Keep it Stylish!

It’s been about four years since we last saw anything from the fan favorite series, Tom’s Kitchen. A mini-series of 5 episodes where charismatic chef, Tom Hebert, cooks up his best kite sessions and shares his most stylish tricks, while always keeping things loose and entertaining. The series is known for having it all – gorgeous scenery, epic old-school tricks, tips, great hair and of course the ultimate soundtrack designed to perfectly accompany each episode. Which is why, we are thrilled to announce the revival of Tom’s Kitchen!

COMING TO YOU SOON WILL BE THREE BRAND NEW EPISODES, BRINGING YOU MORE OF THAT NEWCAL STYLE THAT WE ALL CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF. SO, WE CAUGHT UP WITH THE STAR OF THE SERIES TO FIND OUT WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE THESE AWESOMELY WACKY VIDEOS AND WHAT CHANGES MIGHT BE IN STORE FOR THE NEW AND IMPROVED WEB SERIES.

Tom, we are so excited for the next wave of the Tom’s Kitchen episodes to be released.  What took you so long to give the people what they want and bring them back to life? 

Yes. I’m super excited. It took so long to come out with the new episodes, because my last cameraman left New Cal and sold his equipment. It’s hard to find a good cameraman that you consider a friend, so you can hang out and mess around with him, because that’s the only way you can come out with a good result. I’ve always wanted to come back with some new episodes, because I think the concept is unique and I love showing my “New Cal style” to the world. 

What’s the biggest difference between the old episodes and the new? 

This new series of video will be based on style of course, but it’s also about discovering New Caledonia’s best spots. We wanted to make people dream and discover new places by watching. 

What was the inspiration for the new Tom’s Kitchen? 

I find the best way to find new ideas is to sit together with a friend and brainstorm about it. Most of the time, we will have some guidelines and then we follow the vibes of the moment. 

It sounds like it’s a team effort to bring your vision to life, tell us more about your friend, Laurent, who stars alongside you dropping beats throughout the episodes… 

Yes, I’ve known Laurent for a long time. We used to surf together a lot. Since he got into music, I’ve always wanted to put him in one of my videos. He’s very talented and very passionate too, which makes him easy to work with and always wanting to create new songs.

So, the two of you created all of the songs specifically for the new series?  Tell us more about this process and what goes into making the soundtrack...

Right now, in the kiting video scene, no one is doing what we have done with the latest Tom´s Kitchen episode, where we link the music closely with the images. For me, this is the most important thing; that everything needs to be linked together. For me, there is no way that I could make a good video and put gangster rap on it, just because it sounds good. That’s why Laurent and I sat together and created all new tunes for the TK episode. 

We’ve been needing some new tunes to get us hyped for our sessions!  When will the songs be available for download and where?   

For sure, we also did some radio edits that will be available for download on all the platforms. They are already out, but we’ve kept it secret until now. I hope you like it!

In the chorus to one of our favorite songs, the lyrics say “I don’t want to be stranded in a monkey cage”.  What’s the meaning behind this? 

The “Monkey Cage” track came out during the Covid-19 crisis, the main story behind it is about being locked in the house and wanting to go out to shred in the elements. I think this crisis proves to everyone that the sport takes up a lot of space in our life and being stranded in our houses makes us feel bad. 

Okay so we know the soundtrack is going to be sick, tell us more about what we will see… 

You will be amazed by the beautiful scenery of New Caledonia’s best spots; all filmed with a Red camera and Inspire drone. Overall, it will have insane video quality combined with a sick soundtrack and old school tricks for sure!  

Any crazy stunts going to go down? 

I’ll be climbing a little light house on Master Island reef in front of Noumea, the capital.  I also explore a shipwreck and cruise by all the best spots.  

We can only imagine what goes on behind the scenes of shooting your episodes, any funny stories to share? 

Ok so a small story… we wanted to go shoot some mangrove trees and ride inside. I knew a spot that was about a 2-hour drive from the capital. I called my friend Xavier to hook up his small aluminum boat and there we go; the crew was on a mission to Ouano beach! When we arrived, it was high tide, perfect wind with sunny conditions, we were able to shoot everything we wanted. However, on the way back home it was tide proper so much that we couldn’t put the engine down to go back so I had to fly my kite in front of the boat, I attached the chicken loop to the front of the boat and sent it to the window, it took a little bit more time than with the motor, but we made it back home towed by my kite. This is just one of many stories. 

New Cal looks sort of like a tropical version of wild west to us, what’s it like to actually live and play there all year long? 

Yes, New Cal is like a kiting heaven, we’ve got so many different spots and it’s windy pretty much all year long. It’s very wild so you can find many spots without anyone to bother you. 

A typical weekend would be to take the boat out and go out to one of the many little islands off the mainland to spend the day with the family and friends kiting there. 

We’ve been lucky enough to get a sneak peek at these new episodes and are confident that all the Tom’s Kitchen fans out there will be inspired by what’s coming their way. Stay tuned for the three-part series coming to you soon! 