We're live here but there's people also dialing

in from live stream.

And today we're going to have chef Andre

Chung from Restaurant Andre to be here with us.

[APPLAUSE]

Chef Andre's new book, "Octaphilosophy,"

just released this week.

So we're one the first readers to get a copy.

And he's also going to share a lot of the secrets

from this book during this talk.

Chef Andre has been trained by many of the world's top chefs,

and he is also among the best chefs.

And he mainly learned his culinary skills in France,

and he has brought the taste of south France

back to Singapore in his restaurant Andre in Chinatown.

Yes.

And Restaurant Andre has been one of the top 50 restaurants

in the world, and one of the top three in Asia.

[APPLAUSE]

Before we start the talk, we're going

to play that creative process from restaurant Andre

again, just for us to have a look at how he creates

some of the famous dishes.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

-It's kind of a traditional fine dining sequence that

happends in the main course.

You've got have the cheese course.

When it first arrived in Singapore,

I realize that at the beginning, although you

have the best French artisan cheese,

not everybody appreciates it.

Everyone enjoys every single course until the cheese.

The cheese course seems like one of the courses

where we can not do anything.

In respect of the French tradition and sequence,

we would like to keep it.

But how can I inject something that really belongs here?

So I decided to do a look-alike cheese

course of dehydrated milk bavarois in the dry aging room.

It's exactly like cheese making.

So we put it on the grill so it had the nice ventilation

and it dries it slowly.

And I would flip it on different sides

until it half dehyrdrated and created the crust over it.

The inside is milky, like a Camembert.

We see ourselves as like an artisan

because we're making our own cheese, which

is something very farmer style.

So we get the hay from France-- really nice hay

with a lot of different herbs inside.

And then we dry them and roast it.

And then we make a hay ice cream served the Camembert.

For those that don't appreciate the traditional artisan cheese,

they could have something that is similar-- very light,

very refreshing, very sweet and totally unique.

I spend most of my time in the south of France, Medditeranean.

I want to create that really, very classy--

or you can say Medditeranean on Spanish dish.

You have a charcoal grill squid with piquillos smoked pepper

and olive oil.

A very simple dish.

When I was thinking of the dish, what makes you remember?

Is it the squid itself or it's the combination

of the squid and the piquillos or what is it?

It's that smokiness.

It's that burning edge that makes the whole dish to life

Nothing can be replaced with that burning

flavor from the charcoal.

So what about if I want to have an ultimate dish, that I just

eat the charcoal.

And that's where I start to really work on it.

And we make fried charcoal dough.

So we serve burning charcoal with the friend charcoal dough.

And then we serve a piquillos dip with the charcoal squid.

In fact, the squid, or the piquillos in a dish

they are just accessories in a way.

We designed that in the middle of the menu.

So sometimes when you see a normal menu, you start it small

and the portion gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

For a long menu, sometimes half way through it,

it's getting heavy.

You're getting tired.

If half way, we can have a break or we

can have something fun-- that kind of lightening

up, freshening up a little bit.

And then we restart again.

Every night, we have a guest finish very late.

Most of the time they finish at 11:00, 11:30, 12:00,

or even the later sometimes.

I just feel that I want to serve something like breakfast,

and then say, hey guys.

You've got to go.

[LAUGHTER]

You know, it's breakfast time.

Kaya toast is the breakfast in Singapore.

It's white toast-- grilled white toast.

And then you have kaya, which is a coconut and pandan.

Then you have one slice of cold salted butter.

And that's it.

That's kaya toast.

Well, at the end of the meal, you serve coffee of course.

So coffee served with the kaya toast--

that's kind of the ending or a beginning.

But yet I don't want to just serve

kaya toast like anywhere else.

I still want to keep my French background.

I started to make white toast look like macaroons.

We do it exactly the same way.

We grill it, make our own kaya.

And then you must have one icy cold salted butter inside.

If you're eating with your eyes open, it's kind of a macaroon.

But if you're eating with your eyes closed,

it's exactly the same kaya toast.

[LAUGHTER]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[END PLAYBACK]

ANDRE CHIANG: All right.

[APPLAUSE]

So OK.

Good afternoon, guys.

So today I'll be here to talk about Octaphilosophy and also

why we're doing everything and what's

behind it or our thinking process.

So the video that you saw just now, it's just a few dishes

is that is why we do it.

And I guess a lot of you have already been to the restaurant

and you know what we do.

Some of you don't know.

But that doesn't matter.

So today we're going to go start from the beginning.

As you can see, the Octaphilosophy--

what is Octaphilosophy?

Why the octagon is so important to us

and why did everything come from it?

So just starting with Octaphilosophy-- Octaphilosophy

is something that when I first started-- before I

started Restaurant Andre.

My parents are Taiwanese.

I was born in Taiwan.

And I grew up in France.

I arrived in Singapore eight years ago.

That's how everything started.

And we wanted to come back to Asia

and start up our own business.

So I was thinking, OK.

So how to tell people that this is Andre's cuisine--

this is not Taiwanese cuisine.

This is not French cuisine.

This is something that belongs to me

and it collects everything everywhere I go.

And it becomes my own style of cuisine.

So I started going back to look at everything that I did,

that I created the past 20 years.

And I realized I don't have anything fixed.

Everywhere I go, I collect ideas.

It becomes.

I get inspired by different things.

I grew up in an artist family.

My mom was a chef.

My father is a Chinese calligrapher.

My brother is an actor.

My sister is a clothing designer.

And I'm very into pottery and sculpture.

So in a way, we were trained since we

were little to appreciate each other's work--

to appreciate the beautiful things in life

in different forms.

So that means a lot to me.

And so I look at everything that I've

created in the past 20 years.

And I realized these eight elements

that are constantly repeating in my creations-- it's

just like, OK.

Our hairstyle, our makeup-- if you

look at what your picture was five years or 10 years ago,

you'll say, oh my God.

I got a hairstyle like that.

And my make up is horrible.

But at that time, you feel so good about it.

Yeah?

So same thing for me.

I said, you know I constantly change my style or taste.

But the one thing that never changed probably

is my favorite color.

Yeah.

So that's the essence.

So when I look at everything that I've created,

these eight elements are constantly

repeating in my creation.

So I said, yeah.

So how to tell people that this is Andre's cuisine--

these eight elements become so important.

Because no matter where I go, no matter what I create,

or when I create, these elements-- eight elements

are always there.

So that's Andre.

So we just try to give it a name and give it

a reason so people can understand it easily,

that this is Octo-philosphy-- that this is what we do.

So when we first started, I always was constantly

asking myself the question, all the time,

are we moving forward or are we moving backwards?

Oh by the way, you guys can have a lunch [INAUDIBLE]

while eating.

It was so cool.

[LAUGHTER]

I like it here.

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah.

So where were we at?

I should have one too, like, you know.

So yeah, when I first started, I constantly

asked myself questions-- are we moving forward

or are we moving backwards with everything that we create?

Yeah.

So if you think about a dining experience,

if you go to a casual restaurant, and you go.

You sit down.

And you order.

And you eat.

If you're at a fine dining restaurant, you sit down.

And then they're going to ask you 50 questions before you

reach your first course.

Oh you have to select this, and select that.

You want this.

You want one that.

We have 250 selections of teas and things.

So can I start?

OK.

And every dish, there were so many things in the there.

And the menu, it's so beautifully written.

So what is that?

Is that the ultimate dining experience?

Or are we just forcing the guests to catch all that?

Can we just keep everything simple,

and leave this space for imagination?

Not giving you the whole book and say, OK.

You have to read through it.

Can we leave this space for the imagination,

for the creativity?

So that's what I think-- that if I just

put these eight words on my menu,

and I leave the rest to the guests to discover.

It's not empty.

It just leaves a room for you to put in your imagination,

or you feel that your answer to that

question-- you filled in the space of your dining

experience.

And only the dining experience that fits you

is the ultimate dining experience.

So that's how I started out the philosophy.

So these eight elements, later we're going to go through.

Today I just took eight pictures inside the book.

So we can just go through it.

And I'll just show you what it is roughly.