Food nerd to #follow Freddie Dias
Freddie Dias has a new home at Séjour at the Houghton Hotel. We asked the former Pot Luck Club chef to tell us about some of his favourite things
Woolies product
I love Woolies! One of my favourite discoveries are the stock concentrates – the mushroom stock concentrate is delicious. I’m trying to moderate my dairy intake, so I also love the cultured coconut.
Aroma
Garlic cooking in olive oil.
Treat
Dark chocolate. Sometimes I have dark chocolate and a bit of peanut butter. It’s so good!
Cookbook
I have almost 300 cookbooks – I’m competing with Liam Tomlin! At the moment On Vegetables by Jeremy Fox is my favourite. He’s not a vegetarian, he just loves veg – like me. One of my favourite recipes is his charred Tenderstem broccoli, (my favourite veggie) with a pine nut purée, dressed with water from roasted red peppers.
Running a kitchen
Running a successful service is like making music. When it’s flowing smoothly and everything is going really well, it’s like an orchestra. The guy on the pans is the strings, and the guy on sauce is the brass, and I’m just the conductor, keeping everything going. Although I do still like to get into the sections!
Mentor
My mother, Elena, was a very talented cook. She died in May 2019. She battled cancer for four years, which is why I decided to move back to Joburg. She had such a great repertoire. She used to make arroz de polvo – octopus rice with onion, lemon and water. She would use stock to cook the rice with tomatoes and coriander, and cut the octopus up into chunks. Then the large tentacles would be crumbed and deep-fried. Now, at Séjour, I have a dish on my menu inspired by it – grilled octopus with a blood orange glaze.