s definitely a market for locally grown produce. It’s important to chefs where they get things from, and it’d be a lot nicer if we didn’t have to get things from Europe.

So then the volcano could do its worst…

Yeah, and we’d be alright. It’s always great to use local produce but it’s about making people aware of it and to realise the importance of it.

James Brennan

The Dubai Guzzler – www.duguzzle.blogspot.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Interviews, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.