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He opened his first restaurant Whitegrass, the 70-seater fine dining venue in Chijmes, in January 2016, with his signature mod Australian-Japanese offerings. Very soon, the culinary maestro became popular for his “cooking-without-any-culinary-boundaries” ethos. And then, at the height of his career in 2018, with a star and a place on the prestigious Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and a mere month before its third anniversary, Aisbett shuttered Whitegrass.
FOOD & WINE
Meet Sam Aisbett 2.0
by Priyanka Elhence
20 Dec 2024
20 Dec 2024
Sam Aisbett, former chef at Michelin-starred Whitegrass, comes into his own with Akuna at Le Méridien Saigon – and he’s nothing like you remember him.
There aren’t many chefs like Sam Aisbett.
Interiors of Akuna, Chef Sam Aisbett's new 60-seater restaurant at Le Méridien Saigon in Hồ Chí Minh city
The Australian chef took the opportunity to spend time with his family at home in Queensland – a break that ended up stretching to five years when Covid-19 hit. But in a perfectly serendipitous moment in Vietnam in 2021, Aisbett was offered the position to helm a fine dining restaurant at Le Méridien Saigon in Hồ Chí Minh city.
The 60-seater Akuna, Australian-Aboriginal for ‘flowing water’, opened in July 2023. And 11 months later, just weeks before celebrating its first anniversary, Aisbett was awarded a Michelin star, catapulting Akuna to new heights.
As we talked about his journey from Australia to Vietnam over a virtual interview, the 41-year-old’s twinkling eyes, big smile, and relaxed, confident demeanour came through in droves. “I had never taken a break at Whitegrass. I was just working all the time. My dad was sick and that’s when I decided to head home and spend some time with the family catch up with everything in Australia,” reveals Aisbett, who started his career at 15, working as an apprentice for his late father at his butchery, before going on to work for highly awarded chefs including Tetsuya Wakuda, Peter Gilmore, and Leigh Diggins in London.
“I missed Asia and wanted to come back. But I was so burnt out from Whitegrass, I even questioned if I still wanted to be a chef,” he admits. “I had been to Vietnam a few times on holiday before, and always loved it, so I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time, having a drink at my usual watering hole, no less. I love it here. Despite the language issues, it’s my home,” he beams.
While the variety of local produce is unbelievable, Aisbett says the consistency is slightly undependable due to the lack of fine dining restaurants. “There are only seven Michelin star restaurants in all of Vietnam, compared to over 50 in Singapore, so imagine the difference,” he says. “However, there are so many new ingredients I hadn’t seen before, I just had to use them! It’s very rare to find ingredients that have never been put on a fine dining menu yet.”
(Related: Meet Sergio Herman, the Michelin-starred chef behind Le Prestine Singapore)
Shaved arrowhead squid, local samphire, heart of palm, squid dumpling, roasted squid pearls
For example, Aisbett uses dried sandworm (a delicacy of some Northern Vietnam provinces) instead of dried scallops in his broths. And porcupine? “I didn’t even know you could eat it, much less cook with it. But it was amazing to have another protein to play with, instead of the usual suspects. Porcupine meat is so delicate, much like milk-fed veal,” he says.
Aisbett credits his evolution to his hiatus. “Being away for so long, I couldn’t remember my recipes or how to do anything from Whitegrass because I never wrote anything down. It was always all in my head,” he says. “My cooking style has evolved, and I do everything differently now.”
He continues, “I love playing with different textures. All my creations are a lot of work, but when I have an unusual ingredient (shaved saltwater crocodile, anyone?), I try to make the plate super pretty to mess with people’s brains,” he grins again. “And Vietnamese people are just so open-minded, they have no dietary restrictions and are always excited to try new things!”
(Related: In Conversation with Chef Fernanda Guerrero of Araya)
Confit pork jowl, Fremantle octopus, pickled straw mushrooms, white kombu, choko shoots, fish sauce
Just like Akuna’s philosophy of flowing water, Aisbett forges his own culinary path and direction with his constantly evolving tasting menu, which changes every three months. “I don’t think cuisine anymore; I don’t know how to describe it. It's just very creative and innovative, constantly evolving. I make it up as I go; I just cook what I think is tasty. It’s my most authentic cooking yet,” he says candidly.
Undoubtedly, Aisbett is a very different chef from his Whitegrass days; more self-confident now, more refined, experienced, and definitely in his groove having fun. In fact, when he sees pictures of his dishes from Whitegrass now, Aisbett is quite appalled by how he used to plate. “At Whitegrass, I was still ‘listening’ to other chefs, what people had taught me, how things should be; so it was a self-imposed constraint of sorts. Now, I don’t listen to anyone. I question everything I’ve learnt and do what I want my way. I’m lucky to have already achieved what I wanted, so I wasn’t thinking of the stars; I just wanted to cook and do my own thing. But it really hit me how much getting a star meant to the team. That made me happy!”
Salt water poached guineafowl, Tasmanian abalone, water chestnut, white eggplant cream, black garlic vinegar
Aisbett’s style is also much more relaxed now, thanks to the abundance of manpower in Vietnam, compared to Singapore’s constricting labour issues. “I’ve gone from literally having just two of us in the kitchen at Whitegrass, to having a solid team of 15 chefs here now.”
“Before, I was so controlling and would do everything myself and pass down the recipe to be followed. Now, I think big picture and let the team run with the vision. Sometimes the dish changes completely, and that’s amazing too,” he says.
Interestingly, while manpower isn’t an issue anymore, Aisbett’s culinary brigade was hardly experienced when they started, given the lack of fine dining restaurants in Vietnam. So how does he mentor his team? “I tell them to question everything, and to not be scared to have an opinion, even if it means not agreeing with me. They might be green, but they are such incredible, hard-working people. It is such a privilege to train and mould (these) clean slates,” says Aisbett warmly.
Aisbett ends by saying, “Akuna is my baby, a cool place where we’re all having fun, but it’s not your typical fine dining restaurant. I love the madness and the people here. Everything is inspiring and finding new ingredients to play with makes me happy.”
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