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January 22, 2015

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Community chef emphasizes healthy food

There’s an aura of confidence when chef Alexandre Molina starts speaking about passionately about food. Perhaps it’s to be expected. After all, the French born chef has over 25 years experience in the culinary arts and has been a figure in the Shanghai restaurant scene for nearly 10 years.

Yet while he’s undoubtedly learned many a new things by way of his longevity in a highly competitive industry, it’s his reflection on his own upbringing that seems to have held him in as high regard as he is in now.

With influences stemming from a Spanish grandmother, Molina explains that his direction in life was shaped from an early age. “I always wanted to become a chef. By the time I was 11 it had already popped up in my mind,” he says with rested assurance. When asked if he’d ever had thoughts of a different line of work, he shrugs off the thought with apparent ease. “Sometimes kids at this age are not quite sure what they want to do, but after a couple of years I knew this was what I wanted.”

Which speaks well then to Molina’s new role as the culinary director of the Shanghai Town & Country Community. On Luding Road, this impressive estate sees the acclaimed chef overseeing the menus for five different restaurants, each with their own particular cuisine, style and decor. Varying from Japanese and Chinese style menus, complete with rosewood furniture and oriental lanterns, to more Western style offerings enveloped with chic stylistic designs that include menus where the diner pays however much they want to pay and gets a meal catered to that monetary value.

Yet those familiar with the chef’s specialty line of cuisine needn’t worry that he’s abandoned his roots. With the aptly named, Olive, Molina has a decadent platform in which to showcase his authentic Mediterranean style cuisine, one in which he’s been renowned for both locally and abroad. It’s an evolution of his early home life that stems from a distinct style of cooking that inhabits much of his work today.

“It’s classic style food, with a healthy approach,” says the chef.

Indeed while the notion of Mediterranean and healthy are often interchanged or dismissed entirely, Molina insists he knows no other way to serve food other than in a healthy way.

“I’ve been exposed by my parents to be healthy. Not to do heavy food. It’s a different approach, but it’s a positive one.” The result is a menu that avoids butter and cream.

And the refined, healthier approach doesn’t just start and stop with Olive. Molina’s leadership has seen him instill the “healthy” motif to all of the Shanghai Town & Country Community’s restaurants.

He calls it a “delight” menu, even with the acknowledgement that not many of his contemporaries are doing this. Low, controlled calories with the usual offerings of lamb, fish and meat but sold with less starch. Moreover, meals will have more vegetables and grains, and desserts will be done without sugars, but an alternative sweetener that is safe for diabetics.

It’s all part of his committed approach to serving as enriching an experience as one can have, without feeling like they’ve eaten to excess.

Shanghai Town & Country Community is China’s premier family-orientated sports and wellness community, aimed at being a social connection between Shanghai elite families and international families. Membership at STCC is by invitation only. STCC serves as the perfect backdrop for family activity experience, with its abundance of facilities and activities, including the indoor adventure zone for kids, sports and wellness for adults including ice skating rink, swimming pools, a state of the art fitness center, and a large range of activities for whole family to enjoy.

Head chef Alexandre Molina hopes that dinners will provide “an amazing experience” for all members. STCC and its accompanying restaurants are for members only, but it will be open for people to come and taste the Club life by reservations before its official opening. You can follow the STCC WeChat account “DDISTCC” to know more details about activities.

 

Address: 46 Luding Rd, Shanghai

Reservations: 8025-8666 ext 8041




 

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