Weldie has become well-known for his inventive take on Japanese omakase fused with local ingredients and flavours. — Filepic
Slowly, this perception has changed of course. The advent of reality television and cooking shows like MasterChef have given rise to the notion that being a chef is a glamorous pursuit that requires intelligence, creativity, a strong business mind and so much more (all completely true, by the way).
These days, even on the local front, there has been a growing appreciation for talented homegrown chefs – from fledgling young ‘uns to more established names who have set the blueprint for success on home ground.
But what does it really take to be a top chef in Malaysia? StarLifestyle speaks to Malaysian chefs who detail their journeys to the pinnacle and how they continue to strive for excellence.
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Jack Weldie is the chef-owner of acclaimed local restaurant Chipta11A, where he routinely prepares intricate Japanese meals interspersed with native ingredients and flavours.
Weldie (left) credits his wife Ong with being his support system and helping him weather the most turbulent storms in his career. — FilepicWeldie is regarded as one of the most talented chefs in the industry now and is widely respected. But his career trajectory has been steeped with challenge upon challenge.
Growing up in a poor family in Sabah, Weldie left Borneo right after his SPM because he had to find a job in Kuala Lumpur to help support his family. He also couldn’t speak English and had few career prospects.
“When I first came to KL, I had to look for work in a place where they didn’t speak too much English. So my brother helped me find a job in a Japanese restaurant in Subang Jaya, so that is how I started my career,” he says.
At the Japanese restaurant, Weldie started out by mopping the floors and doing basic things like peeling potatoes. He endured numerous taunts and scoldings and said he eventually learnt how to cook Japanese food by standing by the kitchen door and watching what the other chefs did.
After five years, the stress of working in a kitchen proved too much for Weldie so he went back to Sabah where he worked as a general cleaner in a hospital for a few months. Eventually he returned to KL and proved his detractors wrong when he became head chef of a Japanese restaurant at 24.
Weldie says he feels that he was given the responsibility way too young and it was something he couldn’t handle at that age.
“I think it was too soon for me to have that position, because I only knew so much and before that, I always had someone telling me what to do.
“And the way the previous chefs behaved influenced me a lot, so as head chef, I was like them – I was very strict and I was always scolding and shouting – even small things triggered me,” he says.
Dry-aged fish is what put Chipta11A on the Malaysian culinary map. — FilepicWeldie knew something had to give, so he quit the job and went to work in a café called Awesome Canteen, owned by Diane Ong. Ong is now Weldie’s wife and he credits her with being the support system he needed in order to become a better chef and person.
“My wife keeps pushing me – she is my support system and the reason for the positivity in my life, so I am very blessed to have her by my side. She gives me the courage to do a lot of things and opens my mind to see different things.
“I am not that strong without her, but together, we can achieve anything,” he says sweetly.
Weldie also says that going from a traditional Japanese restaurant to making café-style food was a huge challenge for him and it was Ong who taught him how to cook pasta and manage a restaurant properly.
In the next few years, the duo would find many challenges in their journey, including having to shutter a ramen shop that they opened (it only lasted nine months) as well as the Penang chapter of Awesome Canteen.
“I was managing three kitchens and all our staff came from zero culinary experience – many of them didn’t even know what onions and garlic were! So of course the consistency dropped – they were even serving customers food that had gone bad!
“I started scolding people again and I became very depressed. I didn’t want to go to work, I was trying to hide away from all my problems and I started to question if I was good enough. Diane helped bring me back on track and we closed the two new outlets because I couldn’t manage. I realised I had been too ambitious because I thought I knew everything and could do everything,” he says.
Once he set himself straight mentally, Weldie went on to open Chipta11A which has carved his name in the annals of the Malaysian food scene. He says his journey to getting to where he is has been tough, to say the least but he has learnt so much along the way.
“For me, the first thing that is very important is consistency and discipline – without discipline, you cannot have consistency,” he says.
Having learnt how to be a chef through the school of hard knocks and having experienced plenty of verbal abuse from senior chefs, Weldie now feels that it is important to nourish the people under him and grow their talents.
“For us to grow, we need to grow people as well. When people are growing in their careers, the F&B community grows too. So it is important to share information and teach younger chefs how to do things properly so they don’t go down the wrong path in this industry.
“I want to give them support, because I myself didn’t have it and I ended up growing as a chef in a very difficult way. So I can save these young chefs the trouble if I mentor them and show them there is a different way to doing things and it doesn’t have to be the hard way. These days, I don’t take mistakes that younger chefs make so personally and I find myself saying ‘It’s okay’ a lot” he says, laughing.
Weldie says the Malaysian food scene has grown tremendously since he first started and he prophesies that local chefs will be revolutionising the culinary landscape dramatically in the next few years.
“Today I see the number of local chefs in Malaysia and the kind of food that they are planning to do is very future-forward. So I think given another five years, we will be a gastronomic hotspot like Bangkok – we just need more of these talented young chefs,” he says.
