With less than a week to go until the Eat Sleep Cycle Café opens we speak to Bram, the Eat...
With less than a week to go until the Eat Sleep Cycle Café opens we speak to Bram, the Eat Sleep Cycle Café chef, as he talks about the inspiration behind the menu of our new Girona cycling café. One of the most important factors for Lee and Louise when deciding to expand Eat Sleep Cycle, was to ensure they were able to give back to the community & support local producers. Read on to find out more from the chef behind the newest Girona cycling café menu!
Hi, I’m Bram from the Netherlands, I grew up in a small fishing town Breskens. I started at the age of 14 working as a dishwasher for two hours at the weekend, that’s where Bart started to teach me kitchen life. My most valuable lesson I learnt in the kitchen is to first create a perfect dish, then once you have it, make it as easy as possible to make without losing the quality.
I worked my way up in the kitchen scene & as young guy I would change job each year to gain as much experience as possible. Later, I started traveling in the winters and that’s where the biggest experience was, learning how other cultures cook and eat. It was and still is amazing.
Creating a menu is always a challenge, especially in a foreign country away from what you know. You have to do your homework to understand the food culture, and then the menu needs to be diverse enough. I’m not afraid to say I’m stubborn, I don’t like to copy, I always want to end up with my own twist on a dish.
Finding new ingredients is the other nice part of it, it’s a journey that never ends. Finding ingredients with a story is specially awesome. A cheese that is coming from a small local farm, made from 12 cows who all have a name, creating a dish with that, is gold.
Trying to work as much as possible with local and seasonal ingredients is the inspiration for the menu.
The food of the café will change with the seasons. But you can also expect local ingredients with a international twist. I worked in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Philippines, and from every place your learn something. It would be nice to infuse some of those flavours in a gentle way with local products from Cataluya.
My favourite ingredients are always changing. I do like to work with seafood as well meat, but now a days vegan, healthy and sustainable is the hype, so I’m more focused on developing myself in those areas. I’m a massive fan of the “Yakiniku” Kamado BBQ, it’s extremely diverse. Smoking, roasting, slow cooking, pizza, cakes, it is endless! Using this in combination with veggies, creating something out of the box, that’s what I mostly like.
My biggest motivation is creating dishes and giving costumers the ‘wow’ effect. There is always something to improve, and that never stops.
All of us at Eat Sleep Cycle are excited for the newest venture into a Girona cycling café, and we’re all so grateful for your support! Follow us on instagram, and check out our café web page to stay up to date.
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