Peter Roddy is one of those incredible chefs who has been working in restaurants since he was 14 years old and still exudes passion and delight at cooking. Having spent his formative years working with the likes of the Roux brothers, Gordon Ramsay and Terence Conran, Peter has earned success in every restaurant he has worked in and now has his own hatted restaurant in Richmond.
So youre Irish and Noir is a French restaurant and I know youve worked in lots of different countries so lets go back to the start. Where did it all begin for you?
My home town is Dundalk. Theres a restaurant there called Quaglinos. At 14 I started washing dishes at the restaurant. There was a very talented chef working there at the time called Raymond McArdle. He has since been on the BBC tv series, Great British Chefs and all that kind of carry on. He was a very exciting character and I got swept up in it. So by the time Christmas came, they needed help plating desserts in the dessert section and I muscled in on the dessert section and that was me. I used to do school in the daytime. Id finish up at 4pm and head to the restaurant until 10pm and I did that five days a week.
When you were 14?
[Laughs] Yes, when I was 14.
So what happened then? You were with a really great chef and you learned on the job; is that your apprenticeship or did you then go and study?
I went to Glasgow to do an HND in hospitality. So that took me to the UK. I had wanted to do my studies in Ireland but the way it works with grants and all that, I would have had to have stayed in my home town, and I was certain I didnt want to stay in my home town of Dundalk. I would have liked to move to Dublin but when that wasnt available to me, I decided to make the switch to Glasgow.
Youd already learned so much on the job; did the course in Glasgow fill in the gaps? Or did you just have to do it to go further?
I just had to do it to. To be honest I missed out quite a bit. I didnt go to everything. I was walking a full time job and looking after myself. I was 18 when I got to Glasgow. I had an apartment and rent to pay and all sorts of stuff. So I was just doing college on the side.
Good grief. So then did you go to London?
No. I stayed in Glasgow for five years and worked with the Roux brothers and Gordon Ramsay, and Terence Conran opened a restaurant up there while I was there. I was part of those teams.
You had an amazing start then. Where did you go after that?
I was in Chicago for a while and travelled for a while then came over to Australia and New Zealand.
How long did you spend in New Zealand?
I spent three years there in Queenstown. I absolutely loved it. I met my partner Ebony there. It was my first serious head chef role at a place called Pier 19, which is the premier waterfront restaurant. We were doing 400 for lunch and 150 for dinner every day. And it was in this sort of style; cuisine, not churning it out.
What an amazing place to work. Do you skior you probably didnt have time for that?
No I did. I went up the mountain occasionally. For most of the time I just enjoyed the Queenstown nightlife.
Was it a steep learning curve to be head chef dealing with such volume?
Not really. Id had the training. Id worked with him initially in a smaller place called Captains when I was backpacking. I spent a year backpacking in New Zealand and then came back to Australia. Then I got the call that hed bought Pier 19 and he wanted me back there. He knew me and he knew my style. We enjoyed a lot of success there.
Is it easy to work in with a team in these places and convey what you need to get done?
Thats been the learning curve, I guess. Going from the style I was trained in, being very blunt to actually teaching people. The people I trained with are fantastic chefs but theyre not fantastic managers. But you cant just churn through staff and if you want to build anything consistent and decent, you have to have good people staying with you for a long time. And if you want to do that you have to look after them and treat them well.
Ive heard that quite a bit from other chefs who have been though the brigade style. It takes time and money to train staff, so you do want to retain a team.
Weve got a proper program for wine training now, weve got a proper program for young chefs that also teaches them to be managers. Ive done a lot of courses out there in wine and so on. Thats how Ive been able to progress the restaurant.
Thats where embracing the totality of hospitality is really important, isnt it? Especially if youre the owner and the head chef, you cant really just do one aspect of it.
Totally not. From building the restaurant right through. We started this on a shoestring. Ebonys family jumped in; my brother-in-law built the tables, her dads an electrician and rewired the building, we painted the walls. It was very hands on and a humble start. Now its quite a beautiful room.
Were passionate about making everything here and the process, so we buy the best stuff, teaching young people how to do the basic methods right though.
It is a beautiful room and you get a lot of amazing reviews. No one says a bad word. I love the whole idea of the shared lunch on Sundays. Thats such a French thing for me. Youve really nailed that essence of French dining.
The shared tasting menu has been tremendously successful. We opened with that style. Then we were chasing awards and we went into a more formal tasting menu style to try and get the hats and then it goes back into the sharing style at the weekend, thats more akin to what our customers want.
Noir is a destination restaurant. Diners will travel from around the city to come here, but are you influenced by Richmond and whats around you?
Everything weve got is based on local clientele who come back again and again. Without that, we wouldnt survive. Were not fantastic at marketing. Im learning to try and promote Noir more, so from our perspective if a customer comes in and then they come back, then youve got a business, if they dont come back, you dont.
How do you get a feel for what they want?
We talk to them. My wife is on the floor four or five nights a week. She is very good with the people. She is definitely the people side of the business.
What a great team. I really like that your wifes name is Ebony and the restaurant is Noir.
It was initially going to be called Ebony. We designed the restaurant; the style, the dark walls to go with the name Ebony. But she decided it was a bit much. So we thought of Noir and that suited the design we had.
How often do you change the menu?
Its sort of randomly enough; as the whimsy takes me. Weve got dishes that never leave the menu and then we have dishes that go in and out of season. Then weve got stuff that I feel like doing because I saw something in a book or whatever.
I was going to ask whether you get your ideas from books or other people.
Yes we eat out a lot and read a lot. Or looking through Instagram you can see something that sparks an element of something.
Are you still surprised by food, by what other people are doing? Do you still get a thrill of excitement at certain flavours?
We love eating out and theres such a huge amount going on, as far as the progressive end of things is concerned. The innovative restaurants dont interest me so much, but I guess the different cuisines available in Australia that Id never seen. People are doing fantastic things. Everybody is getting into Japanese and having a go at the moment. I guess Im learning as a diner and not as a chef. I find it really interesting.
There has been a renaissance or return to really good flavours and really good food, rather than everyone being quite so hyped over the innovative, progressive style menus.
Were passionate about making everything here and the process, so we buy the best stuff, teaching young people how to do the basic methods right though. I guess we use some unusual ingredients, like guinea fowl and marron they might not have worked with before. We give them the opportunity to learn about those and do them properly.
Guinea fowl is so delicious. Its such a standard in France and I remember wondering why we didnt eat it in New Zealand. Its interesting that there is still a whole lot of food were not used to.
We just try and make the most of some of the great ingredients out there.
Do you think youd ever want to do a book?
I dont think Ive got enough to do that. Ive done seven years as head chef at Noir and about four or five years as head chef before that. I dont think my repertoire is big enough. Were still doing new things all the time. Id like to do another restaurant, for sure. Id like to do one thats not on a shoestring. Theres an incredible amount of work in a book and I guess its the thing to do when you are so confident in your own style that its a finished product.
You dont have to do a book.
I want to do a book one day, but I want to do a very good one.
175 Swan Street, Richmond