Macau’s representatives on UN’s Young Chefs Programme drive sustainability through food
Daniel Chio and Safa Rodas inspired to create dishes with local fresh produce chosen during a visit to Coloane’s Macau Urban Farm
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Two young Macau chefs reveal how they embrace sustainability and gastronomy
The fusing of elements from different cultures to create something unique is part of Macau’s cultural identity, and this continues to inspire chefs working in the Unesco Creative City of Gastronomy.
They include Daniel Chio, a sous chef at Galaxy Macau, and Safa Rodas, head chef of L’Attitude restaurant at Morpheus Hotel in the City of Dreams complex.
Macau is Chio’s home city, while Rodas, who is from the Philippines, moved there after working in New York and Paris. Although their career paths differ, they were both inspired by their families to become chefs and share a passion for sustainable cooking.
Chio and Rodas got to know each other through the World Food Forum’s Young Chefs Programme, headed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which works to empower young chefs to promote sustainability and healthy eating.
“I still really enjoy cooking because there is no end to learning,” Chio says. “In cooking, you won’t reach a point where you’ve learned everything.”
He says he became interested in sustainability through an operational task – the management of food inventory in his kitchen to reduce waste.
“As a chef, you want your guests to finish all the food, so that it doesn’t go to waste,” he says. “I slowly started to pay attention to why the food wasn’t finished sometimes and then I began to focus on food waste. So we think about how we can, in our daily ordering and stocking, reduce this waste.”
For Rodas, the concept of sustainability was something that has grown on her recently. “I have always been focused more on the fine dining side, how to make the plates beautiful,” she says. “But I realised that as a chef, whatever small decision we make, it makes a big impact collectively into the supply chain and even the food cycle.”
Chio and Rodas met up to learn more about how to promote sustainable cooking in their kitchens during a tour of Macau Urban Farm on the island of Coloane, where they picked their own produce to create a dish.
“I think the most important part of it is, of course, how we lessen the carbon footprint,” Rodas says. “And also it’s really about encouraging more local businesses and farmers to be more proactive in terms of producing and supplying to the local market.”
Choi adds: “Roughly 80 to 90 per cent of ingredients in Macau are imported, because Macau is a relatively small place and the local farms can’t supply enough for even one restaurant, let alone a whole hotel’s daily operations.
“Chefs and restaurants like us can then collaborate more with them. That way more people will know that there are, in fact, sustainable options available locally in Macau.”
Both chefs were inspired by the fresh produce they chose at Macau Urban Farm to create a dish. Chio made a roasted vegetable terrine using locally sourced vegetables, complemented with a Chinese celery and basil pesto and citrus vinaigrette. Rodas made a dish of toothfish, served with cabbage from the farm that was baked in miso butter, and tomatoes from the farm that were made into a compote.
“Sustainability is not just a slogan, you have to act on it and put it into practice,” Chio says.
Rodas adds: “The more we consider the different stakeholders that are actually contributing to this initiative, I think we can collectively achieve a lot as a whole.”
Watch the video of chefs Daniel Chio and Safa Rodas as they tour Macau Urban Farm and create their dishes using locally sourced fresh produce.