István Veres, Michelin-star chef: “I am a Szekler, I can do it”

“Since my parents are restaurateurs, I always wanted to be a chef myself. My father never really wanted me to work in the profession because he was only too aware of how much effort it involved. Even so, he often took me along with him to the kitchen when I was young. I always loved the buzz there, the head chef would regularly come to me to sample one or another dish and he would always ask my opinion. As if it mattered to anybody! What I saw from adults was an important example. My grandfather was a simple villager but extremely precise: every tool had to be in its rightful place, every time. I learnt a lot from him and from my father. And mainly when my parents opened their own restaurant, Vadrózsáka, and I was able to work there as a trainee. These impressions remain vivid for me and even today I serve on plates what I remember from my childhood.”

Then for a time you travelled a long way from the security of home.
“I attended university in Bucharest then after several attempts I was taken on to a prestigious Parisian culinary school, to which my father saw me off with the admonition that I should take seriously what I am doing. I was smart enough to heed this, so much so that after the exams each chef was assigned a restaurant based on abilities, but I was offered the choice of any of them. I picked the Michelin three-star L’Arpège run by Alain Passard. It was really hard work. Not many can bear it for much more than two months, but I worked there for 18 months doing 16-18 hours a day.”

I suppose that your Szekler mentality had something to do with the fact that you could bear the strain.
“Szeklers are stubborn and persistent. I frequently returned home in the evening after work with tears in my eyes. They treated us like animals. The French don’t really pay attention to foreigners, a non-Frenchman or woman has to work two or three times harder to be noticed.

“It is the most difficult thing in the world to stand one’s own ground in a French kitchen, amongst French staff. However, I kept repeating to myself: ‘I am a Szekler, I can do it’. That helped.

“Perfectionism is my other typical characteristic. If I make a mistake with something, I have to fix it. They won’t accept you if you make a mistake in a Michelin 3-star establishment.”

But that’s not quite true. One of your mistakes has been on the menu ever since.
“Ah, that’s true… One time I accidentally poured oyster sauce over the lamb instead of the original gravy. What is more, precisely for a regular guest who ate that very dish every week for 20 years. And he liked the taste! So much so, in fact, that this variation has been on offer ever since. That said, the sous chef almost tore me to shreds when he found out what had happened. Please believe me when I say I was very sorry, even if the guest loved it. In places like this, if they don’t say anything that is praise, but if a comment is made, then there’s trouble in store. It doesn’t matter that I made something that has stayed on the menu, I was still very angry with myself.”

Image

Photo: Antonio Fekete

Didn’t you miss some sort of acknowledgment?
“I don’t get much praise from anyone anywhere! But it is not important what they think of me. If I have made something well then I know it and this is sufficient. It often happened that a guest was satisfied yet I myself knew that something was missing from the dish. And vice versa. Once a guest said of my dessert that it wasn’t to his taste because it contained garlic. I took his opinion on board, yet it remains the dessert of my life, no matter what anyone says.”

In your heart of hearts, what praise do you most value?
“Praise from my parents. The Michelin star brought them great joy. Perhaps there is no greater sense of happiness than when your own child is able to attain greater success than you did in the same profession. Deep in my heart I would like it if one day, if I have a child, that he/she should also take this forward and become a chef. This is my dream.”

After L’Arpege, you mostly worked in Michelin starred restaurants, and all of them abroad.
“Then came Dublin, Reading and in London the Gordon Ramsay restaurant. After that I returned home and to relax I worked with my parents for two months. At that time I didn’t really want to go abroad, I preferred to stay close to my home. This is another reason I thought of Hungary because it allowed me to return home more often. My sister works in Budapest, I visited her and I reckoned that this was the place for me. Unfortunately, even now I don’t often get time to go back to Kézdivásárhely; it is as if I lived further away. Now I’m also thinking about going home.”

There’s a huge difference between a 1000-person banquet and the fine dining of top restaurants. Do you also have creative ideas for your traditional stuffed cabbage recipe?

“I cook stuffed cabbage as it should be cooked. Many chefs rethink traditional dishes. I don’t believe they need to be reworked because they are fine as they are, it’s no accident that they have been cooked in the same way since time immemorial.

“I like to create totally new dishes, which is why I don’t make fine dining out of stuffed cabbage. In fact, I’m not a great fan of the expression anyway, I much prefer to use fun dining instead. I love being in an interaction with guests, meanwhile observing their faces. Occasionally, vermicelli from smoked celeriac made using a specialized noodle press are pushed out into guests’ soup at the table. Foreigners always liked it that this apparatus is only found here at home, and the fact that I used the same thing when helping my grandmother in the kitchen. I like giving them something to do; for example, crumbling up the green herbs frozen at minus 200 degrees in order to sprinkle them over their sorbet.”

The meeting between creator and recipient sounds as though it could be exciting.
“In France I never met the guests, it was out of the question as a junior sous chef. Here at home, however, as a chef, I could do it. I precisely wrote down everything that a waiter/waitress had to know about each dish and they told the guests accordingly. But after ten courses and dining for three to four hours, many are interested in who prepared their dinner so I often went out myself to chat to guests.”

Image

Photo: Antonio Fekete

Where does the inspiration come from to create new dishes?
“I am mainly inspired by my memories, French, Hungarian, Transylvanian and Romanian cuisine. I visited the forest a lot, I collected various roots, Transylvanian herbal grasses, pine, all raw ingredients they used to cook with long ago. The old Transylvanian recipes used marvellous ingredients and then came communism and this snuffed everything out. The pig and the chicken replaced the pigeon and pullet while the rest sank into oblivion. Now, the old ingredients and techniques are making a return to fine dining, with Michelin starred restaurants trying to work with them. Long ago they used to put the meat under the saddle, keeping it at 60-70 degrees all day long, then they ate it in the evening. These days the ancient ways are being brought back: fermentation, preserving. But the past and the future meet in other ways as well: at L’Arpege, they use plenty of vegetables grown in their own garden. They teach one to respect vegetables and nothing is allowed to be thrown out.

“That is, I saw in a top restaurant the same thing I saw at home, in my childhood: we have to work for vegetables, and therefore we have to appreciate every part of them.

“The root, the stem and the peel, all can be used. Let’s take mashed potato as an example! I make jacket potatoes and then I take out the inside and mash it. I return the ‘jacket’ to the oven to dry and then I put it through a coffee grinder and add it to the mashed potato. I don’t like over-spicing things, I think lamb should taste of lamb, potatoes of potato. But let’s add here that a dish only becomes truly tasty when it is made with heart and soul.”

I suppose that in the kitchen the chef is at the same time the boss.
“This is how it has to work because he/she knows how things go. Everyone has to pull together, not going in three or four different directions. The best teamwork is when everyone does what I tell them (laughs).”

What challenges do you face in your profession?
“I would like to progress to the Lyon final postponed to next June, after which I’d certainly like to continue working in a restaurant. Retreat is my goal, Western Europe no longer attracts me. In the longer term, I’d like a Michelin starred restaurant.

“I’ve heard opinions suggesting that fine dining is just fiddling about, it’s no big deal catering for just thirty people. I’ve cooked for a thousand people before. Let me tell you that the former is far harder than the latter.”

Did it ever occur to you to represent Romania at the Bocuse d’Or competition?
“Romania doesn’t participate. But even if it did, I still feel that I belong to Hungary to such an extent that I would compete under the red, white and green colours anyway. In Paris, I didn’t hear a word of Hungarian for a long time, but when finally I caught some conversation in Hungarian on the metro, tears sprang to my eyes. Kézdivásárhely is the most Hungarian of towns. Anyone who is Romanian there also speaks fluent Hungarian. The truth is, I never came across hatred between Szeklers and Romanians, even in Bucharest. Perhaps because I never looked for it. I was raised at home to accept everyone.”

If you cook for yourself, what do you prepare?
“I never cook for myself. I live alone and although I have a kitchen, I don’t use it. I eat tons of fruit, my fridge is full of it.”

What would you most like to eat at this moment?
“My favourite is my mother’s paprika chicken. With polenta and cucumber salad, that’s what I like most. When I go home, that’s what I always have. And you know what’s funny here? I tried to make it but mine was just not quite the same…”