Jimi Tegerdine – who has conceived a brand-new Saturday spread for LeVeL33 – always includes at least five dishes in his menus for his wife. Altogether now: awww

What was your childhood like?

I grew up in Essex, the only boy out of five children, and I wasn&rsquo;t exactly a &ldquo;boy&rdquo; &ndash; I wanted to be in the kitchen cooking or brushing my sisters&rsquo; dolls hair cuz that was what they were doing. I even went to ballet because my sisters did! When I was 10, my stepdad &ndash; who was a scout leader &ndash; came into the picture, and he got me into camping and rock climbing. He told my mum, &ldquo;Your son is too girly, but if he wants to cook, let him cook.&rdquo; Mum would push me out the kitchen door and ask me to go in the garden and play, and dig for worms, but Papa would say, &ldquo;If he wants to cook dinner for the family &ndash; God forbid what it tastes like &ndash; let him do it.&rdquo;

What drew you to the kitchen in the first place?

When I was five, one of my sisters who is disabled and couldn&rsquo;t go to school would stay at home and bake cakes and bread. Putting my finger in the bowl and tasting the cake mixes &ndash; that was my introduction to food. I would also watch Ready Steady Cook hosted by Ainsley Harriott and there was a segment with a mystery ingredient &ndash; and I would always imagine what dishes they could cook with it. Then my stepdad allowed me to get into the kitchen and he introduced me to the potato peeler. &ldquo;This is how you use it. This is how much water you put in with the potatoes. Pinch of salt. Cook it.&rdquo; That was the first thing I cooked &ndash; boiled potatoes. I boiled them dry because I got distracted watching cartoons on TV. I was so disappointed, I told myself &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to be a chef&rdquo;.&nbsp;

Level 33’s Executive Chef Jimi Tegerdine, 34, always includes at least five dishes in each menu for his wife.

What was your first professional cooking experience?

My parents couldn&rsquo;t afford sending me to college &ndash; &ldquo;go find a job, you have five weeks, otherwise you&rsquo;re out on your arse&rdquo; &ndash; so my first job was what I call a &ldquo;microwave technician&rdquo;. I had to man a bank of 12 microwaves. Obviously, it&rsquo;s progressed a lot since then! My parents flew out five months after Level 33 opened in Singapore. My proudest moment was when my stepdad &ndash; who is not an emotional person &ndash; broke down in the dining room and he went &ldquo;f*** me, kid, you made it&rdquo;. (chokes up) God, I hate being emotional!

Bacon Man-Cakes – something Chef Jimi cooks for his wife at home.

What were you inspired by for this new Saturday lunch menu?

We wanted to do something new, exciting and different, a menu you wouldn&rsquo;t see for the other six days of the week, and it shows my skills of where I&rsquo;ve worked around the world &ndash; New Zealand, Australia, south of France, London and Singapore, and those influences. And at least five dishes in every menu are for the wife [who is American], so in this menu, it&rsquo;s the Man-Cakes (I cook them for her at home), the Kipler Fries (my rendition of a potato dish we had at basecamp on a mountain in Vietnam), the braised peanuts (you find this at gas stations all around Florida where she lives), the grilled market fish (a take on gindara miso cod; she&rsquo;s obsessed with that) and the Peanut Bacon &amp; Jelly.

Grilled artichoke ceviche – tart and full of texture.

Soft shell crab – comes with green mango and 33.1 Blond Lager chilli jam.

What&rsquo;s your comfort food when you&rsquo;re not working?

I eat a lot of Mexican food (because of the missus), and I love pasta with tuna, sweetcorn, mayonnaise and a really strong cheddar. Local food: Sambal stingray (that is phenomenal!), cereal prawns (we do that here every Chinese New Year), gong gong (love picking them out with a toothpick), and I&rsquo;ve just got into shrimp paste!

Confit salmon – rich and plated with squid ink.

LeVeL33,&nbsp;8 Marina Boulevard #33-01, Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 1, Singapore 018981, tel:&nbsp;6834 3133.

Open&nbsp;Mon-Wed&nbsp;11.30am-12am,&nbsp;Thu-Sat&nbsp;11.30am-2am,&nbsp;Sun&nbsp;12pm-12am

Master Chef

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