With restaurants like Stockholm’s Ekstedt and Singapore’s Burnt Ends in world’s top 50 lists, the trend for food cooked in wood-fired ovens is undeniable. The oldest cooking method has become the hottest fashion. “It’s much more intuitive than traditional cooking,” Julien Perraudin, Quince Saigon’s executive chef, muses. “It’s almost as if you have to forget everything you knew about cooking….” he adds before admitting that “there’s something undeniably primal about it too.”

It’s a culinary style that fits the imposing-looking chef then, a cook who’s so tall they lowered the kitchen floor at Quince Saigon by 30-centimeters to accommodate him. He also appears to have a missing front tooth, “which people always ask about expecting a story about a fight in a bar…but actually it just never grew properly and it’s shorter than the rest…” he explains.

All Fired Up With Quince Saigon’s Chef Of The Year Julien Perraudin-0

Chef of the year, Julien Perraudin, outside Quince Saigon at 37 Ky Con, District 1.

Since opening in early 2018, Quince Saigon has impressed so much that Julien carried away the Chef of 2018 prize at our Vietcetera Restaurant and Bar Awards—one of three-trophies they won that included runner-up for the People’s Choice Restaurant of 2018 and runner-up for the Grand Jury Prize Restaurant of 2018.

Although much has been written about Quince Saigon being the sister of the original Michelin-recognized Quince restaurant in Thailand, Julien joined after the Bangkok institution was well-established and struggled to impose his own cooking style. But he’s still full of praise for the man who started it all, Jess Barnes, and his creative approach to food in “the way he combined ingredients I never would have thought of doing.”

Quince Saigon, on the other hand, is all Julien Perraudin. “But I feel we’re keeping the Quince legacy alive,” the chef adds. In March, he’ll reopen Quince Bangkok at a new location returning to the Thai capital with hot menu items like his cauliflower dish. “We can’t take that off the menu now,” he shrugs about the Da Lat sourced vegetable that he serves whole, “like you would a good piece of meat.”

Considering all this, you’d be forgiven for thinking Julien’s had an easy ride to the top. But behind the chef’s confident coffee-wood fire licked dishes made in a style he developed in restaurants like The Botanical in Melbourne is a tough ascent with lots of moments he almost threw it all in. So, we headed over to Quince at this grimy, industrial end of Ky Con to find out how Julien Perraudin made it this far, and what’s got him all fired up.

All Fired Up With Quince Saigon’s Chef Of The Year Julien Perraudin-1

At Quince Saigon, Julien could impose his own style of “undeniably primal” cooking. He’ll respectfully reopen the original Quince Bangkok in March, “keeping the Quince legacy alive.”

All Fired Up With Quince Saigon’s Chef Of The Year Julien Perraudin