Welcome to the newest edition of Electric Connections, an update sent to you as one of the valued partners of the Global Cooksafe Coalition. Take a look at what we’ve been up to these past few months!
Our newest chef ambassador
Chet Sharma is an English chef with a lifelong love of Indian cuisine. Early in his career, he staged at restaurants including Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and The Hand and Flowers. While at Oxford studying for a PhD in Physics, he met chef Ollie Dabbous who introduced him to Spain’s two Michelin starred Mugaritz, where he worked for nine months. He later returned to the UK to head R&D for acclaimed chef (and fellow GCC chef ambassador) Simon Rogan, and was involved in the development of Mark Birchall’s Moor Hall.
In 2021, Chet’s celebrated London restaurant Bibi opened, focusing on sustainable, locally sourced ingredients with recipes inspired by his family’s farm in northern India. Bibi also has a strong commitment to sustainability, using every part of each ingredient to minimise waste.
Welcome to the Coalition to Chet!
Watch our chefs in action in our new video series!
We’ve been busy in the last few months filming some of our incredible chef ambassadors from around the world cooking up incredible dishes on induction. From Santiago Lastra making his unique take on sope in his kitchen at KOL in London to Victor Liong of Lee Ho Fook at home in Melbourne, dishing up childhood favorites on an induction wok.
We can’t wait for you to see the rest of the series, featuring Manpreet Sekhon, Ping Coombes, Rodney Dunn, Ellen Chew and many more. Make sure to follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube to catch all of them and please share the videos to spread our message far and wide!
A few behind the scenes photos from our shoots with Rodney Dunn at Agrarian Kitchen in Tasmania and Ellen Chew at her restaurant Singapulah in London’s Chinatown.
A London event with Ellen Chew
In early February, the our ambassador Ellen Chew’s Singapulah group and Shaftesbury Capital co-hosted a meeting of chefs and restaurant owners at Singapulah in London’s Chinatown. The event was a smashing success! Attended by chefs and restaurant owners from across London, it provided space to discuss the practicalities of making the switch to electric–a complicated prospect for many business owners. The day included a tour of Singapulah’s beautiful all-electric kitchen and cooking demonstrations on their state-of-the-art induction woks. Participants discussed the costs, infrastructure implications and operational aspects of making the switch to an all electric kitchen, as well as other barriers, challenges and solutions. We’re looking forward to hosting more practical events like this soon!
Sizzling demos at the Commercial Kitchen Showcase
In February and March, the ACT government held a month-long event in Canberra to help prepare the hospitality industry for the transition to electric cooking. They provided a test kitchen where chefs could come try out cooking on induction stoves, and held professional demonstrations and talks with experts for anyone in the hospitality community, from restaurant owners to chefs.
Our chef ambassador and consultant Luke Burgess was one of the chefs who gave a demonstration, and gave us the inside scoop on what to see at the showcase. We’re looking forward to more updates from Luke on this successful event soon on our Instagram and LinkedIn.
