Janice Wong, Asia's Best Pastry Chef two years running, shares 10 qualities that are essential for a women to succeed in the world of haute cuisine
Recently in India for the launch of Magnum's Choco Cappuccino, Janice Wong is upfront about the fact that her sumptuous chocolate concoctions are designed for women. Here are the traits that she believes are crucial for women to succeed in the male dominated world of gourmet food.
Attention to detail: What separates mediocre from good from excellent is the amount of attention paid to detail. Attention to detail does not just have a huge effect on the overall quality and aesthetic appeal, but it also shows how much a person cares about their work. To succeed in the haute cuisine world, attention to detail is a pre-requsite.
Perfectionism: High standards and the desire to get it perfect at every single step no matter how minor the step might be or how tiny the detail is important. Perfectionism is a call to an endless pursuit of bettering yourself and being non-compromising when it comes to your own high standards.
Tenacity: The pursuit of perfection is no walk in the park; it requires dedication, and more importantly, tenacity. This implies the tenacity to fight for ideas that you believe in. If you firmly believe in something, you should see it through. You also need to view setbacks as added reason to achieve what you have set your mind to, since anything worth doing is never easy. This is crucial, because ultimately the world will know you by your ideas, how serious you are about them and how strongly you stand for them.
Passion: First and foremost, you have to love what you're doing. You have to be passionate about the art of creating with food. For it is the same passion that got you going in the first place, that will keep you going through the tough times. Passion ignites, passion sustains. Passion is the reason you do what you do and the reason you will succeed.
Imagination: Though a long line of tradition mandates how haute cuisine must be executed, there is also a place for creativity; for reinvention. Things become tradition only because someone invented it. Pushing boundaries is important, especially if you want to succeed in your craft. You have to be different, and you are different by virtue of your own imagination. That's the beauty of imagination—it is unique and personal. In your imagination lies the power to push things forward—to see what isn't there yet and to make it a reality, to fashioning with our hands what we have conceived in our minds.
Fearlessness: When you're doing something different that you've dreamed up and that has never been done before, you have to be okay with negative reactions. Not everyone is going to like what you are doing, which is fine. For me the greatest reward is not compliments, although they are appreciated, the greatest reward is when I have managed to offer someone a different perspective through the way I prepare and present food. It is when my cuisine is thought-provoking and people say, 'Oh! I've never seen this before. I never knew marshmallows could be served in this way. I didn't know chocolate could taste and look so beautiful. It never crossed my mind that we could use chocolate this way, to sculpt, to build an interactive experience.' That to me is mission accomplished.
So, fearlessness is crucial for success. You have to be unafraid of the critics. You can't pre-judge what you are about to create. Fear is the number one killer of imagination and creativity. To succeed at haute cuisine, you need to know that there are rules, but once you've learnt these rules well and have spent sufficient time honing your craft, when it is time to create, there are no rules.
Good taste/sense of style: A natural inclination to all things beautiful is essential in any endeavour involving fine taste. You need to have an eye for beauty and the ability to discern timelessness, elegance and things that are trans-temporal.
Vision: You need to know where you are heading, as a chef and as a person. You need to know who you want to be. You need to have one macro goal and then take the micro steps necessary to achieve it. Never lose sight of the macro goal though.
Firm but gentle: To get things done, I lead by the mantra, 'with a firm but gentle hand'.
Reflective: It's important to think about the day's events at the end of the day so that you can process everything that has happened and determine how to work better the next day.
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