エピソード

  • #338 Axel Archenti | Bottega

    #338 Axel Archenti | Bottega
    2026/02/21
    Axel Archenti arrived at Bottega in 2017 on a working holiday visa and never left. He broke down three goats at his trial, worked his way through the kitchen, and became head chef in 2023. It’s his first head chef role, and he has embraced it. Axel cooks Italian food with an Australian accent, celebrating local produce and native ingredients. The menu is seasonal, but ever evolving, practical, and grounded in the reality of a busy dining room that fills fast before curtain-up at the nearby theatres. Axel talks thoughtfully about simplicity, about knowing when not to experiment, and about building a kitchen culture where people actually like coming to work. This was a generous conversation, and I loved every minute of it.
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    32 分
  • #337 Jean-Baptiste Dumas | The Hospitality Cup

    #337 Jean-Baptiste Dumas | The Hospitality Cup
    2026/02/16
    Hospitality is a team sport. You feel it most on a busy service, when everyone’s tired, slightly wired, and relying on each other to get through the shift. Jean Baptiste Dumas, JB to his friends knows that world well. He worked at France Soir for years, and noticed something familiar: the same people who thrive in service also light up around sport. In 2019, he turned that overlap into something practical. A five-a-side soccer tournament for hospitality venues. It began as a kick about in a Melbourne park. It’s now the Hospitality Cup, with tournaments across Australia and the US. The Hospitality Cup has united teams from some of Australia’s most iconic venues and groups, including Rae’s, Icebergs, Aria, Merivale, the Scott Pickett Group, Attica, DOC Pizza, Freddie’s Pizza and the Reymond Group.
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    14 分
  • #336 Aidan Robinson | Chic de Partie

    #336 Aidan Robinson | Chic de Partie
    2026/02/11
    I love getting to check back in with someone I’ve spoken to a few years on. When I last spoke to Aidan Robinson from Chic de Partie Cake Couturier in 2022, he was figuring out life after Dinner by Heston. Now his cakes have found their way to Lady Gaga, Chappell Roan and Yungblud, yet the operation is still just him, a spreadsheet and beautiful buttercream. We talk about what the in-between years actually looked like: three-day bakes, clients who want childhood memories encapsulated in cake, and why fondant superheroes are a firm no. There’s also the unglamorous side: rising food costs, Valentine’s Day roulette, and literally doing everything on your own. It’s a relaxed catch up about craft, taste and the reality behind the polish.
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    28 分
  • #335 Aitor Jeronimo Orive | Basque Txoko at Nobody's Baby Bar

    #335 Aitor Jeronimo Orive | Basque Txoko at Nobody's Baby Bar
    2026/01/24
    I sat down with Aitor Jeronimo Orive, who’s in Melbourne right now for a pop-up at Nobody’s Baby in South Yarra. He was born in Madrid, raised in Australia, trained in Valencia, and went on to work in Michelin-starred kitchens in Spain, the Basque Country, London including Nerua, Mugaritz, and The Fat Duck before running his own one-star restaurant in Singapore, Basque Kitchen by Aitor. His cooking is grounded in Basque home food: charcoal, seafood, stews, big cuts of meat, and that’s what he’s cooking here. We talked about growing up between countries, his family’s cooking, life in high-pressure kitchens, and what brought him back to Melbourne.
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    32 分
  • #334 Nick Deligiannis | Bar Sophia

    #334 Nick Deligiannis | Bar Sophia
    2026/01/18
    Nick Deligiannis and I last spoke almost three years ago at Audrey’s in Sorrento, in the thick of summer service and seafood season. Now he’s at Bar Sophia in Glen Iris, a Greek wine bar built around one key limitation that’s also its best feature: a woodfire oven and no stoves. We talk about how that shapes everything, from menu thinking to prep discipline, plus his recent time in Greece, the Athens Riviera influence, and his focus on simple food finished with bold dressings, freshness and acidity, including house-made halloumi made from scratch each week.
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    22 分
  • #333 Ben John | Bistro X at The StandardX

    #333 Ben John | Bistro X at The StandardX
    2025/12/30
    Ben John is the chef behind BistroX at The StandardX in Fitzroy. He trained in Aotearoa New Zealand, came up through some of Naarm’s most exacting kitchens, and has led teams at places where standards are high and pressure is constant. At BistroX, he’s building something deliberately more relaxed: a neighbourhood bistro inside a hotel that doesn’t really feel like a hotel at all. We talk about suppliers and seasons, teaching young chefs properly, breaking down whole animals, and what leadership looks like now compared with when he was coming up. We also talk about balance, longevity, and how to stay generous in a demanding industry. I really enjoyed this conversation. Ben is thoughtful, grounded and deeply committed to the craft.
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    28 分
  • #332 Punit Ferrnandes | Bombay Meri Jaan

    #332 Punit Ferrnandes | Bombay Meri Jaan
    2025/12/22
    It’s been a few years since I last saw Punit, back when Elichi was still open in Black Rock and the world and hospitality felt very different. In the time since, he’s lived what feels like several careers’ worth of experience: closing a restaurant, cooking through lockdown with his family, stepping into senior hotel roles, winning AHA Chef of the Year last year, and quietly building the foundations for something deeply personal. That something is Bombay Meri Jaan, Punit’s Richmond restaurant and love letter to Mumbai. Not the shorthand version of Indian food most of us think we know, but a layered, regional, memory-driven expression of western Indian cooking shaped by coastal spices, street snacks, family recipes, and the rhythms of a city that never stops moving. In this conversation, Punit talks about slowing down, learning when to step back, and what it means to cook food that actually reflects who you are. We cover hotel kitchens and home cooking, leadership and letting go, butter chicken (of course), and why some of the most important dishes are the ones tied to trains, fishermen, and late-night streets.
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    34 分
  • #331 Esca Khoo | Tyga

    #331 Esca Khoo | Tyga
    2025/12/19
    I first spoke to Esca Khoo a few years ago. Since then, he’s travelled, cooked and learned his way across Southeast Asia. What’s stayed constant is his generosity and the size of his heart, something that shows up as much in the way he runs a kitchen as in the food he cooks. Now he’s back in Melbourne, leading the kitchen at Tyga on Koornang Road in Carnegie. I came to the opening, and could not wait to go back, largely because I couldn’t stop thinking about the wood-fired bone marrow with crab sambal and roti. This conversation picks up where the last one left off and I loved it every bit as much as I loved the first.
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    28 分