Popular culinary artist and fire-cooking aficionado Chef Lennox Hastie is preparing for a four-day takeover at Fiji’s Kokomo Resort early next year.
Already in the country, Chef Hastie, known for his unique cooking methods using only live fire, is exploring traditional Fijian cooking techniques, including lovo and ika tavu, and aims to incorporate local ideas into his fire cooking.
“I always love exploring different cultures, particularly through fire,” Hastie said.
“There are so many beautiful places in the world, all joined by that one mother: cooking with fire.”
The resort features other talented chefs, like executive chef Andy Bryant and head chef Caroline Oakley, who bring their expertise to the island’s dining experiences and are also exploring the lovo process and its potential on their menus.
Chef Bryant became part of the Beach Shack, the island’s waterfront grill, a year ago, bringing with him experience working at Hinchcliff House in Sydney, Supernormal in Melbourne, and Frantzén in Stockholm.
According to the Gourmet Traveller, Australia’s leading food and travel magazine, Chef Oakley has been at the resort since its launch in 2017 and taps into her Fijian heritage to bring family-style dining to Walker D’Plank, another of Kokomo’s restaurants.
“In Oakley, Hastie has a ready guide to Fijian cooking, and she is excited to show him a technique from her hometown Biausevu where bamboo is cut, filled with freshwater prawns (though, they use lobster today), closed in with lemongrass and cooked on the fire,” an article in the Gourmet Traveller said.
Chef Oakley reportedly said, “There are so many different villages with different cooking methods but they are all linked through fire. If we could bring that culture to resort dining that would be a good thing. We need to keep our culture alive.”
Chef Hastie is eager to begin his Fijian fire-cooking journey, saying: “Fire is very spiritual here. So, I’m looking for ways to bring forth local ideas on a larger scale, which is super interesting to me.”
“It’s the discovery and formulation that I find so thrilling,” he said.
“It’s only by exploring a place you find the things you thought would be straightforward aren’t. And things you didn’t even think of suddenly appear. It’s interesting to create a menu around that,” he said.
Kokomo Island Resort’s upcoming residency with the virtuoso chef responsible for elevating Australia’s obsession with fire cooking will be a four-day stint in February 2024.
