It’s a rare thing for a chef to spend most of his career in the same place. But for the past 22 years, chef Uwe Micheel has walked through the same doors into the same kitchen in the same city at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek. His official title is director of kitchens, but he could just as easily be called the father of chefs. “Our hotel is a family,” he says. “Some of us have spent 20 years together. I know more about some of the guys’ lives here than I know about my own mother’s.”
Micheel is a well-known star in the UAE’s culinary world. In addition to running nearly a dozen restaurants at the Radisson, he is involved with nearly every food festival and food event in the UAE. He’s also the president of the Emirates Culinary Guild, an organisation that nurtures the UAE’s culinary talent – transforming young, inexperienced cooks into notable, respected chefs. The Emirates Culinary Guild hosts the country’s most prominent culinary competitions including Emirates Salon Culinaire, La Sial and the Dubai World Hospitality Championship, among others.
Micheel, 56, is quiet and composed, a gentle giant among men. He has a commanding presence in the kitchen; there is no doubt he is universally revered by each of the 100 chefs working in his hotel. Growing up on a farm in a small town in northern Germany, Micheel knew at an early age the kitchen is where he belongs. “When I was 11 or 12 years old,” he says, “I started to cook with my grandmother. When I was 13, the girls in my school had cooking classes and the boys had woodworking classes. I went to the girls’ teacher and asked if I could join the cooking class. Everybody laughed at me. To convince the teacher to let me in, I cut the grass in her garden. I got in.”
Original article by Stacie Overton Johnson
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