One of Shanghai’s finest chefs, Jason Oakley, formerly of David Laris’ restaurant Laris and San Francisco’s The French Laundry, has left his post as executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental’s Fifty8ogrill to head up Scarpetta and Coquille, two of Shanghai’s best-loved restaurants situated side by side. We caught up with him and proprietor John Liu on the state of food, restaurants and cooking in Shanghai, and on the future of the two restaurants.
On coming to Coquille and Scarpetta
Jason Oakley:
I’ve been fortunate to work in very nice kitchens my whole life, but what I like about this one [Coquille and Scarpetta’s] is that it feels more ‘homey’: you have the freedom to get in there and make things happen.
Hotels are large corporations and require a huge amount of backup, legal issues and so forth. Here, I just need to get in there, make it happen. It’s honestly a very refreshing change.
Since Coquille and Scarpetta are so close to each other, as head chef I can bounce between the two kitchens (which are adjoined) and work on both at the same time.
Coming into the fall however, the food of Italy is just so beautiful, so rich and romantic with delicious braises and stews, that we want to focus our attention on Scarpetta first and make some simple, elegant food.
At Coquille, the seafood dictates what people come here for, and I want to maintain that whilst bringing in a couple of new elements.
I want to maintain what the two restaurants already have, but just give one [Scarpetta] a little more soul. I’ve been waiting to find Scarpetta’s personality for me personally, and I haven’t found it yet.
In the restaurant business, it’s a delicate game of giving the regulars what they want, but also providing enough new dishes to stay fresh.
I always ad lib when I’m in the kitchen. That’s the key of a chef who’s in touch with his clientele. If you cook the same menu it starts getting repetitive and stagnant, the cooks don’t take it to heart anymore – that’s why we change it every three months.
I’ve loved Coquille since I first came here for dinner. I love the style, the ambiance and the simple elegance of the place. It’s a challenge and what I enjoy most is that I feel extremely comfortable with this style of cuisine, with both Coquille and Scarpetta.
I’ve been cooking Michelin Star food, French, Italian, cuisine of the Riviera and a lot of different styles that can relate back to this concept.
I used to work in Puxi, and there’s just so much more energy on this side of the water. So it was just time for me to come back and cook for a larger audience.
John Liu [JL]: To me as a restaurateur, I’d like to see more schools, places to develop base-level cooks.
To Jason’s credit, his passion and ability allows him to ad lib a lot of dishes, but to do that you have to be in the kitchen living, breathing and sweating with your team, because you can’t be in an armchair and say ‘hey, execute it like this.’ You have to be prepared to get your hands dirty.
It’s much more difficult in China, because the line cooks here begging for a job are not from CIA (Culinary Institute of America) or Le Cordon Bleu. We have to train them from the ground up, making the work of executive chefs more difficult.
Most of the dining scene in Shanghai comes from the customer, whether that’s the economy, how comfortable they are spending their money; it all comes down to what they want.
The market has shown us that bistro food, comfort food, more elegant comfort food is accepted and in demand.
French and Italian bistro food has that speaks to people. People look for, and crave specific ingredients, whether it’s uni, foie gras, truffle or wagyu beef or simply a perfectly executed NPG [Natural Poultry Group] roasted chicken.
JO:Regardless of how you form it, people are looking for interesting, uncommon ingredients they can’t get enough of.How you as a cook can play around with the ingredients, and keep them interesting is what gets people interested.
JL: Agreed. Jason recently made a foie gras crème brûlée. I could sell the bejesus out of that, because foie gras and crème brûlée together? That’s exactly the kind of unconventional, comfort food luxury that people want.
I try to be more of a supporting role in the business, however. I service a mechanism to communicate some of the customer needs. Ultimately, whoever’s in the kitchen is the boss.
On ingredients
JO: The way I view Scarpetta, is that that style of Italian cooking works extremely well with offcuts. Pork shoulder, lamb neck, beef tongue, beef stomach and cheek – items that are not necessarily exclusives, but in the right hands they can be extremely satisfying, rich and unctuous. They have the power to bring people in to something they wouldn’t normally order.
I hate menus around Chinese New Year. It’s all just the same, predictable foie gras, caviar, truffle, wagyu. Enough with the luxury-sounding stuff!
JL: Expensive ingredients, if used in an interesting way can elevate the dish, and are also a great marketing tool. Truthfully however, a lot of our signature dishes, like Scarpetta’s vongole pizza,use very cheaply sourced ingredients. It’s all about using high quality ingredients in the right way.
Jason Oakley will begin his culinary tenure and partnership at Coquille and Scarpetta August 7.
// Coquille is open Tues-Sun 5.30–10pm, Scarpetta is open daily. Local and international cards accepted. (Scarpetta: 3376 8223) (Coquille: 3376 8127).
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