Gates is the executive sous chef at Sochi's Radisson Hotel Lazurnaya, where Chernomyrdin has dined more that a dozen times since Gates took over the resort's kitchens in early 1994. President Boris Yeltsin himself ate Gates' veal piccata once last summer while meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart to discuss the fate of the contested Black Sea fleet.
Gates, 30, a softspoken, trim native of Perth, said he isn't daunted by having to cook for such dignitaries, but run-of-the-mill Americans are another story.
"Americans are the toughest to cook for. They are very demanding," said Gates. "My experience is that American people don't like to wait for anything. Everything has to be really quick."
At the hotel, by far Sochi's fanciest and most expensive, with rooms starting at $155 a night, Gates said the clientele includes UN peacekeepers stationed in neighboring Abkhazia, corporate seminargoers from Moscow, Russian government officials, mobsters and local prostitutes.
During the peak season, Gates' workdays often stretch to 16 hours and workweeks to seven days as he supervises 46 cooks and 30 stewards working in the hotel complex's 12 food outlets. As the chief chef and one of only three Westerners on the kitchen staff, Gates said his biggest challenge has been training a local staff unfamiliar with standards found at other Radisson restaurants around the world.
"I have to do a lot of hands-on training of people," said Gates, his voice tinged with frustration. "It will be another two or three years before we are at the level of Moscow."
"I find people are very difficult to motivate," said Gates, who delegates most of his administrative tasks to a secretary so he can spend more time in the kitchen. "Sochi is still a long way behind in that respect. They don't have anything to work for. There's no place here to go and become executive chef."
Gates first came to Sochi from Australia on a whim. "I didn't know what to expect, so I said, 'Why not?'"
He added: "It's a good opportunity to save money here, especially in the winter. There's nothing to do."
With his contract up for renewal in January, Gates said he is not sure if he'll stay in Sochi or not. He is looking into jobs in Asia, perhaps Vietnam where the Radisson chain is opening a new hotel.
"There's nothing better than walking into a brand-new kitchen where everything is shiny and clean," he said.
If nothing else, Gates will leave Sochi with a new wife, Elena, 24, a Sochi native whom he married in April. "She just wants to get out," said Gates, whose wife was a former hostess in the hotel's nightclub. "Something will come up. And I'll say, 'Okay, let's do it.'"
Professionally, there is not a lot of inspiration for Gates in Sochi, an aging resort where most establishments seem to be struggling to stay afloat.
"After a few sore stomachs, we stopped going into restaurants in town. The difficult thing for them to learn is that they need to cook what the people want, not what they want."
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