In recent years, Hunan cuisine has developed rapidly, becoming a trend and has also been labeled with some labels. When it comes to Hunan cuisine, many people first think of "chopped pepper fish head", "fried meat with chili pepper", "spicy duck palm tendon" and other famous Internet celebrity dishes, and even equate Hunan cuisine with words such as "spicy", "meal", "cheap dish" and so on. In fact, Hunan cuisine can be very close to the people and grounded, but it is by no means unable to be high-end. The upgrading and high-end exploration of Hunan cuisine is something that many Hunan cuisine craftsmen are doing.
Shuai Yuheng, the founder of the quality Hunan cuisine club "Banjiuju", is a backbone that promotes Hunan cuisine to go high. He has been honing in the catering industry for 24 years, he has witnessed the catering turmoil of Changsha brand hotels, he sowed the seeds of catering dreams in Changsha, Sanya, Zhangjiajie and other cities, he delved into Hunan cuisine to the high-end, he asked himself and the world: "Why can't Hunan cuisine be high-end?" Why can't Hunan people create higher value? ”
The champion of the middle school entrance examination entered the kitchen
In 1999, 16-year-old Shuai Yuheng was admitted to Nanxian No. 1 Middle School with the first place in the city, but he weighed it up, gave up enrollment and chose to be far away. It turned out that he was brought up by his grandparents since he was a child, knowing that the conditions at home were not good, he did not want to increase the burden on the elderly people, and left the opportunity to continue studying to his sister, and he left his hometown in Nanxian County and came to Changsha alone to start his dream journey.
Learning a craft and being the pillar of the family, with such an original intention, Shuai Yuheng began to learn cooking. Uncle Shuai Mingwu worked in the famous Changsha Jinyuan Hotel, and through his introduction, Shuai Yuheng's career began here. When he first learned cooking, the hotel worked two shifts because of the late-night snack, but in order to learn more about the craft, during his two-year apprenticeship, he insisted on working from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day, and also volunteered to cook for the staff on duty every night, and asked everyone's opinion on the dishes one by one.
Shuai Yuheng has strong learning ability, studious and can endure hardships, and naturally recruits masters who like it and are willing to teach. During his studies, he not only systematically learned Hunan cuisine, but also had the opportunity to come into contact with Cantonese cuisine. At that time, on the third floor of Changsha Jinyuan Hotel, a Hong Kong chef was hired to cook Cantonese cuisine, and Shuai Yuheng took the initiative to follow to learn, and later was appointed by the hotel to the harbor food management group founded by Mr. Mak Guangfan, known as the "Prince of Abalone", to learn the cooking skills of "Yan Abalone Wings". Shuai Yuheng's culinary skills have the gene of high-end quality and the integration of Hunan and Guangdong in the enlightenment stage.
People who love to learn will always be more willing to take care of opportunities. Once because of a move at the dinner, Shuai Yuheng became the executive chef. Once, when friends were eating together, there was a salt baked snail in the table, wrapped in lace paper and then served, and the unique shape attracted Shuai Yuheng's attention after being served, he felt very creative, so he found a restaurant to buy the utensils and take them away. It was such a move that was seen by a Shanghainese at the dinner, and he was the general manager of Shanghai Jin Jiang Hotel. So, Shuai Yuheng was invited to an interview and successfully became an executive chef at the age of 24.
In the following years, Shuai Yuheng continued to improve his culinary skills, constantly learning and improving, and won many industry honors, and his hotel catering career became more and more prosperous. He joined Crowne Plaza as the first chef in a five-star hotel outside Changsha. Three years later, during the preparation of the largest hotel in Changsha at that time, Red Star Rongcheng Garden Hotel, he was invited to serve as the executive chef, managing the kitchen team of more than 200 people, with an average daily sales of more than 1 million. During this period, he also managed more than 30 five-star hotels across the country.
From dropping out of school to join the kitchen in the middle school entrance examination to becoming the mainstay of hotel catering, Shuai Yuheng has been deeply engaged in hotel catering for more than ten years, witnessed the development of Changsha brand hotel catering, experienced his personal fine, strict and integrated cooking style, and also wrote his own strong stroke in the history of Changsha hotel catering development.
The chef's heart never wavered
Because I love it, I rush to it. After more than ten years of hard work in the surging catering market, in 2013, Shuai Yuheng began his own catering entrepreneurial process, from Lili Fish Restaurant to Sanya, Zhangjiajie blossoming, after years of exploration, he enthusiastically put into the track of quality Hunan cuisine.
In 2018, he opened a clubhouse on Wuyi Road - Banjiuju, quiet in the middle of the noise, the decoration style is very traditional and poetry, and the dishes are mainly a combination of Hunan and Guangdong. Such a gastronomic expression currently has three branches in Changsha. This brand incorporates Shuai Yuheng's personal unique concept of catering, whether it is decoration or dish design, he is hands-on.
From Hunan cuisine to Cantonese cuisine, Shuai Yuheng has accumulated all his passion for catering research, in order to find inspiration for dishes, he often travels to Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, walking through the streets and alleys, using taste to read the flavor of the city, to find the wonderful idea of Hunan and Guangdong integration. When I go to study abroad, sometimes I have to go to several restaurants a day in order to try dishes, and even eat four or five places for a meal when the time is tight. After coming back, it was brainstorming again and applying what I had learned.
Shuai Yuheng believes that whether it is a big dish or a small dish, we must pay attention to meticulous research. He is very strict in team management, especially in raw materials. In order to develop a signature vegetarian dish "fragrant fried Huaishan", Shuai Yuheng and his team of chefs spent 6,000 to learn just this dish, but the seemingly simple dish has undergone such a strict control and research process. Shuai Yuheng said: "Different from the modern era of information sharing, it used to take a lot of effort to learn a dish. ”
Even as the head of the house, Shuai Yuheng has always maintained the feeling of cooking, and he has always claimed to be a chef, putting the improvement of cooking skills in the first place wherever he goes. From him, you can see the craftsmanship spirit of the old craftsman with his heart, for the fine tradition of the predecessors of Hunan cuisine, he is also very respectful, uncle Shuai Mingwu is his first master, and later worshiped the "first person in the inheritance of Maojia cuisine" and "Chinese cooking master" Xu Dabin as the master, has been adhering to the respect for the teacher, learn the chef of the mentor, inherit the skills of the mentor.
Study Hunan cuisine to the high-end
Why can't Hunan cuisine be high-end? When he first entered the industry, Shuai Yuheng planted the seeds of "disobedience" in his heart. According to his recollection, when he first became a Hunan chef, he could only get a few hundred yuan a month, while Guangdong and Shanghai chefs could get thousands or even tens of thousands of salaries. So he began to think: Why can't Hunan people create their own value? With this idea, after starting his business, he began to study the high-end development of Hunan cuisine, determined to raise the status of Hunan cuisine in the national cuisine.
What is high-end? He believes that it is nothing more than high-end craftsmanship and high-end ingredients. High-end ingredients not only exist in other cuisines, Hunan also has many good ingredients, and the upgrading of the quality of Hunan cuisine also means that more high-end ingredients must be introduced, and the classic skills of Hunan cuisine are integrated into it, reflecting the essence of Hunan cuisine. In the research and development of dishes, he is good at Hunan and Guangdong fusion, in his opinion, Hunan cuisine and Cantonese cuisine can be connected to each other from both ingredient matching and taste selection, and the dishes he developed such as fried shark fin with chopped chili pepper and sea cucumber casserole rice are the classics of Hunan and Guangdong fusion.
Restaurant operation is a complicated project, Shuai Yuheng wants to make a development path suitable for his own experience, because he has experience in high-end hotel catering, he has great patience and confidence in the research of dishes, and at the same time, he hopes to occupy a place in Changsha's huge catering consumer market potential. His next plan is to open a Yan Baoyi-themed restaurant in Changsha.
Regarding how to promote the upgrading of the quality of Hunan cuisine, he believes that catering personnel should be particularly strict in managing chefs and dishes, and at the same time maintain a sense of continuous learning and improvement. Shuai Yuheng himself has formed the concept of lifelong learning, and in 2017 he also went to Beijing for MBA classes, he said: "The positioning and marketing control of Hunan cuisine directly affects the development of the high-end trend of Hunan cuisine. ”
Shuai Yuheng loves to read, his office bookshelves and desks are full of books, and the family has thousands of books. "Three Kingdoms" is his favorite book, and Cao Cao is his favorite character, deeply influenced by Cao Cao's daring, resourceful and persistent personality, Shuai Yuheng believes that the chef industry should be the same, open-minded and ambitious.
Rolling east of the Yangtze River, the waves wash away the heroes... The turbulence of the catering market, how not like the group of heroes chasing the deer in the chaotic world, the upgrading of Hunan cuisine is a trend, the high-end of Hunan cuisine will eventually fall to some people, these practitioners of the era who shoulder the mission, must have broader insight, better aesthetics, more firm will, they will become the leader, hope that they keep the ingenuity and be proud of this, write the new glory and splendor of Hunan cuisine.
Text/He Ting Photo/Ren Shengqiang