Conversation with a chef

I was so excited to be able to talk to Guillaume Brahimi in the month his Melbourne restaurant, Bistro Guillaume celebrates its 10 year anniversary. I knew all about Guillaume having watched with delight, his five minute Plat du Tour episodes which aired on SBS during the Tour de France and featured famous dishes from the regions the cyclists were passing through. Guillaume’s love of cooking and his love of sharing French cuisine was palpable. Guillaume was born in Paris and knew from a young age that he wanted to be a chef. He did his apprenticeship at the iconic Aux Charpentiers restaurant, which closed in 2016, but had opened in the 1860s. By the early 1900s this was the place for young chefs to learn the trade. So can you imagine doing an apprenticeship there?! He then worked at the Tour d’Argent and then Jamin under Joel Robuchon, a celebrated French chef who is described as having rewritten the rules of fine dining. He found a very apt student in Guillaume who rose through the ranks to become sous chef before announcing that he was leaving for Australia. Robuchon famously told him that he had never heard of that establishment, but off Guillaume went for Sydney in the nineties. Nothing could hold him back and he successfully ran Bennelong in the Sydney Opera House for 14 years from 2001. With all this in mind, obviously I was excited. Our chat was very brief, because understandably, Guillaume is a busy man. He was on the way to pick up his son and would be celebrating his daughter’s 15th birthday that day as well. But it was absolutely a case of quality over quantity and Guillaume came up with some gold.

I spent a very happy 40 minutes hanging off Adam Woodfield’s every word when we sat down to chat at Salted Egg in newly opened Quincy Hotel in the CBD. Then I spent another very lovely 40 minutes eating some of his food, as he sent out Coffin Bay oyster with red nahm jim, smoked eel betel leaf (which I have to say was the most incredibly layered flavour experience I have ever had in a single mouthful), then there was raw kingfish with green nahm jim and the pop of finger lime and finally Son in law egg, soft boiled and lightly battered with a beautifully caramelised yellow bean sauce. (Just as well I walked in and out of the city on the most beautiful autumnal Melbourne day.) Adam is pretty famous, actually, having worked with many of the Melbourne greats, starting with an apprenticeship at Stokehouse, he ran iconic Jimmy Liks in Sydney, he owned and run his own restaurant in New York before being head-hunted for Hamilton Island, and then, luckily for Melbourne, he came back here, and yet he is the most down to earth, self-aware man who was so generous with his time and his stories and I felt so lucky. You absolutely must get way down Little Collins Street and try Salted Egg for yourself. Please say hi to Adam from me and eat all the wonderful food.

I often have to pinch myself that all these incredible chefs are happy to sit down and chat to me. I’m very lucky. Sometimes I contact a chef I’d like to talk to and then on the way to the chat, I have that whole imposter syndrome thing where I think, hang on a minute, this person is actually a really big deal, who do I think I am? That’s what happened on the tram on my way into the Melbourne CBD to talk to Joe Vargetto. He is a big deal. He represented Australia in the international Bocuse d’Or competition in 2001, has written a beautiful cookbook telling the story of his Sicilian heritage and how that fits within the Australian context, has two very successful and long-standing restaurants, he has worked with top chefs around the world and is, himself a top chef with seemingly boundless energy, drive and a love for hospitality. As soon as Joe came out of the kitchen, apart from the fact he was looking for a guy because of my name, the conversation flowed, and I felt as though I had made a new friend. With people like Joe around, Melbourne hospitality is in very good hands. I recorded this on Friday afternoon at Massi, Joe’s city restaurant. It was the first Friday Massi was open after a year of being shut down due to the pandemic and it had been a busy lunch. The background noise in this recording is quite loud, but an absolute testament to the fact that Joe’s guests did not want to leave and were very happy sitting around ordering more Campari and living life like it’s golden.

When I walked into Swadist Indian Craft Kitchen, Narender Godala was preparing a tea of fresh ginger, turmeric, lemon and honey. It smelled delicious and when he gave me a glass of it afterwards, I could absolutely feel the goodness coursing through my veins. Narender started his working life in India in IT but when he moved to Melbourne, he retrained as a chef. After a few years working in restaurants around Melbourne, he has opened Swadist to hero the food from the southern region around Hyderabad where he comes from. When he talks about the food he is cooking, his whole face lights up and I am sure we could have talked for hours more. As it is, you are in for a treat and I can’t wait for you to hear Narender’s story.

When I got in touch with Dylan Kemp, he was just about to leave Melbourne for Queensland where he has relocated to open a new venue in Kings Beach. We resolved to chat once he was settled, and I was impressed when he got in touch just a couple of days after arriving to make a time with me. This was one of those conversations where I was absolutely hanging off Dylan’s every word. Dylan’s understanding, appreciation and connection to food and cooking started from a young age when he would forage, hunt and cook over fire with his family in the North Island of New Zealand before crossing the ditch to continue his chef trajectory, working at the likes of Dunkeld’s Royal Mail and picking up the 2019 AHA Victoria Chef of the Year award as well as becoming one of the executive chefs overseeing hospo giant, Australian Venue Company’s many venues. You are in for such a treat because Dylan’s love of being a chef comes through every word and the way he articulates that passion is why I love talking to chefs.

I was surprised to learn that it has been four or five years since I last spoke to Gabriel Alonso at Juliet Melbourne. Time certainly flies when you’re having fun. I loved talking to Gabs back then and hearing about his love for hospitality and it was so lovely to be able to talk to him again. Gabs has done the 2020 pivot, but still speaks with absolute passion about what he is doing, which is baking bread from a micro-bakery in Preston. When I visited, the whole family was there and I felt very welcomed. Back Alley Bakes make bread, and currently hot cross buns, to order and Gabs was sorry he didn’t have a loaf to give me. But he did give me a bag of tomatoes from his garden and some beautiful thoughts about baking bread, embracing change and living life the way you want to.

David Dellai and I have honestly been trying for weeks to sit down together for a chat and all sorts of lockdowns and other things got in the way. But it was absolutely worth the wait to sit down with David and talk about his love of food and cooking, which stems back to when he was four years old, actually, and to find out more about Venetian food and how to choose the best white truffle. David showed me an eerie video he took on Saturday night just outside the door of Il Bacaro on Little Collins Street. It was our snap lockdown 3.0 and to see no one on the streets of central Melbourne on a balmy evening on Valentine’s weekend was another bleak reminder of all our hospitality heroes have been through. I am so happy they are back on the pans and cooking up a storm and that we get to reap the benefits.

Prior is a huge pastel cathedral ceilinged wonder of a café on High Street. It has a log burner in the middle for cosy winter days, a courtyard out the back for the warmer weather and a delicious menu every day of the week. Nick Korceba has been in the game for 20 years, but still speaks with passion about the food he is preparing. His former boss, Shane Delia, has spoken highly of Nick’s work as head chef at Maha where he was for a number of years, while also running Greenfields, an events venue in Albert Park. Nick is not scared of hard work but has worked towards a more sustainable approach which allows him to spend more time with his wife and three children. I love that.

Cru means raw in French and I’m always going to be drawn to anything French. I’m also drawn to the fact that Cru is very close to where I live and just one of those lovely neighbourhood wine bar treasures that serve excellent food and wine in a lovely setting. Whether you’re sitting out the front in the buzz of the café deli area or out the back in the courtyard, it’s just a really nice place to be. Sam Green and I sat out the back and talked about food, which at Cru is not just French but Mediterranean with some fusion along the way and Sam’s own journey as a chef.