Local Seasonings

Indian Sumanth Das is no stranger to Indonesia, having spent time here in his youth when his father was an expatriate engineer. After managing his own restaurant in the US and also working with the Four Seasons hotel in the Seychelles, Das is back in the city as the executive chef at The Four Seasons Jakarta.

He says he is excited by the city, and the many developments that have occurred in recent years. He is especially enthusiastic about the dynamic restaurant scene.

“There is so much going on, there are so many excellent stand-alone restaurants now as well as the established hotel restaurants,” he says.

Das is bringing his own touches to the menu at the Four Seasons’ nine F&B outlets, and particularly with a renewed focus on offering a true taste of Indonesia for visitors.

“Some of our visitors are here for short periods, they don’t have a chance to go out and taste local food, so we want to offer a genuine taste of Indonesia, even if it is only a plate of fried rice,” says the chef, who has introduced regional themes, such as West Sumatra and Balinese, for the weekday lunch brunches.

As well as the spread of buffet dishes, there are other genuine touches of Indonesian home cookies, such as crackers and handmade chili sauces.

“I tell my team to make the dishes as realistic as possible, the way they like their food, and not to tone down the taste of the spices.”

That attention to a bona-fide taste of Indonesia is found in his new fried chicken recipe, which involved painstaking taste testing with his team.

“We kept on trying it over and over again, until we got it just right.”

Das says his all-time quick meal staple is pasta – “it always works no matter what you do with it, and you can do it so easily”.

But still a labor of love for him is to be able to cook up the perfect biryani. “You always think that it needs a little bit more of this or that to make it better,” he says.