I caught up with the winner of the 2021 Kitchen Chef to find out how Roli's life has changed since the competition, how he now spends his days and what his plans are for the future.
You've won the eighth season of Kitchen Chef. How has the competition changed your life?
It turned everything upside down, because apart from the fact that I had already realised this in myself and was determined to win anyway, it makes a difference whether someone just decides to do it or whether they think about it and follow through.
I have since completely immersed myself in the thing I love, the world of gastronomy.
This means, among other things, that I have opened two GrillPipi shops in Agárda, which I promised in the competition: that I would create a real Hungarian street food, a street food for us Hungarians, a street food that we can say is ours. I hope that in a few years' time, when someone asks what Hungarian street food is, people will think of my food. Actually that's the plan, at the moment I have a lot of people visiting me, a lot of people coming down to Agárd and trying my food.
Beyond that, I was thinking about franchises of all kinds.
In September, the franchise will be fully fleshed out, with two stores in Pest and two in Székesfehérvár, three of these four locations already having partnership agreements.
So far, GrillPip has been open to people who were close to me or knew me - from September, this option will be available to any mortal human being.
You could say that they can open a franchise for a lot of money, after a negotiation, after talking to me. We already have the basics of course, who, how and under what conditions can open a GrillPip. If you are entrepreneurial and want to be your own boss, you can get into a dynamic business and you don't need ten million forints, you can just get started and that's it.
I continue to explore, I've always wanted to try a lot of things, in many areas of life besides gastronomy, for example, I don't want to be outside the media, I want to try myself in some kind of show. I have very high expectations of myself at the moment, we'll see what and how much time and energy I have.
How do you spend a day now?
I'm in Agard seven days out of seven, obviously there are times when I have to go out for something, like today I'm on my way home from a shoot, so I'm open then too. On average I am in the shop 90-95%.
I watch the food, a lot of it I prepare myself. I do the basics, even though I've trained the chefs, I still do it, I go out, I talk to the guests, I talk to them about how they like the food, we always take photos, I sign autographs or sign autographs when I'm asked, so it's going really well.
Apart from hospitality and media, you know you have a lot of other things on your mind, you do other things. Can you tell readers about your latest projects?
I have my own cooking class, one so far, which will be revived from the second week of August. I've always wanted to do a cooking school or to be involved in cooking specifically, so now that I've won Kitchen Chef, maybe people will believe I know how to cook, not just pretend.
The cooking classes are interactive, which means that they are for all groups, whether beginners, advanced or professionals, everyone can find their own idea. There are always special things that I come up with, for example, next time we're going to go into the mysteries of Italian cuisine, Italian pastas, sauces, things like that. We cook together, we taste, we eat, we form opinions, we exchange recipes.
Such a cooking school and course will soon start in Pest. We did the first one with Mengyi (Kitchen Chef Silver Medal 2021). There we went a little deeper into the mysteries of Thai and Chinese cuisine. Mengyi did the Chinese part, I did the Thai part, it went very well, Mengyi and I are terribly close, we have an outstanding nexus with the other 2021 Kitchen Chef participants. Martina has helped me a lot, Gábor Petróczi and Gerzson and I will be cooking together, Márió is the manager of my shop downstairs. We have a very, very good relationship with the cast of the show and I would like to keep it going. Everyone has contributed to my success so far, and I am very grateful for that. It's incredible that we've become such good friends and have developed such friendly relationships.
I've become a permanent member of Street Kitchen, which means I'm constantly having to go out and produce interactive content and cook.
A few hours of breaking news, which I don't want to reveal too much about yet, is that I will soon be hosting exclusive wine dinners for 100-150 people, where I will be preparing dishes from the Kitchen Chef finale, accompanied by special wines. We would like to organise the first one in late September or early October.
Can I cook for you Roli? What is your favourite food and who cooks it at home?
One of my favourite dishes to get me off my feet is a perfectly cooked bolognese, I love it, or even, a perfect lasagne. Italian pasta dishes, a really good mushroom ragus pappardelle or a gnocchi... Other than that, barbecue, bbq, burgers, a really good steak... they are my everything.
I cook at home, of course.
We saw your little boy cheering you on in the show, did it make him want to be a chef when he “grows up”?
He didn't bring it out that he's totally into this cooking thing, obviously he cooks at home, he tries to do one or two things, but I find that my other line is much stronger than his, you could say it's in his blood, it's more fulfilled in him, it's the sport.
He lives and dies for combat sports, boxing, football. Thank God my son was accepted to the U6 at Videoton in Belgrade at the age of 5. They said he was terribly talented, skilful and loved it, and I was very, very happy.
It's too early to say, but I think he's going to be a professional athlete, either a footballer or a boxer in the martial arts field or he's going to do MMA. I think that's his future.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to enter the next Kitchen Chef competition?
Fasten your pants! If you're a competitive person and you're normal, you love gastronomy and you're all in, the most important thing is that you have to focus on one thing and that's concentration!
A lot of people have slipped up because they were exhausted, they couldn't be creative, because they were tired and so on. If you're focused, if you're focused on the goal, if you know what you want to achieve, then TOP 6 is for sure, it doesn't stop there...
