This chef thinks you should be FED up with fusion food

Flowers often appear in dishes and drinks, but rarely are they the bedrock for inspiration. That's happening at FED (Flower, Eat, Drink), a modern French restaurant on Changle Road. With a glass and steel greenhouse out front, a 20-seat cocktail bar, and a kitchen serving contemporary French dishes, chef and general manager Frederic Quemin talks about his "Tradern" way of cooking, dining trends for 2018, and why fusion cuisine is confusing.

How did you end up cooking in Shanghai?

I've been cooking for 30 years since I was 14 years old. When I was 21, I wanted to learn about food from around the world so I left France and went to work in various countries: England, Australia, Ecuador, Vietnam, Dubai, Indonesia, China. I've held many positions in the kitchen, from garde manger to pastry chef, and I've worked in various establishments from Michelin-starred restaurants, five-star hotels, palaces to beach clubs. I've also worked with famous chefs such as John King, Marco Pierre White, and the Pourcel brothers in Shanghai. On and off, I've been in China for the last 11 years.

Frederic Quemin

What is FED?

FED is a vision from our owner July. She owns July's Flower, and she wanted a restaurant where flowers, food, and drink complement each other. We do modern French cuisine, which I call "Tradern." I wanted to remove all the old-fashioned ways of referring to a dish as “cooked with this," or "on a bed of that" and focus on the main ingredient to create a sense of mystery around it. At the same time, I stay true to my French heritage. The base of all my recipes are French, and people come to FED to eat in a French restaurant, so I make sure to give them a taste of what eating would be like in France. The most important part is not to be a Western-Chinese fusion restaurant. Fusion is short for confusion.

How do you turn a concept like flowers into a menu?

The challenge with flowers is that a lot of them can poison you, so you need to be careful with what you do. But I get ideas from a walk in the park, memories of me going into the forest as a child, working the garden with my father, reading a book, and just looking around. We are surrounded by natural elements we can use to create dishes.

What is your signature dish and how do you make it?

If I had to choose one dish it would be our snails. Traditionally in France, snails are cooked with a rich garlic and parsley butter sauce, but I wanted to make a 21st-century version. I braise the snails in red wine, wrap them up like a sausage with chicken and foie gras mousse, and poach them. I dust them with cepes mushroom powder and serve the dish with creams of black garlic and white garlic, Italian parsley puree, and garlic rosemary foam.

Where do your ingredients come from?

The vegetables are local, meat comes from Australia, and seafood is imported too. Some ingredients come from China; you can find some incredible produce here. Only our flour is fully French. We tried 25 different flours available in China, from locally-made ones to imported brands, but only one brand could bake a good enough bread. People often forget the importance of the flour in bread, and this is the only brand I've used for the past eight years here.

What are some dining trends for 2018?

It's very hard to predict trends for Western restaurants as we're cooking food the Chinese are not used to eating. But I believe the trend is heading toward the same food movement as the rest of the world: a modern restaurant design, with focus on quality ingredients as the heart of the concept. At the end of the day, no matter what the trend is, people go out to restaurants to eat great food, and that is my motto: to deliver delicious food everyday.

FED by July

918 Changle Road / 长乐路918号

6277 0500

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