CHEF TETSUYA WAKUDA / A New Classic Twist

“What makes me happy? I love fishing. The night before any fishing trips, I’d be too excited to sleep! I’d think about what equipment to bring, what rods to use, etc. I also buy a lot of unnecessary things to support this hobby.

Like fishing, the biggest joy I get from cooking is when I’m conceptualising a dish. Thinking about it makes me excited and fills me with a kind of creative energy that makes me feel alive. I’d play out the steps of making the dish in my head and, at the same time, think about the ingredients to use. And, when I finally make the dish and it turns out better than expected, I’m happy.

This dish is classic but done my way. It takes its inspiration from the lobster thermidor with a base sauce containing some mustard. The lobster meat is grilled and then mixed with the sauce. I layer the flesh over a poached egg yolk on top of a bed of rocket leaves and wakame. Next, I drizzle the dish with a sauce made from lobster stock and a few drops of soy sauce. Finally, shaved white truffles go on top of the entire dish.

When I create a dish, it’s the ingredient that is the most important. I love exploring markets – big or small – as it’s ultimately about the ingredient. This dish uses lobster because, when cooked, it has the festive colours Japanese associate with the new year – red and white. Another reason I chose lobster is that lobster is very popular with our customers at Waku Ghin. That, and abalone and caviar. I think the restaurant is the biggest consumer of caviar – we go through about 100kg of it a year!

(Text Deborah Tan Photography Raymond Toh/Vineyard Production)