A chef who excelled in the Land of the Pharaohs is set to dazzle diners in Vietnam with food literally fit for an emperor.
German-born Alexander Scheible, who started his career in Munich and also starred in kitchens in Switzerland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Brazil and Egypt, has joined the staff of La Residence Hotel and Spa as the new executive chef.
Further stops on a lengthy career path include the InterContinental, first in Jeddah, then in Riyadh as executive chef. More recently he worked at the Hilton Morumbi in Sao Paulo, Brazil before opening the five-star Sokha Hotel in Cambodia.
Scheible, 37, also has extensive cruise experience. At 25, he hired on as sous chef of the five-star Apollo Ship out of Miami. Later, he oversaw operations across Asia for a deluxe boutique river cruise line, Pandaw River Cruises.
Now, he’s set to give the menu a radical overhaul with a resurrection of Hue’s much-celebrated Royal Cuisine.
“Any chef who knows anything about Vietnamese food knows about Royal Cuisine,” says Schieble. “Hue was the place where the finest chefs in the land were brought to cook for the emperor.
That legacy endures in the hands of Hue’s pre-eminent local culinary masters, but few foreign chefs have mastered both Western and Imperial fare.
“Lots of foreign chefs have achieved remarkable expertise with Vietnamese food, in general, but Hue’s imperial cuisine is, largely, an oral tradition and inaccessible unless you’re here,” said Craig Douglas, the hotel’s general manager.
Since the era of the Nguyen Dynasty drew to a close nearly 70 years ago, other culinary schools within Vietnam have moved to the forefront. But local food is the stuff of culinary legend.
The new menu will be in place by the end of August. Alongside the Royal Cuisine, Alex and his team are developing a number of western signature dishes.
Set on a two-hectare site with 200 meters of frontage on the fabled Perfume River, La Residence celebrated its grand opening in December 2005 after a painstaking restoration of the former colonial governor’s residence. The hotel’s 122 rooms and suites, restaurants, lounges, bars and conference room are tricked out in complementary art-deco furnishings and décor that evoke both the 1920s and 1950s.
H.L
Vietnamese
