A Man for All Cuisines
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June 17, 2021
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June 17, 2021Despite the length of the journey travelled from working as a restaurant dishwasher to becoming one of Malta’s top cravingsatisfying restaurateurs, Daniel Grech has been in the business for no more than a decade.
Surely everyone has tasted a dish from at least one of restaurateur Daniel Grech’s eateries around the island. If you haven’t cut a knife through an Instagrammable pile of red velvet pancakes from Shoreditch, then you’ve bitten into a truffle burger from Burgers.Ink, or twirled pad Thai noodles on chopsticks at one of his most recent ventures – Asian restaurant Wagyu. The 29-year old’s list of achievements is impressive, especially when you consider how his kitchen career began. He shows no hesitation in telling his difficult story – one in which he ended up homeless with no choice but to fend for himself. But he was determined to stand on his own two feet and make something of himself, he says.
This ‘something’ began with him securing a job as a dishwasher in a fine-dining restaurant in Sliema, aged 19. At the time, he was looking to make some money to pay his bills and just get by. But he surprisingly started to enjoy life inside the restaurant kitchen and all the adrenaline it brought with it; far more than he expected when he signed up for the job.
In awe, he would watch how an empty plate would become the base upon which a lavish meal would be built. He was also intrigued by how the same ingredient could be transformed into dramatically different culinary experiences. “I found a love which I never thought I’d have… It was very unexpected,” he recalls.
Plate by plate, his interest grew. Then, one day, he came up with the idea of using part of his wage to buy food and practice making the restaurant’s dishes. After each dishwashing shift, he would stay on in the kitchen and attempt to recreate the meals he had been analysing day after day, for months on end. Over time, and with the mentorship of a veteran chef, Elias, who had begun taking the youth’s effort seriously, Daniel learnt the right length of time for pasta to boil, for instance, and he perfected that tricky technique to fillet a sea bass. His knife skills became swifter and his meals better, until he was finally offered the role of chef within the same kitchen.
International Aspirations
It was during his next job that the seed of cuisine experimentation was planted, when he started work as a chef in a football club in Lija. The Club’s menu boasted a range of cuisines, reflecting the expertise and cultures of the chefs who were creating them. There, Daniel worked alongside a chef from the Philippines, one from Thailand, and one from Malta. “I learnt a little bit of everything,” he explains. It didn’t take long for him to get promoted to head chef.
Going into Business
During those years at the football club, Daniel gained enough confidence in his culinary skills to branch off and set off on his first business venture. Inspired by his love for eating at burger joints while travelling overseas, and encouraged by a lack of competition in the sector locally, Daniel launched Shoreditch in Paceville.
While creating food that ticked all the right boxes to warrant an Instagram foodporn hashtag, Daniel used his time at Shoreditch for unique culinary experiments built upon a burger patty and arranged between a burger bun. He expanded Malta’s tastebuds by introducing burgers based on flavours we would not typically associate with a burger: Carbonara, Truffle, and BBQ, for example.
But Daniel could not sit still; he wanted to experiment with an array of ideas and cuisines. In fact, it is this will to constantly learn that triggers all his different business endeavours. “I like the excitement of learning new things, and I’ve been this way ever since I can remember,” he says. Till today, after a long evening at work in one of his several restaurants, he sits at his computer and spends hours browsing through YouTube videos, learning more about the cuisine he’s currently interested in. Eager for new adventures, Daniel eventually placed Shoreditch into new hands and began working with entertainment magnate Frankie Grima, who became his business partner. Together, they opened numerous eateries dotted around the island.
A Foodie Empire
Today, the easiest way to spot both Daniel’s success and his cuisine exploration is to walk along the area in Valletta where Old Theatre Street meets Strait Street. On the latter stands Loop Bar, a bar and café serving pizza, platters and cocktails – Daniel’s first experience in the alcohol scene.
Around the corner you can find Wagyu, which specialises in Japanese cuisine. And next door sits his steakhouse lounge Blackbull, looking over St George’s Square.
Walk down the road towards the Manoel Theatre and you will find the burger joint Burgers.Ink, which Daniel refers to as his ‘baby’. The burger shop’s popularity and success have resulted in four outlets opening up around the island, and an upcoming outlet in Mgarr, Gozo. It was so popular during the pandemic that it sustained all the others, Daniel says.
Not that COVID was easy for Daniel. With restaurants closed for 14 long months off-and-on, takeaway became the company’s lifeblood. As he reflects on the period, Daniel admits it wasn’t easy, but it did lead to some silver linings too.
“The pandemic both destroyed me and made me,” he says. “Before COVID, I was doing well business-wise, but I was quite disorganised. When it hit, I learnt my lesson that business isn’t a game. It made me greatly appreciate my staff and not take them for granted, and it prepared me to mentally ready myself for the worst case scenario.”
The pandemic has also refocused Daniel’s attention. Besides continuing to burst with ideas for his next big business venture, he has come to realise the importance of a factor that was, to a great extent, eliminated throughout the pandemic – quality of service. To do this, he is literally practicing what he preaches and has started working as a waiter in his own establishments. There, he learns from – and teaches – his staff, socialises with his customers, and keeps an eye on the quality of the dishes as they emerge from the kitchen one by one.
“Restaurant service is often underwhelming in Malta. There should be a balance of great food and great service, but I actually think great service trumps great food. Customers want to be communicated with and to feel comfortable when they’re at a restaurant,” he says.
And it’s not only dishes from his own kitchens that receive Daniel’s watchful eye. His critique has expanded to thousands of homes around Malta and Gozo, where viewers tune in to watch Gourmet Challenge – a cooking competition broadcast on national television. There, Daniel stars as a judge, and critiques participants’ meals. Although occasionally blunt, he believes in the importance of honest feedback to achieve necessary improvements.
So, what next?
With so much happening for the restaurateur in less than a decade, you can’t help but wonder about his future plans and long-term goals. However, for Daniel, the answer seems obvious: “I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing – experimenting, working hard, keeping my staff happy. Sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. The most important thing is that I keep trying,” he adds.
When it comes to his short-term goals, however, there is always a new idea, a new cuisine and a new establishment in mind. This time, it’s YouTube videos of pizzaiolos he’s watching, in the run up to his new pizzeria in St Julian’s. After that, who knows? Eatery ideas, like cuisines, are almost endless.
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