It has been very quiet lately on my Blog. The reason for this is my new job, Cluster Executive Chef at Anantara Maldives.
As you can imagine, the cluster stands for more than one hotel, and yes in fact there are three hotels which are very close together and I am currently looking after all the culinary aspects. So the time for writing on my Blog is very much limited, but I am sure over time I will find more time to share recipes and stories again.
The hotels here are absolutely amazing. Each island/hotel has its own identity.
There is Anantara Dhigu, the biggest of all with 110 villas, some over water and some on the beach, but all are absolutely beautiful. Here we cater more for families, there is a kids club and kids are allowed everywhere. On this Island we have a couple of Restaurants, there is Fushi Cafe where we serve breakfast and an international dinner buffet. We have Terrazzo, our Italian restaurant which offers authentic Italian cuisine from our Chef de Cuisine Alessandro. It is an eclectic mix of traditional and modern cuisine. We have Fuddan, our Fusion restaurant...but this one will soon change to a different restaurant, stay tuned for more news about that soon. We have Aqua serving light snacks from 10 till 6 pm and drinks till late
The there is Anantara Veli, the romantic island, no kids during the evening, loads of honeymooners and couples are staying here. Here we have Origami, Japanese, then 73 Degrees with Breakfast and daily changing theme evenings and we have Dhoni bar for drinks and snacks
On the way to the last island you will pass Baan Huraa, our thai restaurant. I always love stopping here as everything is Thai, service, chefs and of course the food. We fly in all ingredients from Bangkok....yes we like to do the real thing.
That brings us to the last hotel island, Naladhu. Naladhu is actually not an Anantara brand but we are of course looking after it as it has only 20 rooms and is super luxury. So you guess it right, our restaurant here is The Living Room where we cook fine dining, progressive cuisine or simply what the guest likes to have. The chef is talking to the guests and will then cook what they feel like.
So and then there is one more island, called Guli Fushi. We have a little pop up restaurant on there serving light foods cooked mainly on the grill and in the Tandoor.
But that is not all, we have one last island called Marina. That is where most of the staff is living and all the main offices and stores are there
So we have to get everything from Male by boat to the stores and then from the stores to the different islands....then like pastry for example, we send again to the different islands as the pastry and bakery are on Veli. Not an easy operation, but trust me it is a lot of fun.
So you can expect a lot of new stories and recipes very soon, keep tuned
