Even the closest colleagues of Andy Cuthbert might have done a double-take when they saw their friend’s campaign videos, as he ran for president of the World Association of Chefs’ Societies, also known as Worldchefs.
In the videos, he appears outlining his plans for the four-year term in perfect Chinese, Spanish and Russian. He is clearly a very accomplished person, but he is no polyglot. While the videos might have caused a chuckle at first, they hint at the seriousness with which he approached the role, which he went on to win.
It also shows a man in tune with the times and in possession of a perfect grasp of the challenges ahead; he is in no doubt of the task at hand in an industry struggling to attract talent and in need of new ideas. “Everything is possible with technology,” he says.
He has taken the helm of an association with members in 97 countries, each with their own culture, traditions and language. “There is a challenge in it being so inclusive and geographically disparate. From the wealthier countries, including Germany and the US to poor countries in Africa and the old eastern bloc,” he explains. It falls to him and his team to gather the disparate group on a shared platform.
He won the election to be president of Worldchefs in October 2024. “There’s quite a bit to do; we have just finished putting together all our committees, from feed the planet to culinary competition committee to bylaws to education,” he says.
He is under no illusion that this will be a small role. “If you volunteer to be the president of a world association, you have to give up more of your own time, but it’s also about making sure that you utilize the other people that are on the team.”
But then this is not his first rodeo. The role is his latest in a long line of voluntary roles in industry associations; he clearly enjoys getting stuck in and working to make a difference. He remains the coordinator of the Emirates Culinary Guild, an association he was a founding member of in 1992 and later spent 24 years serving as its chairman from 1996 until 2023.
From Australia to Dubai
Emirates Culinary Guild falls under Worldchefs as a national member and Cuthbert progressed to involvement with the wider association around 2015 when he became Congress chairman, joined the board and “it just sort of progressed from there,” as he says.
He is determined to improve communication in the association and technology will have a part to play. “What is the language of world chefs?” he asks. “We have English, French, German, Spanish. Well, that doesn’t really help someone in India that speaks Malayalam. That’s where we believe technology and education are going to come together quite nicely, utilizing AI for instant translation as it moves
so quickly.”
Part of the communication piece is to be clear about why people should join the Association in the first place. “We can’t just say, ‘because we are the global voice of chefs’, we need to have substance behind it,” he says.
His history in the UAE goes back mmore than 30 years. After setting out as an apprentice in a Melbourne kitchen in his teens, he joined Hilton in Dubai as a sous chef in 1992 and rose to be the executive chef of Hilton Worldwide before moving to Jumeirah International. He has stayed with the luxury hotel chain in the years since and today he is general manager of Jumeirah Creekside Hotel & C&I and Jumeirah Hospitality Madinat Jumeirah.
He has had a front row seat for the inexorable rise of Dubai. “I worked at the Hilton at the Trade Center, which is no longer there. We blew it up in 2005 and built the Jumeirah Living building; we were the only hotel on this side of the creek,” he recalls.
Pushing hospitality forward
Though much changed in those first years, it was the opening of Emirates Towers in 2000 that elevated the culinary affairs. “The restaurants there were cutting edge, they were really pushing the envelope and as the city progressed, we started to build these communities. When Zuma opened, that was the first one that really made us, think, ‘Oh, my God, we’d better lift our game now’.”
The hospitality sector in the region has continued to grow. “We’ve got so much happening in our part of the world. The rest of the world is complaining about hospitality. We’re pushing it forward,” he says.
When he accepted the president role he pledged to “be open, honest and transparent, ensuring that we address the real challenges facing the industry”. What are those challenges?
“First, moving talent and people – you listen to people in Europe saying, ‘no one wants to work the breakfast shift’, but then you look at this side of the world and into the Far East, where they’re up for the jobs,” he says. “Can we influence governments to change their visa process, to assist them, to drive their tourism forward, to help economies with people who want to work?”
Second, he wants to make the industry attractive; to make it appeal to young people and welcome staff who are happy to do the “manual and boring jobs we do in kitchens”. Part of that job is to focus on the level of education and what is taught in culinary schools and ensure that young people come into the industry to have a long career in culinary, not because they think they’re “going to cook like Gordon Ramsay from the first day,” he says. “A lot of people get disillusioned after watching television and thinking they know what it is and how easy it seems to be, whereas in reality you sit there and have to peel potatoes, or you make club sandwiches all day every day and that is all you ever do.”
Empowering and inclusive
Ensuring the industry is more receptive to everybody is also about making accommodations for disabled staff members who can contribute given the right conditions. Cuthbert speaks enthusiastically of a chef in Norway who uses a wheelchair and a hearing impaired chef who he recruited in Emirates Towers. These things clearly matter to him.
It also means giving members the agency to start new initiatives and pursue ideas. When a female member of staff in the Emirates Culinary Guild asked to launch a women’s network, he resisted at first. “I thought we should be all inclusive, not segregating people, but then I thought ‘Let’s give it a try, and it worked,” he says.
“This network suits our country, it suits our culture and our religion. It’s proved to be successful, and the women are very happy to sit and discuss issues within the kitchens.” Some of those conversations have had tangible results: unhappy that chef jackets were tailored for men, the group has instigated a new design of a female-cut chef’s uniform, including maternity wear.
“We wouldn’t have thought of it as a group of blokes, so I think those sorts of things around inclusion are important as well. Within the Association, we’re all chefs or cooks, but within certain regions, maybe you need to have some sort of segregation,” he says.
In among these fantastic global restaurants and proponents of world cuisine in Dubai, the local cuisine can get a bit lost and elevating Emirati food in people’s conscience is on his mind.
“Within the Emirati Culinary Guild we have always been stalwarts of the food here to make sure that we include it in our competitions and teach it. Not a lot of people seek out the Emirati restaurants and I think that that is a gap we need to look at: how we’re going to promote Emirati cuisine.”
In his own version of ‘show don’t tell’, he visits local restaurants with overseas guests who are invariably “blown away by the flavors.”
At heart this role is about communication and you get the feeling that there are few people better suited to this job, whatever the language.
Tina Nielsen
