Few people would imagine that Cadzand could be the location for a highly successful restaurant. Dutch chef Syrco Bakker is the chef of Pure C, a restaurant created by Dutch renowned chef Sergio Herman in Cadzand, Zeeland on the North Sea in the Netherlands. Syrco is still young but is already a top performer and one of the rising stars of Dutch cuisine. We have published our interview with him last month. Here are the ten lessons we learnt from our conversation with him.
- Forget about the things you cannot control: When you are striving for perfection, sometimes you tend to focus on things that may be beyond your control and which you cannot correct. Syrco says that he has learnt to forget about the things that are beyond his control because it is a waste of energy and ends up putting you in a bad mood.
- Learn from your mentors: Syrco has had a number of top mentors from Jonnie Boer to Gordon Ramsay and Sergio Herman. He has learnt lessons from each of them and uses that experience in his daily work.
- It is important to have someone who can be critical despite the positive comments you might receive: Syrco is lucky to have Sergio as his mentor. And he tells me that if you are not careful you could easily fall into a trap of thinking everything is fine, particularly when clients are praising you for your work. It is always great to have someone who can give you an honest opinion which is critical but which is aimed at making you improve.
- Procrastination is not necessarily a bad thing: At the moment, I am reading a book entitled The Originals just published by Adam Grant, which also makes this point about procrastination and how it can be an important tool for creative people. Sometimes, by waiting, you can unleash creativity because by taking the time you are actually allowing yourself to subconsciously think of a better solution. Syrco told me that in the past he used to serve dishes that used to be 90% ready but now they wait until they think the dish is perfect. Sometimes ideas can remain on the whiteboard for many months before they are actually turned into actual creations.
- It is essential to create a ‘good environment for staff’: Working in restaurant kitchens is extremely tough and used to be much tougher in the past. Syrco says the success of Jonnie and Therese Boer who have been, together with Sergio Herman, at the top of Dutch cuisine, boils down to how they treat their staff. He learnt from them how staff remained loyal for many years because of the ‘family’ atmosphere they created and it is something he tries to recreate at Pure C.
- Social media is positive: Today, ideas travel faster thanks to social media. In the beginning he used to want to protect everything and did not want anyone to copy his ideas. Now, he is less concerned about it and says that social media helps everyone to keep up to date. They use social media because they know it is important. It is also good to follow what your contacts are doing and keep updated.
- Sharing ideas is important: Sharing ideas is extremely important and makes the team stronger. He says that when someone comes to the kitchen even for a few days, he is not afraid to share and open up because at the end of the day it makes him motivated to be a step ahead. Moreover, you can also learn from anyone including trainees in the kitchen. They can tell you how to do things which you might not be familiar with. For example, an Italian could teach you how to make gnocchi or focaccia, a Korean how to work with tofu.
- Allow space for innovation: At Pure C, Syrco, Sergio and three sous-chefs have a big white board where they write all their ideas. Sometimes, ideas can remain on the board for months and even more than a year. Each member of the team has one afternoon in the week to test new ideas and to let each member of the team taste what they create. Syrco used to do it alone but he says that working together makes them better and stronger.
- You can learn from any experience: Sometimes you might not necessarily agree with a certain vision but every experience is important. You need to be humble to take lessons in your stride and to turn them into something positive.
- Pursue your vision: Pure C is a vision of what a restaurant should look like in future. It started in a seaside town on the North Sea during the economic crisis and few would have believed that it would work. But the team has managed to build something extremely interesting and people have flocked to it. It is now a gastronomic restaurant with a relaxed ambiance. What’s most important for the team at Pure C is to create a relaxed and casual atmosphere.
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