Featured Chef - Jason Licker
Jason Licker, Executive Pastry Chef of The Venetian Macao Resort - Hotel, a three thousand room property. Jason oversees the pastry and bakery service, twelve outlets and sit down banquets for up to ten thousand.
This is the second largest building in the world and the foundation of the Cotai Strip in Macao.
Q: Firstly, Chef, Welcome to Pastrypros.com
Thanks, its great to see such a cool website dedicated to pastry..
Q: Secondly, may I call you Jason? lol!
Yeah, definitely, I have been called much worse…..
Q: The infamous first question is, why pastry? Did you start there or move over from savory like so many of us?
I can’t cook.. I don’t even know how to cook a hamburger, but I can eat a few… I started in pastry pretty much as most, by accident… My mother was ill at the time and wanted muffins, has to be low sodium, low sugar and so on.. I made them and it was fun and then did everything I could do to absorb information on pastry…
Q: Where are you from ( born)?
I was born in raised in Dix Hills, Long Island, just 45 min from NYC… so was regularly pigging out in Manhattan as a kid.
Q:Where is Macao? Overseas, I take it.
Macao is in China… Its the Las Vegas of Asia… I am one hour boat ride to Hong Kong and just 15 minutes to mainland China. The Venetian is a part of the Cotai Strip with will eventually consists over over fifteen brand name hotels. Venetian is currently the largest casino in the world and the second largest building in the world. Macao actually out grosses Las Vegas at the moment, so you can say we are quite busy! ahhh..
Q: List of awards,etc. that maybe we can start with?
I was a Rising Starchef in 2004 at the Peninsula New York. I coached my team in Shanghai won a total of three gold medals, a silver and two bronze at the Shanghai Culinary Competition in 2005 and 2006. Other then that, I think I won a cookie eating contest in sixth grade.
Q: Favorite dessert to eat?
Dam, this is a tough question… In Tokyo at Pierre Herme’s Pastry Shop I his Praline Mille Feulle. Was layers of perfect puff pastry, rich butter cream and feulletine. Was a double crunchy, creamy praline piece of heaven.
Q: Favorite items or desserts to make?
I love make chocolates. Molded, dipped or whatever… I actually love every aspect of pastry….
Q: Other chefs whose work you are into.
I am a fan of all Pastry Chefs. It takes passion and love of our craft to do this job. The dedication everyday to do what we love. Some of my favorites are Dominique Ansel of Restaurant Daniel, Vicki Wells of Mesa Grill, Jason Casey of Jean Georges in Shanghai and of course Sam Mason and Johnny Iuzzini who have brought our profession to the forefront.
Q: Did you just decide to go to culinary school or were you working in restaurants before?
I interned at Union Square Cafe for a summer before I went to Culinary School. I wanted to see if this is what I really wanted to do. Pastry Chef Stacie Pierce taught me well and really was hard on me. That made me even more hungry to succeed. I enrolled at The French Culinary Institute and felt I already had a solid foundation, so I was lucky to get a pastry cook job at Jean Georges under Pastry Chef Eric Hubert. He is a genius… Was an amazing experience on another level…
Q:Where was your first gig?
My first Pastry Chef job was at Charlie Palmer’s Metrazur. I was 22 and really had no idea what I was doing… ha ha.. I learned, made mistakes and had my first opportunity to manage a staff.
Q: Your history is chock full of really great schools & locations.
The Valrhona school, ” L’Ecole du Grand Chocolat”, is like a mystery to many of us in that people rarely see what happens there. The biggest look inside for me has been off of Christophe Michalaks Passions Gourmandes site.
Q:Was it as great as one would think?
I was the last class of the old L’Ecole du Grand Chocolat.” They opened a new school that same year. Its just amazing. The town smells like chocolate. The production facility is mind blowing. I wish I could have slept there overnight!
Q:Who was teaching classes and is it OK to not be fluent in French?
The classes were taught in English… I went with a bunch of Chefs from the states. Was super cool
Q:Does Kim ‘O’ Flaherty teach there or run an operation here for them?
Hmm.. Kim was working for Valrhona in the states, but I believe she is raising her three children at the moment. She was a gifted, talented Pastry Chef.
Q: You also went to renown Chocolatier Andrew Schotts “Chocolate Loft ” school. I saw some great pictures of the School, which Pastrypros.com Publisher Timothy Horst also attended.
Some great equipment in there! The Chocolate Loft was a school and also a production facility for Andrew’s line of chocolates. He had every piece of machinery. He moved out of the city, but he was producing some crazy good chocolates.
Q: With culinary education getting a bit dissed sometimes here in the states, especially now when money for education is tightening up even more, perhaps you can tell us what these schools gave you in competitive terms, The French Pastry School also, if that’s cool.
The FCI was an amazing experience. It builds a foundation of knowledge. Yes, you can be self taught and learn on the job, but I think its always good to have a base of knowledge.
Q:Favorite gigs: You’ve had the opportunity to work at some really great places. From Union Square Cafe , Jean George’ and Nobu, vast differences in what you needed to bring to the table or were these early days?
I was a Pastry Cook at Union Square Cafe and Jean Georges.. they were amazing. Totally different dining experiences. At Nobu I was the Pastry Chef and I just loved the simplicity and lightness of the Japanese ingredients. I could not choose a favorite one. All were great and made life long friends.
Q: Now you’re doing BIG places, hotel properties in particular. Can you talk about transitioning from more intimate solo focused work to being in charge of… I guess you could have a fine dining and a casual restaurant, room service menus, banquets and so on.
Well… where to start. This is a 3000 room hotel, second largest building in the world and the latest casino in the world. I manage a staff of thirty and we can do banquets sit down up to ten thousand. You have to be organized, be able to teach and check everything… I mean really check everything. We can have 50-60 functions in a day and have to be on top of everything to ensure the best quality and consistency. As you get the larger operations, its less cooking and more managing. Everyday is an adventure..
Q: A typical day in your chef life?
I wake up at 8am and get into work about 830.. Have a ridiculous amount of coffee and then drink more coffee.. I have the morning meeting to go over the events at 930am. After that I check the countless emails and then go through the events with the sous chefs and my assistant. I do some production and check everything and at noon I make my round to the outlets and then to the banquets. Have lunch at 2pm and then check emails, do some production and prepare for dinner service and the banquets for the evening. I will stay to about 8pm and make sure everything is running smooth, but if there is a VIP event I will stay til the end. Its a bit hectic and lots of last minute things, but chefs love pressure…
Q: What kind of gear do you have in your lab?
This is a mass production operation. So we don’t have anything high tech super cool. I have 80 quart mixers, combi ovens and all the standard things. I would love a liquid nitrogen kit, you can do some real cool things with it
Q:We LOVE pictures of kitchens, if you want and have time to include!
A: Will send pic!
Raspberry Passion Mousse
Praline Crunch Bottom –
Milk Chocolate 150 grams
Cocoa Butter 50 grams
Praline Paste 350 grams
Feulletine By eye
Method:
1) Melt the milk chocolate and cocoa butter together
2) Add praline paste and whisk till smooth.
3) Fold in feulletine.
4) Spread on a silpat and roll thin.
5) When set cut oval shape corresponding to the flexipan mold.
Passion Fruit Gelee –
1000g - liquid
500g - sugar
20g - gelatin
20g - agar agar
Method:
1) Boil the passion puree and sugar
2) Burr Mix the agar agar powder in and then the gelatin.
3) Pour in a half frame
4) When set, cut in oval shapes.
Raspberry Mousse–
1000 gr Raspberry Puree
600 gr Sugar
13 gr Lemon Juice
27 gr Gelatin
800 gr Whipped Cream
Method:
1) Boil the lemon juice, raspberry puree and sugar
2) Add the softened gelatin sheets.
3) Cool down till cool to the touch.
4) Fold in whip cream
Chocolate Glaze –
240 gr Cream
290 gr Water
360 gr Sugar
150 gr Cocoa Powder
25 gr Gelatin
Method:
1) Boil the cream, water, sugar and cocoa powder.
2) Add gelatin.
3) When cool, ready to glaze
Assemble Mousse:
1) Pipe some raspberry mousse in the flexipan half full.
2) Place a layer of passion fruit gelee.
3) Place the crunch bottom.
4) Freeze, pop out of mold and spray red.
5) Glaze half the mousse.