Graham Handa

**Graham Handa** (グラハム半田, *Gurahamu Handa*) is owner of the esteemed restaurant, Bistro Voltaire, and the current Co-Director of the prestigious culinary school known as 'Ambrosia Institute of Culinary Tech' alongside his partner Weld Hogi. Originally born in the bustling city of France's capital, Paris, Graham was raised in the teachings of his family from a very young age, slowly learning the ways of the culinary arts as well as the many methods for entrepreneurial success. His family, the Handa Family, owned a very distinguished business known as the **Handa Funding Agency** (ハンダ資金調達庁 *Handa shikin chōtatsu-chō*) which was established with the sole purpose of funding culinary businesses and restaurants to fund that have the potential to be successful in the culinary world. The agency makes its money by taking interest for the funding packages it gives out to its clients.

As heir to this faction, Graham was due to take up leadership as the next CEO once all his culinary and enterprise studies were complete. In a way, this forced him to grow up quicker and, as painful as it was, proves to be one huge influential factor in how he became the man he currently is today. Eventually, the time had come for Graham to finish his studies and advance further on the footpath to his career of culinary success, but instead of taking up the throne to his family's rich business, he re-evaluated himself, coming to the conclusion that there were so many things that he just had to experience if he were to become a better CEO and (on a personal level) chef.

After countless years of traversing from country-to-country in search of new culinary horizons and cultures, Graham arrives in the country of Japan, where he is soon fated to meet a famous chef by the name of Weld Hogi...

## Personality

Having spent the majority of his life working in one of the most demanding provinces of cooking, Graham has developed a good taste for presentation and food arrangement from an exceedingly young age. Graham is a gracious and good-natured man who cares deeply for his pupils and their education, however, when inside the kitchen, he becomes a ruthless and merciless chef that only cares for himself. He despises chefs who ridicule dishes made with compassion and tenderness, good or bad, and will go as far as verbally conveying his disgust towards them. Graham bears a strong fondness for Weld, even in spite of his shiftless and lazy behaviour, which is largely owed to the man's charisma and high regard for the Culinary Arts.

Graham ensures that everything he does is thorough down to last detail, which is why the presentation of his dishes are always immaculate and sophisticated. Despite his obsession with the presentation aspect of his cooking and compulsion for absolute excellence the appearance and taste of a dish, he is still able to produce high-quality dishes at a prompt pace, allowing flexibility for the chefs working in conjunction with himself. Graham can also be assertive and commanding at times when he wants to be, especially in the kitchen where the Culinary Arts really matter. He often knows what he is talking about, so he won't hesitate to criticise the unsatisfactory characteristics of a dish, and can identify fluctuations just through visual examination, or the mere scent of something - a unique quality developed from the exposure of food at a young age. Though Graham is a calm and collected individual, when he receives complaints regarding aspects of his restaurant or cooking, he'll inevitably fall into panic and will find the most efficient and effective way to find a resolution to the problem, no matter how long it takes or how much stress it causes him.

## Cooking Style

* **Nouvelle Cuisine -** Graham specializes in Nouvelle cuisine, a traditional French cooking style which is characterized by its increased emphasis on presentation and preference for lightly presented, fresh flavours. This cooking style practically revolves around the use of light and low-calorie sauces and stocks which seek to enunciate the natural and earthly flavours of food, but usually avoids rich, heavy foods such as fish, game birds, veal, red meat, pâtés and sauces such as espagnole and béchamel. Alternatively, it utilises seasoning with fresh herbs, high-qualiy butter, lemon juice and vinegar. In order to ensure the subtle flavours of his food are not undermined by the overruling flavours, Graham is always exceptionally delicate and meticulous when handling his ingredients, hence the reason why he has acquired the epithet **"The Godly Precisionist"**. Nouvelle Cuisine, however, was abandoned in the mid-1980s as a result of the effort it demanded and exhaustion it brought to chefs and restaurants. Notwithstanding Nouvelle's abrupt neglect, its lighter presentations and new techniques were integrated into some aspects of modernized cuisine classique and mainstream restaurant cooking. Unfortunately for many Nouvelle dishes, what was meant to have been simple, original, or healthy food became approximate, ridiculous, meager food in the eyes of the followers of the media who began to unintentionally discredit them. Even though Nouvelle Cuisine is modernly considered to be a quirky style of French cooking that has long since disappeared into the past, Graham is still determined to bring this style of innovative cooking back to life and expand its influence in the cooking industry.
* **Steaming -**

### Skills

* **Great** **Instinct and Keen Observational Skills-**

## Graham's Dishes

### Original Dishes

* **Chateaubriand served with Bearnaise Sauce** - A dish that heavily relies on the lethal combination of steak's tender texture and vibrant unami with the soothing and simplified consistency of Bearnaise Sauce cream. Numerous aspects of this dish derive from British Cuisine's bulky and potent hallmarks. After falling in love with the intense and overwhelming flavour of British Cuisine's dishes, Graham began searching for a way to implement these said features into Nouvelle Cuisine - a cooking style which completely contradicts the culture of British dishes. Eventually, the young man discovered a way to neutralise the flavour in the meat by soaking it in the infused synthesis of Bearnaise Sauce, white sugar and cider vinegar to create a powerful, yet subtle flavour - one befitting of Nouvelle. Another incorporation of Graham's intellect included the grinding and kneading of dried lobster into the steak. This was done in order to further enhance a tight coalition of flavours residing in the mix, and to also add a broader range of textures to the overall dish.

### Prototype Dishes

* **Chateaubriand served with Bearnaise Sauce (Prototype) -**

## Cooking Duel Records

### *Official Shokugeki*

**Lose**: Weld becomes Headmaster of Ambrosia Institute of Culinary Tech.

## Trivia

* This article is the author's first page on the SNSF wiki