By Leigh O’Connor.
Dishing up a non-pretentious take on Southeast Asian food, Migo Razon finds inspiration from everywhere – his home, the places he has travelled and explored, along with his Mum’s cooking.
Born in Manila, this Filipino Chef graduated from the Centre of Culinary Arts before heading Down Under after working in some of the Philippine’s most esteemed restaurants.
Now Executive Chef of the Mövenpick Hotel on Spencer Street in Melbourne, Migo takes charge of the kitchen at award-winning, Chef-hatted Miss Mi restaurant.
Most recently having worked alongside Celebrity Chef, Adrian Richardson, Migo helped launch Maestro restaurant in Geelong, before making the move to Miss Mi in November last year.
"At the age of seven, I already knew I wanted to be a Chef,” he tells AGFG. "I fell in love with cooking because of my Mum, I started helping her cook on weekends for the family, doing the basic tasks of peeling onions and other vegetables. I worked my way up to helping her stir or sauté the aromatics.
"My love of food and my whole career I owe to her. Nothing can beat any Mum’s cooking!”
Migo is a believer of balance in food – there will always be the sweet, sour, salty and sometimes spicy elements to his dishes.
"My style is simple. I don’t like adding a lot of elements to a single dish, everything needs to complement each other and the food on the plate needs to look clean.
"I like mixing and matching different flavours from each Southeast Asian country to create unique dishes you can only see on our menu.”
Migo shares his recipe for cucumber, honeydew, apple, sunflower seed and achaar:
"This dish was designed to celebrate Spring and the launch of my first menu at Miss Mi in Melbourne. It champions and emphasises how beautiful local cucumbers are during the Spring season,” he explains. "I was casually discussing food and our next menu with my Sous Chef, Paula when we came up with the concept and I must say it is one of the best dishes on our current menu.
"I am just in awe that we created something this amazing by chance.”
The dish is also special as half of the components are freshly made just before each service to guarantee optimum freshness for every plate that comes out of the kitchen.
With stunning choices like this on the menu, Migo will be showing Melbourne diners the incredible flavours of Filipino cuisine for many meals to come.
