Chef Talk: gloLondon's Hardeep Somal

When Hardeep Somal first came to Shanghai eight months ago, he didn’t know what to expect. “I was in culture shock. I didn’t know how Shanghai would treat me,” Somal joked. “I left London when I was nineteen for Germany for three years. When I returned I never left.” His hesitations almost kept him away from what he now considers “one of the most amazing experiences of my life”.

Hardeep first discovered his passion for cooking in Germany. Despite going all the way to Deutschland, his first job was at an Italian restaurant washing dishes. When he was eventually promoted to making pizza dough, everything changed. Without a machine to help, he was forced to hand make the dough, and along the way he discovered the profound satisfaction crafting something with his hands gave him. From there he moved on from pizza to pasta and a career blossomed.

“When I returned to London, I jumped right into it. I knew I needed an apprenticeship,” he says. So he started at one of the busiest hotels in London, the Hilton at Heathrow airport, with a constant flow of people. He worked like mad. “I got strong there, but I still felt like I needed more.”

At Richard Branson’s latest venture, Virgin Clubhouse, Hardeep’s skills and time management were put to the test. It wasn’t easy at first, cooking up meals for celebrities like Samuel L Jackson, Mariah Carey and Quentin Tarantino; the nonstop demands meant he needed to perform at maximum capacity. It was here he learned to delegate his time and perfect his craft with speed and finesse.

“After the clubhouse, I wanted to try fine dining,” he says. “To get hired at the Royal Garden Hotel was a big deal for me at the time. They were winning all these awards and considered one of the best fine dining restaurants at the time.”

“It was 80 hours a week; I mean we were on. I’d wake up, go to the restaurant, come home from the restaurant and do it all again the next day. It was amazing,” he says.

Now a member of the glo team for two years, Hardeep is ready to give his heart and soul to this new project: bringing his hometown cuisine to the diners of Shanghai.

gloLondon: 1 Wulumuqi Lu, near Dongping Lu. Tel: 6466 6565