Antony Scholtmeyer is the Executive Chef at the prestigious Penha Longa Hotel Spa.
NAME Antony Scholtmeyer
JOB TITLE Executive Chef
COMPANY Penha Longa Hotel Spa and Golf Resort, located close to Lisbon
JOB DESCRIPTION Antony Scholtmeyer is an Australian chef who has worked in hotels all over the world and is now the Executive Chef at Penha Longa Hotel Spa and Golf Resort, which is part of the Ritz-Carlton hotel company.
Antony supervises the hotel’s chefs, cooks and kitchen staff, and has recently begun playing a key role in the hotel’s new gastronomy promotions, including taking guests to local markets where he sources many of the fresh ingredients for the kitchens.
Q: What made you decide to become a chef?
A: I wanted to be a motor mechanic like my brother, and got into cooking by accident. My father’s a chef, and he has a restaurant in Melbourne. The family moved to the countryside when I was sixteen and all the local schools were full. My father had an apprentice position come up, so I ended up doing that instead. At first I knew absolutely nothing! On my first day, I was told to dice an onion and I asked, “What’s dice?”
Q: How long have you been doing this specific role?
A: Five months. Before that I worked at the Ritz Carlton in Singapore. I learnt a lot there, especially that simplicity is the key when it comes to catering for lots of people.
Q: How did you gain your culinary training and experience?
A: I went to cookery college for four years, then went travelling all over Europe. I worked in restaurants for a while, and then started working in hotel restaurants, which I’ve been doing now for two years.
Q: How would you describe your particular cooking style?
A: Traditional Portuguese meals with a twist, bringing in influences from Singapore and France. In Japan, if an ingredient is ultra fresh, they eat it raw; a day old, they grill it; older, boil it.
Q: What hours do you work?
A: I start at about 8 or 8.30, and finish at 9 or 10. On an average day I begin by checking through all my emails. Then we have the morning meeting, making sure everything’s organised. I spend some time with the sous-chefs, who are responsible for supervising all of the other chefs, cooks and kitchen workers. We plan menus together and devise new dishes. Then I visit every one of the five kitchens, and check that everyone has everything that they need to do their jobs. That’s an important thing and helps to keep everyone happy. In the evenings I’m very hands-on in the kitchens. I work alongside the chefs. It’s the best way to control quality – teaching them as you work with them. They want to learn! I help to run the hotel’s gastronomy promotions and carry out lots of planning meetings. By September we were already working on things for the new year, from menus and kitchen equipment to staffing. I have to be aware of how the Ritz-Carlton hotel company is progressing. It’s expanding a lot right now. In December, four new hotels opened around the world: two in China, one in Indonesia and one in Denver. Whenever they open a new hotel they need an executive chef to go and train the new staff, so I sometimes head over to a new hotel for ten days to get them up to speed and get kitchens operational. In fact, I got this job through going to one of the hotel openings as a sous chef and meeting Penha Longa’s executive chef, who was looking for a replacement.
Q: What do the gastronomy promotions involve?
A: The package includes two night’s accommodation, daily gourmet treats designed by me and my team, a trip to Lisbon’s food market, Mercado da Ribeira, and a visit to the famous patisserie Antiga Confeitaria de Belém. The guests will also have a meal hosted by the general manager, Oriol Montal at our restaurant assaMassa, and a pastry cookery class at the Old Kitchen in Penha Longa’s 16th century palace.
Q: What do you love most about your job?
A: The creativity. I also love working with the staff – bringing out the best in them and helping them do better than they thought they could. That’s very rewarding.
Q: What are the greatest challenges of the role?
A: At Penha Longa we have 50 cooks in the kitchen. Adapting to the role of executive chef hasn’t been easy. I’m accountable for every single kitchen employee. It’s a whole different kind of pressure!
Q: What is your culinary speciality?
A: I like to create innovative new dishes that take people by surprise. My favourite is the savoury foie gras ice cream, using the concept of duck al'orange. However, my philosophy on food is that it doesn’t matter what it is, it’s the care you put into it that matters. If you’re making a French onion soup, it should be the best French onion soup you’ve ever eaten.
Q: What are your most memorable moments?
A: When I was working in Singapore we had 110 cooks in the kitchen, and on Christmas day we had to prepare food for 1,500 people!
Q: How would you describe yourself?
A: Lucky. I’ve been extremely fortunate with the opportunities I’ve been offered.