A Lot on Her Plate

Elbow Room’s Nuna Khazana leads a new wave of women chefs who are taking the over the city’s restaurant kitchens. She is juggling home and work life to do it.

 By Diajeng Hendratmo-Brown

It’s a drizzly afternoon in Jakarta when Elbow Room’s head chef Nuna greets me on the first level of the vast gastro pub in Kemang, South Jakarta.

“Please don’t ask me any hard questions,” she says with an anxious smile. The chef seems a little uncomfortable out of her usual domain and keeps glancing over at her staff behind us, anxious to rejoin her line cooks. “I’m not used to being out of the kitchen. I prefer to be hidden back there.”

When one thinks of a chef, the image that comes to mind is probably of a slightly rotund, bossy man who is, more likely than not, difficult to deal with. Celebrity chefs such as Gordon Ramsay or Mario Batali come to mind.

Or any number of other men, for that matter. Because, despite women’s traditional role in the family kitchen, men have dominated the professional kitchen.

Chef Nuna, a slim, petite woman, defies all the stereotypes.

Nuna has a very direct way of talking, as if thrifty with words. She answers with a very polite “yes” or “no”, and often nods in agreement. It takes a bit of a cajoling before she opens up about her chosen profession.

“My whole family is in the food and beverage industry, so I decided that I wanted to be in it too,” she explains. “I have always loved being in the kitchen so I knew that I wanted to do it professionally.”

It was a natural decision for her then to enroll in a vocational cooking high school before starting her career in 1996.

She started as a kitchen steward, mainly washing dishes, and worked her way up. She eventually graduated to prep cook before finally stepping further up the ladder.

“I think it is really important to start from the bottom,” she says. “I learned so much from being a part of all the steps of a kitchen. Now I know what is involved in every step so that I know all that is going on in my kitchen.”

All of her hard work has paid off. She now heads the kitchen of one of Jakarta’s few gastro pubs. With a menu offering a variety of dishes from all over the world, Elbow Room is the ideal place for Nuna to experiment with her global palate. She creates the menu in collaboration with Ponti Young, Elbow Room’s owner.

“We work pretty hard to provide cuisines from a lot of different parts of the world so that our customers can pick and choose,” Nuna says, clearly proud of the menu.

“Pak Ponti has taught me a lot,” she adds. “He is also a great cook so I have learned from working closely with him.”

Their menu is not only varied, but also humorous, with names like “Finding Nemo” for a plate of fish and chips. The Elbow Room aims to be a hangout for expatriates and locals alike.

When asked about her favorite dish, Nuna is quick to name the pork belly nasi goreng.

“We marinate the pork belly for a day before we cook it, then we roast the pork belly so that it is crispy outside and moist inside. Then we cut it up and serve it with our special nasi goreng,” Nuna explains with a big smile. “Another dish that is special to our restaurant is our variety of burgers. We make them with different additional ingredients for all different palates.”

But perhaps even a female chef conforms to the stereotype of the chef who’s difficult to work with and – let’s face it – mean. She denies being mean.

“I am stern though, and if there in anyone on my staff that does something wrong, I will correct them,” she says, with a sideways glance toward the kitchen. Then she smiles. “I do what has to be done.”

Like most working women, Nuna must make an effort to balance her work and home life. Her husband is an elementary school sports teacher, so she doesn’t get to see too much of him.

“I work pretty late, while he works early. So we see each other when we can,” she says, and adds with a smile, “Because we both enjoy what we do. So it is all OK.”

When asked if she would like to have her own restaurant one day, Nuna’s answer is quick.

“I would love to have my own restaurant. It would be very simple, though, with a casual atmosphere,” she adds graciously and with a dreamy look on her face. “That is still a bit far from now. I still have much to learn.”

One person she feels she could learn a lot from is William Wongso, Indonesia’s own culinary icon. “I admire Pak Wongso quite a lot. I think that he has a very fresh approach to food and cooking. I would love to be able to learn from him.”

Are there any difficulties that she faces, not only as a chef, but also as a female chef?

“It gets a bit stressful at the end of the month, when there are inventories to be done to coincide with all the other things. I also have my kitchen at home to deal with. That is when it gets a little tough,” Nuna says.

“Don’t forget,” she adds with a smile. “I am also a short order cook at home.”

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