It is not often that a single ingredient is the star on all plates at a chef's table. However, this is the premise of "A Tavola With Chef Andrea Accordi", executive chef of the Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok at Chao Phraya River, which is exclusively available to 10 diners.
"A Tavola With Chef Andrea is like welcoming you into our home kitchen. We have the chance to share some special ingredients, many of which don't normally make their way to Thailand. It is the culinary journey that offers a special experience to our diners that are quite different from the standard time at Riva del Fiume," says chef Accordi.
Until July 2, chef Accordi will shine a spotlight on the award-winning Mayura Station from South Australia, at Riva del Fiume Ristorante. Guru speaks to Mayura Station managing director Scott de Bruin to find out what makes his Wagyu special.
What is the history of Mayura Station?
Though Mayura Station was established in 1845, the de Bruin's bought it in the early 1980s. I am a second-generation owner. When we heard that Wagyu cattle were going to be allowed out of Japan, we quickly jumped at the opportunity and were able to purchase cattle because we knew the quality of the beef they can produce. Until then no Wagyu cattle were available outside of Japan.
What makes Mayura beef so special?
Our Wagyu is special because of our ultimate pursuit of perfection of quality. Our herd is full-blood Wagyu, which means that the beef is produced from a Wagyu mother and a Wagyu father. A majority of the beef in Australia is produced from a Wagyu father and another breed mother. Mayura breed's ancestry can be traced directly back to the true Wagyu in Japan without any evidence of crossbreeding. We started with 29 heads of full-blood Wagyu and today we have 12,000. We are a boutique operation, processing only 110 heads of cattle a month. We slaughter our cows at 27-28 months because we discovered that if you process cattle too young, they may be more tender but they don't have the intensity of flavour. If you process the cattle at an older age, they have a highly developed flavour but they're not as tender. We've found 27 months to be the sweet spot.
Mayura is known for being a 'luxury beef' because the cows are chocolate-fed, why is that?
To produce the highest quality beef, it's not only about being Wagyu; 'Wa' means Japanese or Japanese style and 'gyu' means cattle. Producing Wagyu isn't just about having the breed of cattle, it's about the technique that you use to produce them. The grain feeding in the nutrition is very important. But we didn't know how to feed them. I was learning from master breeder Shogo Takeda, who explained the ingredients and the nutritional makeup needed to feed the cattle to get the best results. One of those ingredients I couldn't buy in South Australia, so I had to come up with an alternative. Understanding the level of fats, sugars and carbohydrates were imperative and I came up with a blend that includes Cadbury's milk chocolate, Jaffa cakes, biscuit meal and lollies. The results were magnificent as the beef had this beautiful sweetness and nuttiness when you ate it. Due to the high presence of sugars, once grilled the meat takes on a beautiful caramelisation, giving it that umami flavour.
How is Mayura sustainable?
We're very focused on what our carbon footprint is and are conscious of how we produce our beef. We have a cyclical approach. It's very important that we leave the land better than how we first started farming on it; that we don't pollute the waters. At Mayura, there is an abundance of spring water that the cattle drink. We're a completely vertically integrated process, which means that not only do we do all the genetic research to work out which are the best performing cattle to continue to improve the quality of our beef, but we also have our own breeding herd. We raise our own calves, grow our crops, feed and fodder. We've invested a lot to build the best facilities to house the cattle. It's like the Four Seasons for cattle. The barn has sawdust floors and when they excrete, it is composted and turned into organic fertiliser, which is used on the farm to grow the crops to feed the cattle. Even the chocolate and sweets that are fed to the cattle are seconds. These are products that would be wasted or thrown away. Whilst they're not suitable for human consumption, they are suitable for our cattle. So what we're doing is we're taking a byproduct and we're creating a use for it to enhance our product, herby creating a luxury product, which is a win-win for everybody involved.
"A Tavola With Chef Andrea", a 7-course degustation menu with Mayura Wagyu as the heroine, is priced at B7,000++ per person, with a wine pairing for B3,800++. A la carte menu is also available at Riva del Fiume Ristorante until July 2. Call 02-032-0885.
