Perfect catch at The Grand Hotel
Behind the scenes of The Grand, Brighton with Sous Chef Gede Gestrapatra
Welcome to A Grand Place to Work. The £5 million revamp of the iconic Grand Hotel on the seafront is nearly finished, and we find out what the refurbishment means to the staff at The Grand, as well as the people of Brighton.
This week, Latest 7 hears from Sous Chef of The Grand’s GB1 restaurant, Gede Gestrapatra.
“I have been at The Grand for nearly seven years, and I have been sous chef in the kitchen for two. I’m originally from Lombok in Indonesia and came to study an NVQ in food preparation and cooking in Brighton. It was my wife, who’s English, who inspired me to start cooking – she’s a real foodie.
“We find out what the catch of the day will be and spend the morning building a dish around it”
“My day starts at 10am when we prep the kitchen and get a phone call from our suppliers at Shoreham telling us what fish they have caught. We also find out what the catch of the day will be and we spend the morning building a dish around it, as well as experimenting with new dishes. We then open for lunch at 1pm and don’t stop until about 11.30pm! There is normally about seven or eight of us in the kitchen so it’s fairly hectic, and there is always one or two chefs on the crustacea bar. The crustacea bar sits pride of place in the middle of the restaurant, and guests have the option to eat at it and watch the seafood being prepared.
“The main thing that has changed about my job since GB1 opened is the huge variety of dishes on the menu that I now get to cook, including lobster and tikka marinated monkfish, as well as the grill which serves fillet steaks, in case people don’t like fish. We figured out that with all the different ways we can cook the fish, someone could eat here every day for weeks and never have the same dish twice! As everything on the menu is so fresh, it will change with the seasons every three to four months. We also do a brilliant Sunday roast; beef, pork, chicken and catch of the day, with all the trimmings. All of our meat, like the fish, is locally sourced.
“I would love to see GB1 build a reputation as being the best seafood restaurant in Brighton, though the customer feedback we’ve had so far suggests we are already well on our way! We have had a lot of locals come in and eat here which is great as we want GB1 to be seen as a restaurant in its own right, and not just for guests at the hotel.
“My favourite dish? It has to be Piri Piri sea bass with prawns and a side of samphire and bacon. Delicious.”
GB1 is open daily. To book call
01273 224300 or email eat@grandbrighton.co.uk
The Grand, 97–99 King’s Road, Brighton, BN1 2FW,
01273 224300
www.devere-hotels.co.uk/thegrand
