There is a quiet honesty to cooking at home.

For you, your friends, your family.

You open the fridge and cook what’s there or, if you’re having people over,

you’ll have planned to cook what you love....

Most likely they're dishes you’ve done plenty of times before

If you’re adventurous, you’ll try something new...

it’s the challenge you like to bring to what you love doing.. and that’s to cook.

Not because it’s a job. Not because it’s what you have to do before bathing the kids,

or watching the tv, or because it’s the justification

to yourself to open a bottle of wine.

But imagine being the chef of an acclaimed restaurant, on an island, that relies (mainly) on what farmers bring them that day.

Imagine working service, then phoning your suppliers and they say "well, we THINK we're going to pick X, Y, and maybe Z tomorrow", then planning what the next day's service is going look like, not knowing what you will likely get....

It takes incredible confidence.

It takes world-class skill.

It takes the support of a team that you've trained, who share your passion for food.

In this episode I chat to Vinny Lauria.

He is exactly that kind of chef, with that level of skill, and every single restaurant he has opened shows it.

Being responsible for 50 MILLION litres a year, the CEO of Robertson Co-Op winery, Rianco van Rooyen and I chatted about wine, and how everyone in the value cycle has to adapt to survive. Wine, like classical music, needs a conductor - someone who is as good as reading the soil as he is at reading the crowd!

On Culinary Dodo, I explore Food & Beverage through the lens of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection.

External forces shape evolution — whether you’re a species… or a restaurant. In hospitality, natural selection isn’t poetic — it’s real:

Diners change, trends fade, sustainability demands action.

Adapt or die. Simple. Cruel. True. Most of us in F&B have been there.

But some evolutions aren’t forced — they’re chosen.

Not because the outside world demands it, but because an inside voice refuses to stay the same.

The story of @Richard Ekkebus and the evolution of Amber has fascinated me for years.

It wasn’t just a monumental shift in what he cooked — it was a transformation in why he cooked.

An adaptation driven by a desire to better align what he felt with what the restaurant served.

I believe Amber’s direction is far more than the often-quoted “plant-forward” or “sustainable.”

It’s a philosophy - one that has become the DNA of the restaurant, the team, and @Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group itself.

I call Amber’s approach La Cuisine Claire — a cuisine where nothing hides.
Not ethics.

Not intention.

Not flavour.

A cuisine that evolves not out of fear of losing relevance, but from a refusal to compromise on values.

This evolution is led by conviction — not convenience.

Discover the human decisions behind Amber’s leap forward to three Michelin stars — and what it takes to evolve a restaurant already at the very top.

Listen to the new episode of Culinary Dodo:

La Cuisine Claire with @Richard Ekkebus