CHRISTOPHER SMITH

With his fun personality and cheeky take on the kitchen, diners can expect cool and quirky things from the F&B outlets of the newly opened Renaissance Bali Uluwatu Resort & Spa – like bicycle-delivered room service and folk song-paired spare ribs. In betw

: How did you first get into cooking?

C: I was about 17 years old, living with two friends with no job and no money. A friend of mine started dishwashing at a football club and made a lot of money, so he got me a job as well. The chef asked if I'd like to try cooking because it paid better, so I started cooking. After two or three months, I really started to love it. The chef booked me on an apprenticeship in Australia, and from that day forward I fell in love with cooking. It's just something that fell into my lap that I grew to love, and I've been doing it for 22 years now.

: Who have been your biggest inspirations?

C: I always loved Marco Pierre White and his visions when I was still an apprentice. As years went on, I started looking up to the more visionary, those who were very creative and doing something different, like Heston Blumenthal and Grant Achatz. Particularly in the last seven years, I've been trying to break the mould and make food fun. I'm not making anyone lick the wallpaper (like Blumenthal), but we're doing something different, it's not regular and boring hotel food.

: How would you describe your style in operating the kitchen?

C: Definitely fun, I'm not that sort of chef that screams and yells. I'm a big believer that a happy cook makes the best food, so I like to be there in the kitchen with my team. If you ever come here for breakfast, you'll see me in there, jumping in, cooking with the guys, obviously checking all the standards, making sure everything's great, the quality of the food is very important to me. The way we plate things, nothing too serious, but it has to taste amazing.

: What sort of fun do you incorporate in the menu?

C: We have a signature dish at Clay Craft restaurant called Babi Bali Asli. We're using local ribs and babi guling spices. It tastes great and it looks amazing when it comes out in a big pan, but you'll also get a set of headphones, so you can listen to this funky folk song about spare ribs that we found. It's super fun!

: What can we look forward to from Renaissance Bali Uluwatu, F&B wise? C: Clay Craft is the international all-day dining restaurant, the whole concept of which is built around a pottery studio. We try to bring the clay studio into the elements of the restaurant, down to the food and how we serve it, clay plates and all. A huge part of Clay Craft is its breakfast buffet, where we do a classic and indigenous version of the food, like the classic eggs Benedict and one with babi guling. Keep an eye out for a seafood dinner buffet and brunch in the future. Double Ikat is going to be new-age Indonesian, sharing style, authentic flavours and cool presentations. No fusion. This restaurant revolves around the concept of ikat, Indonesian loom craft, so we'll have live weaving at the restaurant. And we have the standalone beachclub! It's called Roosterfish – where the land meets the sea, located by Pandawa Beach, with a swimming pool, volleyball court and open barbeque pit. Our approach is more playful, friendly and quirky, we don't want a cover charge or minimum spending, we just want to be friendly. Danang Wijanarka will be the head chef there.

: What are some of the most memorable moments in your career?

C: It's an amazing feeling when you see a restaurant come from concrete to life, and when you serve your first guests. For the last two years, I've been involved in about five hotel openings, so I've had five of those moments, it is really cool. Another thing is when we recently won the Dewata Challenge at the Bali Salon Culinaire competition. The competition was held three days before the opening of the hotel, my team and I didn't sleep for about a week to get the hotel open and get the competition done, and we did it! We got the big cup!

: Any future goals you want to achieve? C: When you start out as a chef or an apprentice or young cook, you look at your executive chef and think you want to be that guy. And all of the sudden you are, this is my seventh year as an executive chef, and I still pinch myself sometimes. For me the goal is to have this place completely open and running successfully. I really love my job, I'm happy and living the dream!