Can Asian Cuisine Change the Future of British Hospitality?
In this vibrant episode of Talking Hospitality, recorded live at Zest Quest Asia 2024, hosts Timothy R. Andrews and Tracey Rashid meet Cyrus and Pervin Todiwala, the passionate founders behind Zest Quest Asia.
This exciting conversation uncovers the story behind their mission to elevate Asian cuisine within the UK hospitality industry. Cyrus and Pervin explain their dedication to getting Asian culinary training onto the British curriculum, promoting authentic Asian cooking beyond stereotypes, and fostering homegrown talent. They reveal how Zest Quest Asia empowers young chefs through immersive competitions and international exposure, providing life-changing experiences.
Listeners will discover:
- How Zest Quest Asia is shifting perceptions and overcoming barriers within hospitality education.
- The remarkable growth students demonstrate after just 24 hours of competition.
- Success stories highlighting previous winners who have advanced to prestigious roles, including opportunities in Tokyo and Michelin-starred kitchens.
- Why Cyrus and Pervin insist on UK residency for participants to ensure the benefits stay within Britain.
- Their inspiring vision for an inclusive hospitality industry accessible to all, irrespective of background.
Takeaways:
1.Elevating Asian Cuisine: Zest Quest Asia aims to integrate Asian culinary training into the British hospitality education curriculum, promoting authentic Asian dishes beyond common stereotypes.
2.Developing Homegrown Talent: The initiative prioritises British residents to ensure skills and knowledge developed through Zest Quest Asia remain within the UK hospitality industry.
3.Rapid Student Growth: Students participating in Zest Quest Asia competitions show significant skill and confidence improvements within just 24 hours, demonstrating the transformative power of hands-on experience.
4.Real-Life Success Stories: Past winners of the competition have advanced into prestigious international positions, including opportunities in Michelin-starred restaurants and esteemed establishments in Tokyo.
5.Inclusivity and Accessibility: Cyrus and Pervin advocate strongly for making hospitality careers accessible to everyone, irrespective of their background, thus helping to dismantle traditional barriers within the industry.
Through engaging anecdotes and reflective insights, this episode captures both the struggles and successes of introducing Asian cuisine to mainstream hospitality education. Cyrus and Pervin also share heartfelt personal stories and reveal their continued commitment despite earlier setbacks.
If you’re passionate about the future of hospitality, diversity, and the exciting evolution of Asian cuisine in Britain, this is an episode not to be missed
Transcript
Zest Quest Asia
[:[00:00:14] Cyrus Todiwala: hospitality, particularly within the chefing field, accessible to everybody at every level and no.
Child coming from a deprived backward area to feel that he cannot achieve success. A lot of us, if you ask us what we did when we started, I started as a bus boy. I was cleaning tables and lifting growth. That busted my back. Okay. Today we can say we are reasonably successful. We want British homegrown.
[:[00:01:05] Timothy R Andrews: Welcome to another episode of Talking Hospitality. Brought to you today by Graphic Kitchen and Leisure Jobs. Today's episode was recorded live at Zes Quest, Asia 2024, where talking hospitality was lucky enough to be invited to speak to co-founders Cyrus and Pervy Alah. We hear about how their foundation aims to create opportunities for young people to learn Asian cuisine at the highest level and their dreams of getting the Asian food on the curriculum.
imothy R. Andrews. Enjoy the [:So finally, we get Mr. And Mrs. Welcome. Thank you for inviting us today. So what is, why is Quest, what's
[:[00:02:23] Tracey Rashid: Seeing the pro, because I, and I've been in competitions myself, but seeing the process on the other side where you're not kind of like anxious and, you know, scared, all those sorts of things was so amazing.
Um, how the timing's done. The use of the kitchen, the prep work, the um, briefings. The whole process is really well done. And I think all the students felt really comfortable and they knew what they were doing because there's nothing worse than not knowing what you're doing or where you're supposed to be in a competition situation.
the, the presentation's been [:I think we need nap. The first. Okay. How many people is that really gonna go round? It's amuse bush
[:[00:03:28] Timothy R Andrews: They are. What about you? What did you think? I think for me from yesterday and today, I think it's for, I always love these kind of competitions 'cause you see the potential that's coming through now in street. And I think for coming here and seeing the, the skill set that people already have, some of them already are like professionals.
sional level. What I like to [:Yeah.
[:Yes. Yes. And I think if you'd asked some of them yesterday, they wouldn't have had an answer. No. And to see that growth in what, less than 24 hours.
Yeah.
[:[00:04:33] Cyrus Todiwala: And that's it.
That's why. So now you are asking me what question that
[:Into. The limelight lime to bring that there is a lot of Asian food, which has always been on the back burner. It's always been as a cuisine. French, Italian. They look at the Michelin stars. I mean, you can hand look at Asian food with Michelin stars. It's growing. When you
[:[00:05:33] Cyrus Todiwala: to Japan,
[:Okay. They
[:[00:05:47] Tracey Rashid: Yes.
[:So they have never been able to understand the cuisine [00:06:00] and they never been able to open up the doors of Japan, Japanese food. So this relationship. Will help the students to open their minds a little bit more, and then we should see them now gradually tracking towards trying to find jobs within Asian restaurants.
Yeah. Or high repute. Yeah. Okay. Because they, the colleges tune them into going higher. Yeah. And some of them feel fail to understand that they must start lower and then achieve higher because they need to build a foundation. I think many colleges fail to make their students understand that basic principle that they need to build a foundation before they aspire to whatever they want to aspire.
of hospitality to government [:I've got nothing to do, earn a bit of money, work in the restaurant porter kitchen hand, and then I'm off. I'm doing something bigger and better. So hospital has always been the underdog. Always been the underdog. Our aim is to raise the profile, the Asian restaurant scene. If you look at Indian, Chinese, Thai, Malaysian.
Always been cheap, dirty, takeout food. Yeah, that's true. There's never been appreciation of high level cooking. Many of the Japanese restaurants, for example, that are dotted all over, they don't even know what they're doing.
Yeah,
[:Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So all of these things have made the average young British budding chef look at Asian, uh, cuisine with cynicism. Yeah. It's not for me. What do I get out of it? What am I going to achieve with this? But the [00:08:00] scope is massive. It's, it's, it's, it's wider than we can talk and imagine about.
And that is why we thought that, okay, we failed in the college government in US, pulled our funding. We lost a lot of money. Personally, she didn't like me for a few years. But um,
[:[00:08:18] Timothy R Andrews: Get
[:[00:08:21] Pervin Todiwala: I'm mad. Definitely guaranteed the bloody over facility. There are three of them who guaranteed the overthrow.
Oh, no, no, no. That's fine. It's not a problem. It's over. It's finished. It's done. Yes, you have to move on. But the passion is there. The passion is and what, what, what it is. For me is mostly, is the British, British aspect of it. We want British homegrown people. That is what we want because we look, we asked for their passports.
student can go back? Uh, we [:[00:09:03] Cyrus Todiwala: Yeah. To prove that point, one of the teams that took part, that takes part almost every year.
They produced a team of three foreign students, but they argued that because at that time they were European citizens. Yeah. They very much have a right of aboard in Britain as well. However, immediately after them winning the prize, all three disappeared from Britain. Exactly. Not one started to work in this country.
Now one has come back, was to work in the country. He's working in this country and we took him on a tour. Because he deserved it. The other two I wasn't worried about because they are now giving that talent to some other country. Yes. And Britain is lost out. Yes. Yeah. So which is why we are very, very clear on from now, no driving licenses passport.
[:[00:09:55] Cyrus Todiwala: Yeah. As a country and British [00:10:00] people as a whole do not regard hospitality as an equal and professional profession. Right? That's the first problem Britain has got.
It's the old class system that defines hospitality and lowers it down. Mm-hmm. Two. So we need to raise the students image as well. So by doing things like this and this competition, it comes into the eye of more people. From starting with two sponsors, we are now down to most sponsors, and the sponsors don't believe in us.
We cannot educate the young people. Absolutely. That's right. Right. So the sponsors who have got a vested interest. Every company that has invested in the competition has a vested interest in the future development of British talent. And that is what we want the sponsors to understand that if they don't buy into it, we cannot encourage students to grow.
use the products. Properly, [:And this is all coming from the research that the students and the teachers are doing as well. And that makes the whole concept of Zes Quest Asia better ideally. The country needs to buy it. And the biggest gift of all would be, and this country finally accepts Asian cuisine on the curriculum, that that is another thing that will be the top achievement.
[:You'll see what we go to an Asian [00:12:00] country and we have been with. Two or three of them because we've been sponsored by, by the sponsors to go to the country that's, we'd been to the Philippines today. I am so pleased to see that we have a full Philippine menu and that is because the tutor comes with us as well.
And this is, yeah, this is expanding their knowledge, expanding their, uh, sight into the cuisine. So much research. They have to do research. They have to look at what the country offers. Sometimes we don't know things. So we open the board, we open Google and say, what is that? What is this? Then question them.
And
[:[00:12:42] Pervin Todiwala: so now
[:Kickstarting a passion among students. [00:13:00] For example, Sheffield College has an internal competition to decide which students will take part in this competition. We love it whelmed with the response from students. We want to take part. So they form teams and then each team competes against each other within the college.
And then the best team competition as well. They feel for
[:[00:13:22] Pervin Todiwala: Okay. Sorry. Wants something? Yeah. Yeah.
[:[00:13:43] Cyrus Todiwala: and where they've got to now?
what reason? I do not know. [:Mm-hmm. Without realizing that they have a lot more to learn and a lot more to aspire towards. So this, the colleges need to take on board number one. But during the trip to Japan, we were sponsored by Panasonic in their 100th year anniversary, and the team was sent from Tokyo to Osaka by Panasonic. And they spent five days in the Panasonic development, uh, facility.
Two of the students joined the Hilton Tokyo to learn more about Japanese food. Okay. One of them got absorbed into the Hilton, Tokyo finally, and he is now, I don't know where he, yes, very, but actually got a job. We were very pleased and he worked in the Japanese restaurant at the Hilton, Tokyo. So that is success.
few more students going into [:And this is what we want to achieve. So what we do from the foundation as well. The idea of the foundation is to create a surplus that we can help poor kids through education, and that is the main basis of that foundation. So like for instance, one of the prizes today is a nice purse of money kept with a supplier that does our uniforms, and the students can go to him and buy anything they want for a certain amount of money that helps them to make sure that they stay in education.
Absolutely. Otherwise, what's the use if
[:[00:15:47] Cyrus Todiwala: they'll blow it up. They can't blow it up because they have to
[:[00:15:52] Cyrus Todiwala: for which sort of, it's working 11 years now, wait for the 15th year. We will have a lot more of them working in Asian restaurants.[00:16:00]
[:[00:16:14] Cyrus Todiwala: Get in touch with us. We'll move them in touch with the colleges, and the colleges will then make a open plan. Ask the students who wants to work in these restaurants.
And I'm sure the problem we have got is a lot of our colleges are from outside London. Yeah. One or two may be taking part that are from London itself. The best restaurants are opening in the city first and then going across the country so that the, the disadvantage to a student coming from outside London is accommodation in London.
e that is the draw. You tell [:I'm giving you 500 pounds towards your accommodation. You bet you they will come.
Yeah.
[:[00:17:10] Pervin Todiwala: for that. But, uh, one of the team members today, um, is working in, uh, from UCB Birmingham. He's working in, which has just got a two Michelin star with Islam and that itself. And he will learn a lot.
And that itself is fantastic because you, you, I mean, we are so thrilled and so knows about Que Asia and hopefully, you know, there, there are more sort of, uh, restaurants and chefs who will come across and take part in this kind of thing because this is the growth. I'm sure he wants a lot of homegrown talent as well
[:[00:17:48] Tracey Rashid: taste their food as well, which is really good.
, so obviously you started in:[00:18:02] Pervin Todiwala: It's already the most. In, but I, yeah, but my aim is to see it in classrooms like this, teaching, uh, Asian food, not Indian food. See people look at us and think, we want Indian food.
No, please look at Asian food. Please look at the diversity. Even if you take, today, we had Bangladesh. Today, we had Philippines. Today we had Japan, Thailand, you know, there's, so in 16, we. About five milia. Five to five cuisines. Yeah. You know, so this is what we want in the curriculum that maybe we have, uh, schools like, uh, the Tokyo Sushi.
Yeah. We have other, other schools. We have an academy where we try, like Cyrus's food is very different. So even though it's Indian, it's very different Indian. So, you know, we, we do, we want. People to just open their eyes and bring it into the classroom.
[:[00:19:01] Tracey Rashid: Oh, yes.
[:[00:19:08] Timothy R Andrews: Gimme
because you want to make. Accessible or
[:so say, say that you want to make, um, the, um,
[:for everybody where their backgrounds,
[:Particularly within the chefing field, accessible to everybody at every level, and no child coming from a deprived backward area should feel that he cannot achieve success. A lot of us, if you ask us what we did when we started, I started as a bus boy. I was cleaning tables and [00:20:00] lifting loads that busted my back.
Okay. Today we can say we are reasonably successful. There are a lot of people who start that way,
[:[00:20:15] Cyrus Todiwala: simple, just move
COC into it.
[:We went to Philippines with a, which Sheffield College, one of the boys. He did not come. He had, I don't think he had had the opportunity of even going to another country he had never thrown before. And he had, yeah, I don't know. Well, let's, let's, I don't know exactly. Yeah. But the, the teach teacher told us that the father came to her, him, and absolutely was.
You know, you [:They have done a Filipino menu this time, so they students to compete. So this is what, that's what it's all about. Yeah. That's what it's all about. We call the underdogs.
Nothing out there.
[:[00:21:37] Tracey Rashid: We'll see you on the evening and hope you enjoy evening.
[:[00:21:46] Tracey Rashid: Thank you
