Chef Lau’s culinary journey and La Germania range

SOME kids run away to the circus. Chef Lau’s fascination for all things culinary drove him to run away and join a kitchen. No, seriously.

At the tender age of seven, little Rolando Laudico was spending time in the kitchen, exploring the first few inklings of his calling via his family’s trusty La Germania cooking range. Despite his early start, though, he decided to pursue another course of study in college. Initially taking up tourism, he intended to make one final move to hotel and restaurant management, but before he could do so he met his future wife, Jackie, and he delayed shifting again.

But the call of the kitchen was too strong and the future chef found himself dropping out of school to work in fine dining establishments, such as La Primavera in Greenbelt and Carpaccio along Yakal in Makati City. While Mr. Laudico cut his teeth washing dishes at the first restaurant, by the time he worked at Carpaccio, he was the establishment’s first “pizzaiolo,” or the pizza cook.

Eventually, though, Chef Lau’s parents caught on. “My parents found out that I quit college and they asked me if I was serious about cooking,” he recalls. “I said that yes, I was, and they decided to send me to culinary school. Back then, we didn’t have [culinary schools in the Philippines], so I went to the US to study at the Culinary Institute of America.” Upon emerging as a full-fledged chef, he went on to work in kitchens in France and Australia. But he eventually set his sights on the Philippines.

Upon returning to the country, Chef Lau set up a catering business that would be the cornerstone of his culinary empire. One of his first purchases was a La Germania oven range, in a fitting homage to the stove that gave him his first taste of culinary passion.

“It was the very first La Germania that I bought using my own money,” Mr. Laudico says. “And it’s still working today, almost 18 years after I first got it.” That range has been through a lot — it’s stood by the company day and night, moving from site to site, getting rained on and even occasionally dropped, but still going strong and helping Chef Lau and his crew of dedicated cooks prepare delicious, perfectly made dishes.

Given the longevity and durability of that range, it’s no wonder that he chose another La Germania for his family home, this time a massive Bertazzoni model in Ferrari red. Not only does he want to spend more time creating on a stove he knows will perform to his exacting standards, but he also wants his family to have access to a unit that will encourage them to create masterpieces in their own kitchen.