Johanne Siy, named Asia’s Best Female Chef 2023 by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants, has come a long way since her marketing days – but her culinary journey and her affinity for food started long before her corporate career.
“I grew up about five minutes from the beach, so where I’m from is a seafood town. It is very close to my heart,” she recalls.
“We have to cross a bridge to get to the beach and, on that bridge, there will be a lot of fisher folks selling oysters by the bushel. The moment you approach that bridge, you can smell the brininess of the sea, and that aroma stuck with me.”
“Johanne and I have known each other for years and, after a five-day culinary retreat at Shishi-Iwa House in Karuizawa, Japan, last October, where we visited local farmers and food producers and collaborated on a one-off menu, we decided we needed to do a collaboration and cook together once more,” says Chaneton.
Siy’s first career of choice was a lot more pragmatic. “I double majored in business management and accounting in university and was scouted by P&G [consumer goods company Proctor and Gamble] before I graduated.”
How Asia’s Best Female Chef Johanne Siy flies the flag for Filipino cuisine
How Asia’s Best Female Chef Johanne Siy flies the flag for Filipino cuisine
“I was doing branding and marketing for the laundry department. I was going back every now and then to talk to women in their homes, to talk about what role the detergent plays in their life and other things marketers are interested in,” she recalls.
It was through these home visits that the chef rekindled her passion for food and cooking.
“It dawned on me that there are certain things that mums do for their families that are an expression of love. They express their love to their kids and husbands through cooking and what they put on the table. It made me realise how much more meaningful of an act cooking is,” Siy says.
Siy hit the ground running when she came to this realisation in her late twenties. She moved to New York to study at the Culinary Institute of America and made it her mission to work with the best names in the industry, such as Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert.
Noma chef Rene Redzepi’s cookbook explores the fermentation trend
Noma chef Rene Redzepi’s cookbook explores the fermentation trend
“It’s very simple cuisine at Relae. Sometimes they would just steam vegetables but we did a lot of work with the ingredients,” explains Siy. “They actually grow what they serve.
“We would get up at 5am to go to the farm to harvest the produce, then wash and clean it all so we can start prep work for dinner service by 2pm.”
While Siy and Chaneton are still working on finalising the menu for the February event, a version of one of the signature dishes at Lolla could make an appearance – smoked eel consommé gel housed in avocado and served with coconut-milk-spiked ponzu.
If it was not for her time at Restaurant Relae, Siy said that this dish would have never come about.
“It’s very hard to get the perfect avocado. The timing has to be perfect or the texture is either too hard or mushy. I was also trying to elevate something that people see every day on brunch menus everywhere.
“So for the longest time, I was just staring at the avocado, trying to see what else can I do that had not been done before. It was so frustrating, I almost gave up.”
Not only has Siy figured out how to manage the consistency of the avocado, she also uses it as a vol-au-vent-like casing to hold the smoked eel consommé, giving a unique texture for diners to experience.
For the collaboration, Siy says Hongkongers will see a unique menu.
“We wanted to be ambitious and we’re collaborating on all the dishes. Even the dishes that I’m taking the lead on, he had a bit of input and vice versa. We are highlighting the flavours that we wanted to bring forth for the menu.”
