In this blog post, we’ve asked Chef Alicia Tivey 8 questions so you can get to know her better. Let's get to know Chef Alicia.

Chef Alicia is one of our top consulting chefs and trainer in our 5-day intensive Indonesian cooking class in Singapore.

After completing her formal training at Frankston TAFE in Victoria, Australia, Alicia embarked on a long career working in restaurants, bakeries, boardrooms and cooking schools across Australia, Singapore and Indonesia. In the early days, Alicia was privileged to work with and learn from several award-winning chefs in their Australian restaurants such as Tetsuya Wakuda (Tetsuya’s, Waku Ghin), Stephanie Alexander (book author and chef at Stephanie’s) and Greg Brown (Paysan & Brown’s).

As an Instructor at Black Pearl Epicure Cooking School in Brisbane, Alicia supported numerous celebrity chefs, such as Curtis Stone and Damien Pignolet, for their cooking demonstrations and book releases. Moving to Singapore in 2009, Alicia was Executive Chef at Palate Sensations Cooking School and has contributed as a Consulting Chef since then. In 2011, Alicia took on the challenge of Executive Chef at The Moluccas Room at the Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore. Inspired by my classical French culinary training and her Indonesian heritage, she gave a modern interpretation of Indonesian cuisine by adopting western cooking techniques to bring out the best flavours in authentic Indonesian food. From 2014 to 2016, Alicia was a guest chef at Jakarta Fashion and Food Festival. Her current projects involve setting up her own cooking school and pop up restaurant at the family farm in Lembang (Indonesia) and at Narrawong (Victoria, Australia) to promote healthy produce, cooking, eating, and sustainable living. At her Indonesian and Australian homes, she has a small but rewarding fruit, vegetable and bee operation.

What do you love about cooking/baking?

I find cooking relaxing and I love watching my guests enjoy the food I make.

What are you most excited about right now?

I am doing a series of restaurant pop-ups in my rural property in Victoria with vegetables and fruits from my garden and orchard so everything is fresh, seasonal and organic.

How would you describe your food?

Eclectic.. whatever is available 3 days before the menu is set. I like to be spontaneous. My food is Indonesian based but with French influences.

What is the best meal you ever had?

Caviar dinner paired with champagne at Tetsuya’s many years ago.

What was your biggest kitchen disaster?

When I was working at Greg Brown’s, the dishwasher threw away all 20 portions of my duck leg cassoulet because he thought I was making stock and so he kept the liquid and not the meat. So no duck was served that night.

If I gave you $5,000 how would you spend it?

I would use it towards buying a Pacojet.

Favorite ingredient to work with?

Zucchinis from my garden as they have the flower and the marrow and there are so many ways to prepare it.

What is your funniest kitchen incident?

Betting that I could call the orders correctly for Chef Greg Brown when I worked for him. Little did he know that I was getting the orders beforehand.

[See Chef Alicia's upcoming classes  ]

“The secret of a successful life is to eat and cook what you like. As Thomas Keller said, “a recipe has no soul, you as a cook must bring soul to the recipe.” - Chef Alicia Tivey