Chef Paul Brown with Prince Albert of Monaco at the Royal Palace in Monaco

When I read my fabulous friend’s interview with Paul Brown, the former Executive Chef to the King of Bahrain on her blog She Goes, I was so fascinated by the idea of being the chef for a Royal that I left this comment:

“What an interesting job! I’d love to see what it is like behind the scenes of a royal kitchen so I’d probably talk the poor man’s ear off “

Which led my wonderful friend to asking me whether I’d like to talk to Paul Brown myself and find out a bit more about working for a Royal and not just any Royal but a Middle Eastern Royal! Now the Executive Chef at Stamford Grand in Glenelg, Brown created one of the signature desserts featured in every Sir Stamford, the Chocolate Implosion and later Mr NQN and I got to try one of those too.

So, how did you arrive to be the Senior Executive Chef for the King of Bahrain?

The general manager of palaces was asked by his majesty to find a new Exec Chef. He wanted an Australian Executive Chef because his son the Crown Prince had one and he was very impressed by the way he turned the kitchen around. He asked who are the up and coming chefs in Australia and my name was dropped into the hat.

Club Des Chef Des Chef with chefs from Germany, Greece, Bahrain (Brown) and Canada

Was it a long process?

It was a very long process. It took months and months. First of all were the interviews and everything was agreed and then we were asked to come over. I resigned my position and we were waiting around and one month goes by, two months goes by and three months goes by and we’re wondering “What’s going on?”. I thought this isn’t going to go through so I actually accepted another job back in Sydney. So I was back in Sydney and I got a lease on a house and then they rang me up and said “OK we need you tomorrow”.

Tomorrow?

So I said no problems at all, chucked in the job and you have to lose 3 months of rent on the lease. They said you’re leaving on these flights and we pick up our tickets from Gulf Air because His Majesty owns Gulf Air and they said “No that flight left yesterday”. We changed over our first class tickets to bummy economy just to get over there!

Then we meet the General Manager of Palaces and he said “Welcome to Bahrain, Our Majesty is about to go away on a Summer vacation. We’ll be back in contact soon”. A month went by and we were staying at the Sheraton. They said everything is looked after you just have to pay for alcohol. One month went by with no contact from anybody at all. My wife was starting to stress and we’re wondering “Do we have to pay for this hotel room?”. Our hotel bill was $25-$30,000 but it was a short time later that I got the call saying “OK we need to sort out your medicals and we’ll send a driver around”.

Obviously there had to be background checks. Do they probe deep?

Yes they probe very deep, a lot deeper than you’d think they’d probe. They obviously look into the places you’ve worked for and family background.

Did you travel with the king?

The majority of the we didn’t travel with the king. The kitchen had its own planes so we would travel separately so we’d try to be a day in advance at least or at least half a day in advance. We’d try and get to the destination and have everything ready for when he arrives. We would have multiple teams running to try and always be one step ahead of him. We had lots of planes we could use from the kitchen point of view.

Tell me about the King.

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I could subtitle this: the world’s (or ok Sydney’s) most anticipated cafe opening. After waiting for weeks and penciling in several possible opening dates, holding time slots open on busy weekends and having each pass by without a hint or sniff of a glorious cake, here we are, 3 weeks later, sitting in the Zumbo Café Chocolat. With who else of course but fellow bloggers and Zumbo addicts Suze from Chocolate Suze, Belle and William from Ooh Look… and bloggers I am meeting for the first time, Richard (Ffichiban) from Here Comes the Food and Chris and Tim from The Way That It Crumbles.

For the men

The cafe is small but sumptuously furnished with red chandeliers, flocked cushions, dark wood paneling and banquette seating. The men aren’t forgotten with section featuring a petrol pump and bar seating.

Humbug lights and counter display

At the front there is the chocolate, pastry and macaron selection with some great lights (reportedly the starting point for decorating the cafe), which resemble humbugs without ever verging into the “cutesy” territory. For a cafe open only 3 days earlier it is pretty full the entire 1.5 hours we are there.

Photo by Belle from Ooh Look…

The talk of the room is the Cameltoe chocolate. Yes you heard correctly. It is a chocolate in the shape of a cameltoe. Belle and Suze show us photographic evidence of the graphic and yes, it is a very cameltoe-ish shaped red wine chocolate. For those of you unfamiliar with a cameltoe, google it if you’re not at work. And if you’re my parents, don’t google it and forget you ever read this.

Photo by Belle from Ooh Look…

The chocolate itself begs the question where does one find a Cameltoe shaped chocolate mould? I’ve seen penis and boob chocolate moulds (I may admit to actually being given some penis chocolates at some stage in my life but will deny it if you ever ask me). Rachel, the lovely manager of the cafe tells us that they’re actually a fairly common chocolate mould and when they saw it the resemblance to a Cameltoe was so remarkable that they named it the Cameltoe. We preferred to call it the “CT” as there are others about that are perhaps not aware that we are discussing one of the menu items. And the blush inducing moniker works as today they have sold out of it!

Sweets menu

Savoury menu

There’s no menu yet as the cafe only opened on Thursday a few days ago but the wait staff come over to us to let us know what there is available. We order one of each type of dessert as well as some of their drinks. As well there are also pastries, filled rolls and Elmstock teas in intriguing sounding names like Green Gunpowder and Barbados (reportedly very nice as an Iced tea). We’re given Splayds (yes Splayds-that fabulous retro cake fork invention) and real linen napkins (oooh yes proper napery).

Iced Cherry chocolate $4.50

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After my Easter visit to Colefax where I was told that a Chocolate and Coffee Lounge was forthcoming, I’d always meant to come back to see it, after they’d had a chance to settle in. A trip overseas and work always intervened and it came to September before I could come back and check out their shop and newly appointed Chocolate shop and Coffee lounge.

Entering we see that the whole shop has changed and it has opened up completely. The crowds of chocolate connoisseurs are still there buying their tablettes of single origin chocolates, truffles and novelty shaped lips and golf balls, but there are also those that are sitting down to a cup of coffee and hot chocolate, made with their famous Belgian couverture chocolate. Reg, the affable gentleman who had previously showed me such courtesy is behind the counter and shows me the new range and packaging.

Heavenly truffles $9 per 100grams

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