– An interview with Chef Jeremiah Teeling
With the Faculty Club, star chef Jeremiah Teeling and his team set up a tasteful place where there is time for real attention. Whether you want to have lunch with a guest, have a team meeting or celebrate a new collaboration. What makes this place so different? Jeremiah tells.
What story do you tell with the Faculty Club?
‘At the Faculty Club, guests find a moment to pause. The moment to have new experiences in terms of flavours and products. I worked for years at Robert Kranenborg’s star restaurant and take that level of cooking and service with me to TU Delft. There I pour my own innovative sauce over it.’
‘I like to surprise guests with what is possible in the culinary field. You can see that in the flavour combinations, but also in the choice of plant-based products. For example, we have a plant-based cheese board with even a vegan Roquefort. You almost don’t believe it when you taste it, so good! People are also always surprised by the plant-based salmon. The texture is a bit jelly-like, which makes it look so much like real salmon. You should really try it.’
What gives you culinary inspiration?
‘On the menu, you see mostly fusion dishes. A mixture of different countries and cultures. I have worked all over the world, from South Africa to Gambia to South America. Every trip gives me new ideas of which people initially raise their eyebrows. A saffron muffin with pickled blueberries, for example. Unexpected and incredibly delicious!’
‘My aim is to bring the whole world back to the menu. The people in the Faculty Club team are also an inspiration for this. I try to reflect their origins and characters in the dishes. I’m half Surinamese and you can taste Bangladesh. But with pure local ingredients. We get inspiration from far away and products from nearby. You can see it that way. Those local stories also do well at the table.’
How do you apply sustainability in the kitchen?
‘With the Faculty Club, we stand for pure products with as few resources in them as possible. I really let each product have its distinctive flavour without too much embellishment. A courgette soup deserves to have the taste of courgette. I also find it important to handle each product in a conscious way. Hoeve Biesland, an organic care farm in Delfgauw, supplies us with maverick vegetables every day. These are vegetables that are otherwise not used because they are not pretty enough. A crooked cucumber or crazy courgette, for example. Every day, I think of creative ways to incorporate them into the menu. I also think it is important to use every vegetable completely: from peel to seeds. As a result, we waste very few ingredients.’
How do you flavour special moments?
‘For me, this is not only in a surprising menu with worldly flavours, but also in the service. People want to experience a feeling of coming home; they want to feel connected. We achieve this in two ways. By providing a tremendously high level of service and by telling stories.’
‘That service is precisely in the smallest details. Accepting coats, good communication, taking your guests to the table and always serving a homemade extra with the coffee, for instance. Furthermore, we highlight everything our guests’ taste. We visit all our suppliers every year to learn more about the products we brand with. Like why and how it is made. In turn, we share that knowledge with our guests. So, they not only enjoy a dish that is right, but they also know that the soy beans in the soy sauce they taste are simply grown in the Hoeksche Waard and that the honey in the crème brûlée comes from bees on the roof of TU Delft. That’s crazy, isn’t it?’
What new things can guests expect soon?
‘I’m currently creating a herb garden at TU Delft. This is another step towards even more local products. So soon parsley and chives from TU Delft itself will be in our dishes. I also regularly give cooking courses to students. Then we go to Hoeve Biesland together and then create a dish together in my kitchen at the TU. Nice to be able to inspire others this way too.’
Want to experience for yourself the beautiful dishes created by Jeremiah and his team? Drop by the Faculty Club and add flavour to your special moments. Book now.
