Saint Pierre ex-head chef poised to go solo

BEHIND every successful chef is - the No 2 chef, faithfully executing the master chef’s vision, but not without yearning for the right moment to strike out on his or her own.

The latest to do so is Steve Lancaster, who spent the last 3 years by the side of Emmanuel Stroobant of the 2-Michelin-starred Saint Pierre, and on May 17 cooked his first meal as chef-owner of his own restaurant Poise.

Just about every chef starts out with the dream of being a restaurant owner, and for the British-born Lancaster, the path is paved with excitement but also the pressure of creating a unique culinary identity after years of cooking for others. 

Besides Saint Pierre, the chef includes The Fat Duck and Oaxen Krog in Sweden, which accounts for the Nordic slant in his menu at Poise. 

“My training is in European haute cuisine, and that forms the foundation of my food,” says Lancaster. “I apply my personal preference for purity and balance, both characteristics of Nordic culinary expression. The 2 years I spent in Sweden showed me how European cuisine can go beyond rich classic fare - comforting but sometimes overwhelming - to present lightness and balance without losing its identity.”

The opportunity to open his own restaurant started out through cooking Sunday private dinners for a group of serious food lovers who started their own private dining club. The feedback was so good that some members of the group also banded together to “invest in my dream of having my own restaurant”.

The next step was finding a location, and it took a while before he stepped into the showroom of Singapore architect Chan Soo Kian in Teck Lim Road and knew he had found his ideal spot. Chan also had a hand in designing the restaurant interiors. 

Nordic principles of fermentation and pickling will feature in Lancaster’s cuisine but not as a dominant element. 

“We use it as a cooking technique, to draw out different dimensions in ingredients both in terms of texture and flavour. The unique flavour profile of these fermented items then go on to lend balance, depth and intrigue to the dishes we serve.”

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Among the dishes to look out for is his interpretation of the familiar Coq au Vin. The usually heavy main course is turned into a delicate starter of red wine-braised deboned chicken wing mid-joint stuffed with thyme-chicken mousse, served with onion jam and a foam of cream, butter and onion stock lacto-fermented for 9 days to temper the richness with acidity. 

There’s also live Australian marron paired with French white asparagus, finished with shellfish emulsion and Scandinavian sea buckthorn jam. A lacto-fermented asparagus-lemongrass sauce finishes it off. 

Besides honing his skills and shaping his own identity, he’s also had to put on a new business hat. “It’s a different type of pressure” when running your own restaurant, he readily acknowledges. Besides running the kitchen, “I now need to think about everything from food cost to payroll, table-setting to plumbing. It’s stressful, but it’s what I’ve wanted for a very long time.”

Rising food costs is of course another issue, but instead of scrimping, “we’re more tactical with order control and minimising wastage by using every part of an ingredient where possible”. 

Menus start from S$118++ for a 4-course lunch to S$258++ for a 7-course dinner.

While patience and time will be needed for him to develop his own narrative, “we do not have lofty goals for now”, says Lancaster. “We want to just hunker down and make sure we deliver high standards of quality and consistency. We run a very lean team and I want to get to a stage where every single person is a gatekeeper for what Poise stands for.”