Top row (L-R): chef Manish Gajra and head chef Sumantha Roy. Bottom row (L-R): sous chef Sandesh Bodke, Andre Gerschel, and pastry chef Aaliyah Randeree.
Shifting gears to find out more about Baker & Spice’s new custodian, Caterer learns that the New Yorker has lived in Dubai for six years but has travelled extensively.
“I followed my stomach; the great thing about the hospitality industry is you can move pretty much anywhere,” Gerschel remarks, adding that it was also “the pace and the intensity” that attracted him to this industry.
Continuing, he asserts: “You’ll never be hungry, lonely or bored [working in the hospitality industry]”.
Identifying as a chef, with the training to back it up, and now being a director of operations, Gerschel’s breadth of experience is helpful when it comes to understanding his staff and knowing how to get the best out of his team, and he’s as passionate about this topic as he is about the quality of the organic dishes.
“I started as a dishwasher and that makes me a better front-of-house operator; it makes it easier for me to be compassionate when I need to be, to discipline when I need to. I’m in a chef’s jacket more often than I am in a suit jacket. I love the intensity of the kitchen environment. It’s meritocratic — you can’t BS your way in the kitchen. You can’t fake it. You have to work hard and practice, and use your ways physically in a way that’s very satisfying and intensively gratifying.
"I want these guys [the chefs] to be front and centre. They’ve been here for many years and they deserve the accolades they’re definitely going to get with this new menu, which is much more refined.
“My generation is one of the last generation of cooks that grew up under the Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay type of crazy, intense chef. It just doesn’t exist anymore. I wish it did but the truth is, it doesn’t work anymore. It’s not how you coax and compel talent anymore. The age of the tyrant chefs and operators is over.
“It’s an intense environment and, yes, we do yell, throw things and get furious but it’s understandable if you’re doing anything for 17 hours a day, at that level of intensity.
“People just don’t understand that food is an ingredient that is inherently subject to atrophy. It is constantly dying; the minute you take it from wherever it belongs, every second it’s losing loveliness and every mistake that we make with food makes it less lovely, and if all we’re trying to do is give credit to the intense work the farmer has put in, the soil has put in, and the sun has put in, I think that’s something worth yelling about. That’s something worth getting frustrated with,” he reasons.
Blending an old school work ethic with more modern day approaches to staff engagement arguably makes for a well-rounded operator who will likely be a mentor to many staff. Offering advice for anyone wanting to follow in his footsteps, Gerschel jokes that “restlessness helps while sleep doesn’t”, before adding that a hospitality career is one where hard work pays off.
He also offers the following advice: “Don’t take shortcuts, don’t chase money and when you’re not learning anymore [in a job], leave. That might take two months or 15 years. Like anything that grows, you can grow out of a job.”
With the conversation drawing to a close, Gerschel shares his thoughts on handling competition in Souk Al Bahar and its surrounding area.
“If other operators ask me where I buy stuff or how much I get stuff at cost for, I tell them. I want to compete on real things, plate to plate, not because of a secret. And the cluster effect works — I want tonnes of great restaurants to open up here. People benefit from that — ultimately the more people who walk though this complex, the better it is for everyone here,” he concludes.
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