James Tan of the The Duck

UPDATE: Crown Casino, and with it The Duck opened on 8 May, 1997. James Tan left The Duck's kitchen in June 1998.The restaurant changed hands in 2000. In late 2000 James was executive chef at in Canterbury.

James Tan has taken his “Duck” to water and is anxiously waiting to show it off. The Duck will open, along with the rest of Crown Casino on May 8.

He can barely sit still with excitement. It has been 16 months since he and fellow partners, Philip Murphy and Frank Wilden submitted their proposal to Crown.

Since then an enormous amount of work, time and money has gone into bringing the vision to reality. They are ready now and just waiting for the crowds to come in.

The Duck sits happily by the water on the Eastern Promenade of the Crown Casino complex. With a seating capacity indoors of 120, another 80 outside and a bar for around 35, it’s a very different business to the Mandarin Duck in Carlton, James Tan’s former shopfront restaurant.

There James had two in the kitchen, his team is now 22 and the front of house multiplied from 2-3 to 30 staff. Cellar master and partner, Frank Wilden, will watch the front and the bottles. He and the “administration and finance partner”, Philip Murphy (of the legendary Murphy wine family), have been buying wine for the restaurant for the past 9 months. The scope of their cellar is enormous ranging from a number of good drinks at $5.50 a glass to a Methuselah (an 8 bottle whopper ) of 1989 DRC Romanée St Vivant for a casual $3-4000. The Duck has a full liquor license and, whilst not planning to be “another Philip Murphy store” customers will be able to buy wine to take away.

James is amazed and delighted with the response he’s had in recruiting staff. “over 200 applicants . . there’s a lot of interest in working with us and in my evolving modern Australian cuisine.”

Amongst the staff he recruited are some English chefs (from Terence Conran’s London restaurants), and some former senior kitchen staff from Melbourne’s better restaurants.

“ It is going to be a very level playing field in the kitchen. I do not have a sous chef, I do not have a chef de partie. All I have is chefs. One month they might be doing pastry work, one month they might be roasting ducks, suckling pig, making Chinese pastry. Another month they might be doing the woks, another month they might be doing pan work, grill work, salamander work, doing risotto.”

“We are starting not just as a team but we are starting from scratch, we do not have a kitchen hand in the kitchen so that means we do all the work ourselves. We do the cleaning, we do the prep, we do the cooking - everything that’s possible is going to be made in house we’ll do it.”

James’ concept is very exciting. Where there’s pain there’s also gain. His chefs will learn an incredible amount, they will be able to learn the intricacies of roasting ducks and geese (imported from China) in the combi oven (James’ pride and joy) or work with Sam (James Chan), James’ assistant at Mandarin Duck, originally from mainland China or with pastry chef, Huang Chen, who used to work for one of the five star hotels, the Shanghai Mandarin, (she is Sam’s wife) or get true South East Asian tastes from Penang chef, Jan Foo. At the end of 3-4 months, James expects to determine the “leaders” and refine the tasks.

“I feel that it’s time -- the opportunity is there for any young chef, irrespective of which culture or nationality. If they are committed, if they are passionate enough, if they are prepared to work, put in the hours, prepared to explore the other avenues of cooking, there’s always an opportunity here with me”

The trial menu I saw had some fantastic sounding dishes which will range in price from about $13-16 (entree) to $20-$25 (main). The Duck is open for bookings from May 8. I’ll be there. Call 9696 5432.

Published in the Herald-Sun on the 6th of May.