Last February 22, Axe headed to the hippest places in Poblacion, Makati for an exciting four-in-one launch to introduce its newest fragrance, the bold and fiery Axe You; its latest campaign named Project You; and four new Axe guys – Chef Nicco Santos, rapper Curtismith, street artist Jappy Agoncillo and filmmaker Gino Santos. This new generation of Axe men are men of style and substance have pursued their passions and achieved success in their respective fields.
For the Project You campaign, each Axe ambassador is tasked to conduct a masterclass which will challenge participants to realize their potential and go the extra mile. At the end of each session, he will award one winner with the opportunity to work with and for him.
In the first installment of the series, Chef Nicco Santos of Your Local and Hey Handsome mentored the next generation of young chefs on how to innovate on traditions. During the masterclass last March 17, Chef Nicco Santos imparted his knowledge on modernizing classic dishes, as he demonstrated his take on beef rendang.
“In Singapore, I learned from home cooks. In the same way that we have countless versions of adobo, they have the same for the well-loved beef rendang,” he explained.
Chef Nicco used key ingredients like chili, coconut and kaffir lime to create his own version of the Singaporean classic and challenged the young chefs to use the same ingredients to innovate a traditional dish of their choice.
After 90 pressure-filled minutes, the aspiring chefs presented their dishes for judgement. While Chef Nicco commented that each student showed something unique, he had to give it to the one whose version was the most innovative and inspired. After a long deliberation, he announced Kit Gerona as the winner.
“His concept and dish, his own version of Chicken Binakol, was bold and fiery, just like the fragrance that brought us all here today,” said Chef Nicco Santos. “I loved his dish so much, I wish I came up with it myself! I’m excited to see what we’ll be cooking up together.”
“I’m shocked,” Kit said, immediately after the class. “I just made a dish that’s close to my heart, nothing fancy, just something that I like to make for my family. Getting to work with Chef Nicco is really a dream come true for me.”
Kit will begin his paid internship at Your Local and Hey Handsome, and will then go on to help Chef Nicco’s team in preparation for the much anticipated Madrid Fusion in August.
How to Pursue Your Passions: 10 Tips from Axe Ambassador Chef Nicco Santos
- Innovation is never a single idea. Focus on one idea and continue to build on it, one after another.
- Return to nature. Create relationships with your local farmers, and taste your ingredients from the source.
- Develop a meaningful dish. Create a dish that matters. Cooking can be more than a job when it stands for something you care about.
- Flip your assumptions. You’re already good at the things you know, but breakthroughs come in things we don’t know.
- Innovate the core. You will need to develop new ways of thinking.
- Go back in time. It’s always good to recreate that moment you realized you wanted to become a cook.
- Context is decisive. What’s in it for you?
- Question everything. I like to use “The Walt Disney Method” of brainstorming, where we break down the process into three distinct chunks: the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler or critic.
- Less is more. Always look at your dish and think, what could you remove from it to make it better?
- Sustaining Culture vs Evolving Culture. An evolving culture in the kitchen also means an evolving set of ideas and dishes.
