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Ayumi Servant still cannot believe she won the outstanding chef award at the inaugural Otago Hospitality Awards. PHOTO: GERARD O’BRIEN When Dunedin chef Ayumi Servant won the recent Otago Hospitality Awards outstanding chef award she thought it was a scam. She tells Rebecca Fox about her journey from Japan to Dunedin.

AT home in Hiroshima, a 21-year-old Ayumi Servant is doing her best to look after her ill father when she sees an advertisement for work in New Zealand.

Her parents had separated, she was living with her father and things were not going well.

"I didn’t have a job because of my dad’s health issues, just part-time jobs."

The advertisement in a local magazine for a job in Dunedin seemed like the answer. She had always wanted to travel but the opportunity had never eventuated. She had trouble learning English so missed out on a school trip and then later trips abroad when training never happened.

"I saw it and I couldn’t leave it. I knew nothing about New Zealand."

Growing up she knew she wanted to be able to cook well. She worked in hospitality from the age of 18 and went to cookery school.

"I wanted to be a mum who could cook nice food, my own cakes. I wanted to be a good cook for my family as it wasn’t going well back then."

That desire came from days spent with her grandmother and grandfather. Her grandfather used to put her in his bicycle’s front basket and take her "everywhere".

"He’d buy anything for me. Whenever my family visited my grandparents I’d stay in the kitchen and watch my grandmother cook. She would let me taste. Cooking has always been part of my life."

Her oldest memory is of playing in the kindergarten sandpit making a rice ball in a triangle shape.

"I was so proud of it. I can make rice balls now."

When she got the job in Dunedin, she knew nothing about New Zealand except for what she found on Google. She was nervous about the move but determined.

"I had a fight with my brother the day before I leave. My brother told me "what are you thinking, you haven’t even met these people" but I did it."

While she loved Dunedin and her new job in a Japanese restaurant in Moray Pl, she still struggled with English particularly as the staff in the restaurant were Japanese.

"I didn’t know how the people were though as I couldn’t speak English."

Her early days in the city were slightly turbulent as restaurants she worked at closed and her flatting situation deteriorated when she got beaten up.

Attending a self-defence course, she met a "Kiwi partner". Not only did her self-defence skills improve but her English too.

She soon got residency and then a job at Jizo.

When a friend suggested she work in her husband’s new restaurant Del Sol, she thought why not? And began a crash course in Mexican food.

"I struggled at the start. I didn’t know what guacamole was at the start. It’s what I enjoy about cooking — you are always learning new things."

She even created her own Mexican fusion dishes such as polenta chicken fries — her Mexican take on Japanese karaage chicken — with more spice.

"I’ll make Mexican for staff meals here occasionally. Once you learn you never really forget."

Chef Ayumi Servant is pictured with her late grandmother and husband Jean-Luc and son Louis. PHOTO: SUPPLIED She married a Kiwi, Jean-Luc, who is a quarter French, and took time off when she had her first child, Louis. It was a difficult time as she suffered "quite bad" post-natal depression. She had decided not to return to cheffing as the hours were not friendly for a young mother. But needing something she got a job at a supermarket delicatessen. That job was her saviour, she says.

"It got me out of the house. It was very helpful."

When her second child Mika came along, she decided she needed to find work in a kitchen again to keep busy.

"I didn’t want what had happened previously to happen again."

So her second stint at Jizo began. She had always enjoyed her time at the restaurant which kept many of its original recipes from its first Japanese owner as well as trying new ones.

"Always the basic is there."

One of her favourite things about the restaurant is the number of regulars that come in.

"So many people have been coming here 10 years at least from my first time here."

When the inaugural Otago Hospitality Award finalists were announced, seeing her name on the list came as a shock to Servant.

"I thought it was a scam or something."

The listing used her maiden name Satozaki which she uses on social media rather than her married name so she thought it could not be right.

"I have no idea. I was asking people why am I in here?"

So winning the award in which she was up against top Dunedin chefs Hannes Bareiter, from Titi, Quillan Gutberlet, of Prohibition Smokehouse and Sam Gasson, from Moiety, came as an even greater surprise.

For Servant what is important to her about Japanese cuisine is the broth or dashi as it is the base for so many dishes like miso soup.

She is not a fan of anything too salty or sweet, preferring instead the subtle flavours found in broth. Dashi can be flavoured with mushroom, seaweed and fish flakes. It needs time to develop its flavours.

"A good dashi, it warms my heart. Jizo makes its own, which is really nice."

It is at the base of the dish Servant asks her mother to make whenever she returns home to Japan, oden, which features fish cakes, daikon, konjac, boiled eggs and tofu in a dashi broth.

"It’s a simple soup you can put anything you like in it and you simmer it for three hours. I love that. It’s like casserole kind of or Mum’s seafood chowder."

While she does not have many opportunities to cook for her family at home, she is enjoying seeing her children discover Japanese food. Louis is happy to try tofu, seaweed, or miso soup.

"There is Natto, smelly beans, fermented soy beans, which most Kiwis don’t like because of the smell but my son loves it. This girl [Mika] is refusing anything new or green."

One day she hopes to return to Japan to live with her children for a time to enable them to learn the language and experience the culture. Also to spend time with their grandparents who are in their 60s and now back together.

"It was sad I missed my grandma’s funeral, just after she turned 100 years old last year. Grandma was a big part of my life.

"Me and her shared the same birthday."

400ml Dashi (see below) (or use 2tsp Dashi powder in 400ml water)

Protein of your choice: chicken/prawn/surimi, sliced and pre-cooked

Vegetables of your choice: mushroom/spinach/edamame, sliced and pre-cooked

Small handful of dried shiitake mushroom

In a medium pot, soak mushrooms in water overnight.

In the morning, add kombu and bring to the boil. Remove kombu.

Take it off the heat. Leave it to sit for 10 minutes then strain.

Beat eggs until smooth, stain through a sieve for a smoother result.

Cool dashi down before mixing eggs.

Mix into eggs the dashi, soy sauce, mirin and salt.

Put one or two pieces of pre-cooked protein and vegetables into a heat-proof cup (without handles is easier). Do not fill.

Pour egg mixture into cup and cover with tinfoil.

In a pot big enough to hold two or three cups, lay a folded tea towel in the bottom to stop the cups moving and fill with 3-4cm of water.

Boil. Carefully put cups in the pot. Put the lid on. Steam for 10 minutes, or until set, on mid-high heat.