New Leaders and Award Winning Chefs Onboard
G Hotel Gurney and G Hotel Kelawai are the renowned 5-star sister hotels in Penang which continuously seek to raise the bar for its Food & Beverage (F&B) team. The two hotels house a total of 6 F&B outlets including all-day dining restaurants, bars, lounges and 2 pool bars, offering great food complemented with in-house curated concoctions and dining ambiances that are cozyyet stylish. There is also a total of 15 function rooms and 2 Grand Ballrooms catering for events and functions.
Director of F&B, Andy Ooi Khye KitIn the pursuant of excellent dining experience for all guests, the hotel is proud to introduce their Executive Sous Chef, Siva Kumar s/o Samarason, with a nick name as Chef Bob who has just joined the team to lead the culinary team. Chef Bob is armed with over 25 years of experience as a chef in both local and overseas kitchens. At the start of his career, Chef Bob was in Penang Mutiara Beach Resort’s La Farfalla, Malaysia’s first ever fine dining Italian restaurant. He then moved to Parkroyal Resort as Commis Cook before venturing to Skycity Auckland in New Zealand as Garde Manger Chef de Partie. He then came back to his homeland and joined Grand Plaza Parkroyal Penang as Garde Manger Sous Chef and further expanded his career growth under the wings of Shangri-La Hotels in Singapore. He has worked in Rasa Sentosa Beach Resort, Traders Hotel Singapore, Shangri-La Orchard and reopened the Shangri-La Sentosa Resort. Prior to his latest appointment, Chef Bob was in Parkroyal Penang Resort as an Executive Sous Chef.
Passionate in cooking and filled with love for Italian and Malaysian style Indian cuisine, Chef Bob also mastered the carving skills on fruits, vegetables and ice. He has a thing for Malaysian hawker’s food as well.
Chef Bob was awarded with a silver medal in 6th Salon Gastronomique Penang (ASEAN Region) and is experienced in handling huge banquet catering of up to 5000 paxs outside caterings too. Some of the outdoor catering events that he has handled before are Golden Jubilee of the Sultan Perlis which saw the King and Queen, royal members and elite guests attended the celebration, New Zealand Rally, New Zealand Millennium Cup gala dinner for America’s Cup Race, AIA Group hawkers buffet concept and opening of Sentosa Singapore Golf, Barclays Singapore Golf and New Grand Plaza Penang.
With these skills and knowledge, he will be introducing new ideas and incorporate with the local delights for G Hotel Gurney to bring out another style of food and at the same time to maintain the standard of a 5-star culinary. “My vision for G Hotel Gurney is to bring the guest’s dining experience to the next level by developing the uniqueness of food, service and ambience,” said Chef Bob.
G Hotel also welcomes the latest appointed Director of F&B, Andy Ooi Khye Kit who was a former Assistant Director of F&B in Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort & Spa. Andy, on the other hand, has been in the hotel’s F&B industry for close to 20 years. He has worked in some of the flagship hotels in Penang such as Shangri-La Golden Sands Resorts, Evergreen Laurel Hotel, Eastern & Oriental Hotel, Vistana Hotel Penang and Sunway Hotel Georgetown Penang.
His passion for hotel operations has given him a wealth of experience in planning and coaching the team to achieve targets, maintaining high standards and delivering quality services. Andy has also handled numerous outside catering and banqueting for royal events such as the visitation of Sultan Brunei and Prime Minister of Malaysia to Penang, His Royal Highness the Prince of Thailand’s event at Penang Airport, Duli Yang Maha Mulia Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s event at Botanical Garden and birthday celebrations for the Emperor of Japan hosted by Consulate-General of Japan and for Raja Perlis in Palace of Perlis.
Andy will now take on a new challenge to oversee the F&B’s operation for both G Hotel Gurney and G Hotel Kelawai. “The more I get into the role, the more rewards I’ll get from coaching and developing a good team. I’m glad to be able to pass on the knowledge that I have gained over the years to continue making G Hotel the preferred hotel for dining and organizing meetings & functions,” Andy quoted.
G Hotel is also proud of Chef Tan Chun Hong, 23-year-old young talented chef as Commis II in G Hotel Kelawai who has competed in The Philippine Culinary Cup 2017 recently. Under the guidance and support of Chef Ong Ban Khoon, Executive Sous Chef in G Hotel Kelawai, Chef Tan proudly brought home 3 Bronze awards for US Pork, US Beef and Young Chefs Team Challenge respectively.
For the US Pork category, Chef Tan innovatively cooked the pork loin in two different styles, one is roasted and the other is braised, giving a distinctive bites of crispiness and tenderness between the both. The combo pork loins won the taste buds of the judges. Chef Tan also made 2 cooking styles of the ground beef for the US Beef category. The breaded beef cakes were creatively made to tease the taste buds using anchovies, sweet basils, onion marmalade, beef jus and deep fried to golden perfection. Crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, the beef cakes scored a great mark along with his roasted pama ham beef roll that is nicely portioned out with meatloaf, western herbs, paprika, salt and pepper. Teaming up with his partner for the Young Chefs Team Challenge category, Chef Tan handled the main course while his partner took over the appetizer and cooked up a storm in this contest. To their surprise, the judges accorded a good mark for them despite they were a little behind the given time upon completing their courses. “I am very happy with the results I have achieved in this competition and I will continue to do my best and hone my skills to achieve a better result in the coming future,” said Chef Tan.
The ultra chic and modern 312-room G Hotel Gurney has recently completed a RM35 million makeover and G Hotel Kelawai is a 2-year-old award winning hotel tagged as “style redefined” accommodating 208 rooms. Both G Hotels with the envious address are located at the shopper’s paradise in between two renowned shopping malls, Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon and right next to Gurney drive famous hawker eateries. It is also the perfect point of departure for discovering Penang’s numerous tourist attractions, UNESCO World Heritage sites and beaches.
G Hotel Gurney and G Hotel Kelawai continue to trend set the hospitality sector with the newly appointed leaders and excellent chefs. The hotels also aim to further build on the success that they have achieved throughout these years, offering the best of luxury and are set to fulfil guests’ gastronomic appetites.
