Yes, Chef! Raul Tronco Calahorra, Executive Chef of Ovolo Hotels Hong Kong

Asia is one food-crazy continent! We take great care to pick restaurants based on culinary vibes, rankings on international gourmand guides, mentions in magazines, Instagrammability, and added hunger. Yes, Chef! features the region’s chefs' stories of love and labour in kitchens that has made some of our restaurants the next big thing in Asia.

Chef Raul Calahorra has cooked European food in Spain, Italian food in London, tapas in Mexico, international in Jamaica, and now Mediterranean and Indian in Hong Kong. The Spaniard now resides full time in the 852, where he commands food and beverage at Ovolo Hotel.

Trading Michelin-starred restaurants for the Hong Kong brand, in his role as Executive Chef, Raul brings his connection with Rastafarian culture to a hotel chain that forgoes meat and additives in exchange for love and flavourful vegetarian food.

Joining in the summer of 2020, Raul has elevated Indian restaurant VEDA to stand as a reference for what a vegetarian restaurant should offer and be, and reopened Komune in Wong Chuk Hang to further disseminate good-loving veggie meals. He speaks with The Beat Asia about his comical journey of two decades in F&B.

Do you share the same love for food as you do for rock climbing and scuba diving? Why enter a career in F&B?

Yes. I remembered I was 13 years old, and I told my mom I wanted to be a chef and make my career out of it. She asked, "You want to work a lot, spend long hours, sacrifice a lot, not see your friends, and have no life.” I said yes, it’s good money.

When I was 19, I didn't know what to do after I finished school, which I hated, either become a chef or DJ. My ex-girlfriend at the time pushed me to become a chef. I attended a culinary school in Madrid and trained for two years before my first job.

What was your first job in the kitchen like?

I found a cooking job at a European restaurant, experimenting with Asian flavours, from my teacher at school with his brother.

I will always remember my first service. I firstly destroyed my hand grabbing a 250-degrees-hot pan and it totally destroyed by hand!

At the time, I had one of the best grades in school, I felt like a rockstar. You do you first service and feel so small. When you're in Spain working kitchens, there is no respect for anyone. You grind, it’s like an army.

Is that why you left Spain to cook abroad in London, Mexico and then Jamaica?

No, in my entire life I felt like I [wanted] to leave my family and live on my own, to pursue my career. At 29, I travelled to cook at a contemporary venue in London. Years later, an opportunity came up to travel to Mexico to work at a big hotel resort.

This tenure was a different experience. Until then, I was working in a restaurant. Mexico was not of my comfort zone because I could speak Spanish, but it was a totally different role. I trained and managed 130 chefs as a secretary sous chef at the Grand Hotel directing the food and beverage offerings.

A year in I got a call from my culinary director to work at a resort in Jamaica, a new challenge and learning for me. There, I had to self-learn English to communicate with the local staff.

How did Jamaica change your future as a chef, relationship with food, and creating vegetarian cuisine?

In Jamaica, I started learning English through reggae music, and understood the beauty of life, feeling good, and eating good. My love for Rastafarian culture and eating persuaded me to turn vegetarian, appreciate a connection with Mother Earth.

Being vegetarian was also for me to understand a little bit more the culture and about the people.

Everything that we touch comes from the earth. Everything that we use in our daily basis comes from the earth, so why not celebrate it?

I landed in Hong Kong where I spoke better English and had bigger dreams. I connected with my best friend who was working for Zuma as Executive Chef for Asia in Hong Kong, and connected me with Edgar Barahona, culinary director at Epicurean Concepts, who was scouting for a Spanish chef to open a restaurant, later called Pica Pica.

What was your mission with opening Pica Pica?

The vision was to bring authentic Spanish food to Hong Kong, shying away from using any local ingredients because you want to please locals. It was not accessible; this was something you could find in Spain, and we brought it to Hong Kong, period. This was the mission that Edgar and I shared.

It was the best Spanish restaurant at the time in Hong Kong, however, when I left to work with Ovolo Hotels in 2020, I felt more comfortable as a vegetarian chef in a restaurant.

Joining Ovolo Hotels as Executive Chef, what connected you with the owner’s Girish Jhunjhnuwala approach to introduce strictly vegetarian food in the hotels’ restaurants?

The challenge of it. The hardest thing I did in my life was opening Komune in Ovolo Southside in Wong Chuk Hang, creating a menu without animal protein, and introducing vegetarian food to Hong Kongers.

I told myself, I'm going to create a menu where non-vegetarian people will come and know will be is tasty, choose food that they won’t even notice has no meat. Komune had a freestyle, Mediterranean, Tex-Mex-style. VEDA has a continent-wide Indian menu with no meat proteins.

I am a big believer in vegetables, creating flavours that hold meaty, fishy aroma and tastes. We don't need to use alternative meat. This is what Ovolo promotes.

What is the hope that your work at Ovolo can propel momentum for more vegetarian eating in Hong Kong?

I think somehow it started already. At the end of the day, it's not about saving the planet, but about becoming more conscious about what we are eating.

The importance of vegetarian is your health, because there is a belief that you need to take care of yourself first. And if you take care of yourself first, you take care of what is around you.

If you love yourself first, then you can get into a relationship and find a partner on your journey.

I really hope that Hong Kong will become a more environmentally friendly city. It starts with this. Eating vegetables and taking care of yourself and the planet at the same time.

Thank you for your words and story Raul.

My pleasure Rubin, stay safe.

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