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Home / Travel

Quarantined chef's meals cooked on hotel iron earn TikTok fame

NZ Herald
2 Dec, 2020 09:21 PM2 mins to read

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Gordan Ramsay rates hotel room food on TikTok. Video / @gordonramsayofficial

A young chef in quarantine has won praise for his imaginative recipes cooked up using nothing but a hotel iron.

Jago Randles a 23-year-old chef from the UK had to get creative on a trip to Canada, during a two-week stint in mandatory isolation.

Using nothing but the hotel appliances in his Vancouver hotel room, he made some inventive improvements to the meals served by quarantine staff.

The chef shared the DIY dishes via TikTok, with video recipes for a gourmet burger and creme brûlée cooked on a hotel iron .

"This looks better than many dishes I've had in hotels," chef Gordon Ramsey quipped on his own social media accounts. The antics have earned Jago almost 100000 followers, including the odd celebrity chef, who are enthralled by his ingenuity.

Jago Randles has ammassed 100,000 fans for his hotel-room recipies. Photo / Supplied, Tiktok, screenshot
Jago Randles has ammassed 100,000 fans for his hotel-room recipies. Photo / Supplied, Tiktok, screenshot
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Using baking parchment to keep the cooking surface clean – he is, after all, using the room's shared iron – Randles engineered a surprisingly versatile cooking station.

"Mans out here cooking with an iron, eating better than I do," commended on viewer, impressed.

Not everyone thought it was such a 'genius' idea. Hotel staff watching the video urged guests not to imitate the stunt. Or at least use their own iron, at home, rather than one found in a hotel room.

Just think of the poor soul who has to use that iron to prepare their shirts, and ends up smelling like a fast food restaurant. "I guarantee the room still smells," wrote one viewer.

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Randles arrived in Canada to take up a job as a chef at a ski resort in Whistler. Talking to The Washington Post, the young cook said he had not had any complaints from the hotel, or any subsequent guests.

Hotel staff are less impressed by Jago's culinary experiments. Photo / Supplied, Tiktok screenshot
Hotel staff are less impressed by Jago's culinary experiments. Photo / Supplied, Tiktok screenshot

While airlines and hotels have had to pare back their meal service to accommodate for Covid safety and public hygiene, some travellers are taking matters into their own hands.

Last week a New York-based actor released a film of himself apparently cooking a steak in the bathroom of a Southwest Airlines plane. The airline exposed the clip as a hoax saying they have asked the customer to remove the video. If it needed saying, they explained the health and hygiene problems of the stunt and warned passengers not to recreate the meal.

"Appearing to go around safety regulations on board aircraft is no joke to us," a spokesperson told Fox News.

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'Better than many dishes I've had in hotels,' Gordon Ramsey is a fan. Photo / Screenshot, TikTok
'Better than many dishes I've had in hotels,' Gordon Ramsey is a fan. Photo / Screenshot, TikTok
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