There's something grounded and quietly assured about Adam Sanderson. Maybe its the way he talks about kitchens as places of belonging. Or maybe it's the way his journey, which began in the north of England, has moved through some of the most celebrated dining rooms in the world: The Fat Duck, where creativity and precision dance together, and Noma in Copenhagen, where he learned to see ingredients through a new lens. When Adam landed in Melbourne, he felt the pulse of the city straight away; its openness, its energy, its love of food and something clicked. Now, as executive chef at Maison Batard, he's found a space where all those experiences can come together. Maison Batard is a layered, generous space set across four floors and to me exudes French style and sensibilities. The menu features reimagined French classics,a potato omelette topped with caviar, rotisserie chicken with green olives,and a chocolate mousse served at the table with just the right amount of theatre. It's a place that celebrates flavour, hospitality, and the quiet confidence of a chef who knows exactly where he is.
Conversation with a chef: Adam, it is so nice to see you again. Thank you for your time. This is a juggernaut of a place to be working in, and I feel like all of your minutes must be filled.
Adam Sanderson: Yes. They definitely are. But with good things, interesting things happening. It's been pretty incredible so far.
And it is a juggernaut because it's a Lucas venue, and it has had a lot of media. What's it like working in a place that has so much such a spotlight put on it? Do youfeel that?
You definitely feel it, but I love it. Especially your Friday and Saturday nights when you're absolutely pumping over four levels. Thats where I thrive. I love that business. I love that adrenaline. I love that kind of rush of a of a busy venue, busy service. As you can see, the fit out here is second to none. It's incredible. It's all come together and the team we work with and also at the management level go above and beyond. It's been pretty special for me personally. But, yeah, Juggernaut is definitely one way to describe it.
You came on board when a lot of things were already put in place?
Yes. The first conversation I would have had was January, 2024.
And it had been Chris's dream for a long time. How does that work when you come in on something where there's already a lot of ideas happening? How do you fit in with that?
For me, personally, it was hard not to. From the conversation at the very start with Chris and Damien (Snell), just sitting there, and hearing the story behind it, hearing the stories behind Chris' travels to France and across France, and his ideas behind this was just phenomenal. You can hear in his voice the passion, the excitement of this project, and for any of his venues. So for me, it was very much on board from day one. I was excited. That led me to get involved a little bit in Society at the start as well, and then across the menu development for the venue. It was amazing.
Damien is the Culinary Director and oversees all of the venues?
Yes Damien is Culinary Director and oversees the menus of all of the venues. The menu would be written by Chris and Damien. Then it was passed onto myself and another guy, Joaquim, who's part of the group. We then put our spin, techniques and thoughts on the dishes and present them to Chris, Damien, Celia, and then test.
It is quite a process in Lucas venues, isn't it? Testing and refining and food costing. I feel like there's a lot involved.
There's definitely a lot of research, development, costing, and processes to get things in place, and we have to make sure that we do it the same every time, so it's consistent as well. I think the key overall is consistency.
Obviously, it's not hard when you're a chef and you've been doing that for years and so on. But in a venue, which is as big as this with so many staff, how do you manage that consistency? When I came in pre-opening and there was a tasting happening, it felt like there was a whole village of people. That was front of house staff as well, but then there's a lot of people in the kitchen. Is there one central kitchen and another?
Weve got the central kitchen downstairs in the main dining room. And then we have a another kitchen upstairs on level one.
How do you how do you manage all of those people, and ensure consistency?
For me, it's just everyday conversations, discussions, monitoring. I'm fortunate enough to have a key team with me, at sous chef level, head chef level. I have these particular key people in place who I know I can rely on and who can have their eyes across it as well. Its about them understanding the importance and the vision as well, really getting them onboard and engaged in what it is we're doing here and what we're moving to and striving to achieve.
I was speaking to a chef in a totally different venue, and he said chefs, because they're so practical, can have some really good ideas about shortcuts, and it's about always bringing them back to going, okay, that's fine, but this is how we're doing it because we need to have these steps.
For sure. But it's the same with a recipe. It's a guideline. For me, I don't necessarily mind a shortcut if it doesn't affect the product and it gets the same result and the guest is happy, that's the most important for me. If you have ideas, definitely throw them out, come up with them. If we agree, we're going to head down that path. If we're not, then we definitely won't go there. But as long as the end product is the best, that's the most important for me.
I think I wanted to be a police officer, to be in the police force. I don’t know why. It was just one of those things. A lot of my friends at school, they would go on and be mechanics or engineers. But for me, I actually started waiting tables at a Marriott hotel up in the north of England. That’s where it began for me, was breakfast service. there. I enjoyed it, I liked making people happy, just trying to be a bit funny at the table, I guess, and obviously do my job, and get it right. But I just I enjoyed that interaction with guests. But then that led to me to being in the kitchen waiting for food to come out and watching how the kitchen works, how the chefs operated, how they communicated, that high pressure environment. I think that’s what at 15,16 really opened my eyes and I thought, this is what I want to do when I leave school. ~ Adam Sanderson, Maison Batard
It's a big menu. I feel like there's a lot of choice. Is everything being hit the same? Do people order across the menu, or are there particular things that they favour?
Every day is different. You could fly through and sell a lot of lobster omelette on a Monday lunch. Tuesday lunch could be Nioise Salad. Obviously, you've got your top sellers and your dishes here and there that people go towards, but in general, it can very much vary. It's not always the same thing day and day out.
I love that lobster omelette and just the whole performance of having it served in the copper pan.
It's nice. It's one of my favourites.
So buttery, delicious.
Yes. It's tasty. I love it. It could be a breakfast dish. It could be a dinner dish.
I didn't have the chicken, but my Pilates instructor came with her partner and she said that she could not believe how delicious the chicken was and was just wanting to lick the plate.
Nice.
Good recommendation.
That's alright. There'd be no raised eyebrows if you decided to lick the plate. That's fine. If that's the way you want to go, as long as you leave happy and you enjoy your food and service. That's the key. There was a process with that chicken. We went through a few tests for it and ended up with the best process in the end, which is what we're serving now. I personally love it. Even tasting it now after however many months, I still really enjoy it. Maybe I'm just biased.
Well, you want to be loving what you do and what you're serving, for sure. I read that you are one of the chefs who maybe started quite young in the industry, and you're still so passionate. Where did it start for you? Did you always know you wanted to be a chef?
No. I think I wanted to be a police officer, to be in the police force. I don't know why. It was just one of those things. A lot of my friends at school, they would go on and be mechanics or engineers. But for me, I actually started waiting tables at a Marriott hotel up in the north of England. That's where it began for me, was breakfast service. there. I enjoyed it, I liked making people happy, just trying to be a bit funny at the table, I guess, and obviously do my job, and get it right. But I just I enjoyed that interaction with guests. But then that led to me to being in the kitchen waiting for food to come out and watching how the kitchen works, how the chefs operated, how they communicated, that high pressure environment. I think that's what at 15,16 really opened my eyes and I thought, this is what I want to do when I leave school. I think it was probably a week after I left school, I took a week's break, went on a bit of a holiday with some friends and then that following week was the week I started in the kitchen as an apprentice in the Marriott Hotel. It was a big kitchen that was serving an a la carte menu, bar menu, room service. Proper sections, all very traditional service and styles. That was pretty cool.
Wow. So that's really learning on the job. There wasn't any school based learning?
They basically came out to the restaurant and reviewed and assessed me on the spot, whether that be questions or just through practical teaching. That's how I did my apprenticeship, which went for about a year and a half, two years.
Hotels are such a different world to restaurants, because you do have all those different aspects: breakfast and room service and different elements to it. Have you worked in other hotels since then?
No. Not really. The Continental recently. I was there for the opening of that, but just dotting around here and there, helping out in Audreys and events, but that was more the restaurant than the hotel
After you did your apprenticeship, where did you go from there?
I moved to Nottingham. My parents moved to Nottingham through my dad's job, and I thought Id tag along. I was about 18 at the time. I went there and started working at a little local bistro brasserie. At the time, I was doing some really, really cool food. It was my next step from a hotel of structured room service, club sandwich type thing, but I actually saw terrines and souffles and beignets and braising of beef and roasting. It was the first kitchen where I really thought, wow, this is this is the next step, the next level. It was a big step for me.
What position were you there?
I just came in as demi chef de partie. It was a small team, maybe six people. Various sections, a small kitchen, but very hands on, everything from scratch from the backdoor of a guy bringing wood pigeons and buying them sort of cash proceeds, there and then I think his name was Jim. Stuff like that, it wasnt quite the countryside, but the outskirts of the city of a town called Newark. That was really fun as well, and pretty cool to see that process.
It's interesting hearing about those different kinds of things like wood pigeon or pheasant or different things that we don't really come across here. Even rabbit, I think that's my big lament here, I think there's pretty much only one guy that farms rabbit now in the whole of Australia.
Pretty much. It's not the same as back home. There, it's very much getting ready for game season. You get excited who's going to cook the first pheasant, Who's going to be cooking the first grouse. I do miss that side of things, but, we have great produce here as well.
At places like The Fat Duck, you are very much shown the way this is how we do it. That’s how it has to be every time. It doesn’t matter if it’s chopping chives or making an almond fluid gel. There are processes and there’s systems and checkpoints. They had a stagiaire team at the time, and a prep kitchen which some of the other bigger jobs you’d pass off to that team in the prep kitchen. They would bring things over an hour before service, and all that stuff would be checked. The brunoise of carrot, brunoise of mushroom, the parsley butter for the snails, the lamb, the salmon, everything was all checked at 11am by the section chefs and then taken into the sections. So, yes, you do have to follow the processes for sure. That’s what sharpens you up and gets you into systems and gets you into routines. ~ Adam Sanderson, Maison Batard
Were you an ambitious aspiring chef? Did you think, I need to go and work in fine dining, and I need to be the top?
Yes. I always wanted that next level, next thing. I think it comes from my nature, from being pretty high energy. I always want that next step. In the kitchen in Nottingham with a guy called Mark Osborne, we were always talking about other things that were happening, like the French Laundry, Charlie Trotter, another chef from Nottingham, Sat Bains, which was a big inspiration for me, for that next step of fine dining. Before it was Sat Baines, it was Hotel des Clos. That was one of my first fine dining experiences, eating there and thinking, this is the next step. At the time, I didn't apply for Sats. I applied in London, at various restaurants, and Gary Rhodes ended up being that next step for me from Nottingham. It's always about that next step, that next progression, I guess.
Were they good mentors along the way?
Definitely. Some were obviously very different approaches, but you can learn things about how I want to be, how I don't want to be. You can decide along your journey or your way, as to how you want to approach things when you eventually do step up the ladder.
I think you've got to be fairly observational to do that because, not everyone takes the good and the bad and puts it together with their own style. So you were in London. At what point did you go to the Fat Duck?
I'd been in London about a year and a half at Gary Rhodes. Again, I loved Rhodes. Loved the food there, the style, the techniques, but I just kept seeing glimmers. It was two places at the time. It was a place called Midsummer House and the Fat Duck. But I applied for the Fat Duck, got in there, and that was that was definitely a massive eye opener for me, being there that first stage blew me away. I did a two day trial, stayed overnight in in Maidenhead, headed back next day, did lunch service, then got offered the job. Straight away, I was like, this this is what I want next. I've always been that jump in, have a go. Don't be afraid to jump into things. That was definitely a moment for me. I jumped in and thought this is next level. This is the next step, for sure.
On a two-day trial, what sorts of things are they getting you to do, and what are they looking for?
When you turn up, they're going to be looking at your appearance, how you present yourself. But most of all, you'll work one on one with a chef de partie, and they'll ask you questions as you go along through the day. You'll be given certain tasks that they've assigned or they feel are right and appropriate for someone on trial to find out what their skill base and skill set is. Then you also talk to some of the seniors and have a little conversation. It is very much how you fit into that environment as well. That's super important. They see whether you're the right sort of personality, right attitude, the right fit. That all worked out pretty well.
How many staff are on that team?
Oh, crikey. I think at the time, there were 10. You had people in the test kitchen; four or five people in the test kitchen. Full time, there are probably about 10 to 11 people in the main kitchen, including pastry. It was a very small kitchen at that time. It wasn't the new kitchen it is now. It was back when we did a la carte and a tasting menu. Anyone who's been there knows how small it is. But it just it worked so well. It was just unreal. That's just through, obviously, the hard work going into people before that. People like Ashley Palmer-Watts, who set up these systems and helped set up these stations and sections and the flow of the menu. Its pretty well orchestrated, pretty well organised.
When you go in as a newbie, do they give you a proper explanation of how it works or do you have to work it out for yourself?
At places like The Fat Duck, you are very much shown the way this is how we do it. That's how it has to be every time. It doesn't matter if it's chopping chives or making an almond fluid gel. There are processes and there's systems and checkpoints. They had a stagiaire team at the time, and a prep kitchen which some of the other bigger jobs you'd pass off to that team in the prep kitchen. They would bring things over an hour before service, and all that stuff would be checked. The brunoise of carrot, brunoise of mushroom, the parsley butter for the snails, the lamb, the salmon, everything was all checked at 11am by the section chefs and then taken into the sections. So, yes, you do have to follow the processes for sure. That's what sharpens you up and gets you into systems and gets you into routines.
I feel like you do have to have a really sharp technique, and the cutting. I see how you chefs cut. Is this something you practise at home?
No. Not at all. To be honest with you, it's something you have to hurry up and get right. You dont have time. There's only so many bunches of chives or whatever you can brush aside and put in the bin if theyre not right. You have to step up, and you have to perform.It's high pressure. It's intense, but you have to perform.
Do you think everyone can do that?
No. Definitely not. I've seen people not stick around.
You can love to cook, but not necessarily be able to thrive or step up to that level.
But then that's not the environment for you then. And that's fine. Not every kitchen is for everyone. They might go to another three star Michelin in New York and work there and think, okay, this is this is what I want. I actually fit in here better. It can vary and depend on lots of factors.
It's good to know that all is not lost.
No. Definitely not. You just have to keep going. It depends what you want out of it as well. For me, it was very much that I wanted to succeed. I wanted to grow. I wanted to learn. I wanted to evolve and keep developing my skill set.
Did you have injuries in the early days? Did you cut yourself and burn yourself?
Not really. I've not had, touch wood, those injuries. I've poured hot duck fat on my thumb before and had a massive blister on my thumb. But nothing crazy as of yet.
I just remember it being very different. I remember stepping off the plane, the whole smell, very weird, but the smells, the warmth. Everything just felt very different. Then the further you come into Melbourne, you start getting the smell of eucalyptus trees. Even the sounds of the birds were different. Everything for me was just, like, woah. This is completely different from anything I had experienced before. It was really exciting. I remember it being really exciting. We were here probably a week, and we’d already found work. So we thought, this is it, we’re staying. Melbourne’s the place. ~ Adam Sanderson, Maison Batard
At what point did you decide to go to Copenhagen?
I met my partner at the time who's Danish. She worked at The Fat Duck as well. Then I left, she left. She went back to Copenhagen, and I thought, oh, I can come over and check it out. So I followed her there, basically. We explored Copenhagen together. She showed me around her home city. I wanted to see a bit more Scandinavian technique and culture.
Was it so a culture shock? Or did it feel like a natural next step for you?
No. It was very different. It was very relaxed. Copenhagen is amazing.
It's my new favourite city.
100 per cent. It is incredible. I love it. In the winter, summer, why am I not there now? But, I loved it. We loved it. It was different, very relaxed. People were a bit more reserved. They keep themselves to themselves. We felt very safe. It was a cool city.
Did you go straight into Noma?
I did. I did a bit of a stage there first. They weren't really looking for anybody at the time, and I really wanted to see what was going on. I did a stage there first, and then it was a week, two weeks into that. They had just got number one. They were looking to grow and progress, and that's when I got the offer of a job there.
Amazing.When I was there last year, I went to Restaurant Barr, which is where Noma was. It is such a lovely location. And, as you say, naively or not, I was by myself and I just very happily walked down the river and had dinner there and then walked back to my hotel. It has such a good feeling to it, that city. And everyone's well dressed.
They are. That's one thing I do miss about Europe and especially Copenhagen are people dressing smart. You go out for dinner, you see women riding in dresses on a bike and guys in their blazers and trousers and nice shoes. They really do dress up nicely. I do like that side of Copenhagen as well. There's definitely a fun side.
The two places I ate, so Restaurant Barr, and I also ate a place called Vaekst, which had, a glass house inside the restaurant. Everything was so beautifully done. Lots of wood and feeling really natural. I sat up at the bar at Restaurant Barr and looked through to the kitchen.
That's cool. I think it's an important part of traveling, to try local food and then see what what's being cooked where and how. There's definitely different approaches, and it's fun for me as a chef. I was always eating the open sandwiches places wed have open sandwiches, herrings, big schnapps, aquavit, and a pint of Danish lager. For me, it was just the best. I loved it.
I went to Baest, which was pizzas, but it was done with food that had been grown in their garden and the attention to detail of the pizza and salad was phenomenal.
Thats Christian Puglisi? He's a master of that. One of my favourite meals was at one of his restaurants called Relae. It was a heart dish with roast artichokes: ribbons of veal heart, glazed, and artichokes that had been hard roasted, then crushed and heated in a beurre blanc, then layered. I loved it. I saw him maybe six years afterwards, in Copenhagen. I said, I have I have to tell you about the dish I had at your restaurant. And he was pretty impressed to hear that I'd enjoyed it and wanted to hear about it. It's one of my one of my favourite dishes I've had, actually.
That's a dish where you think, how do you come up with that idea?
Oh, it's incredible. For me, it was the flavour, the texture, it's stuck in my mind.
What brought you to Melbourne?
At the time, I was working with a guy from Melbourne in Copenhagen. We bookeda trip to Thailand. We were going to have two weeks in Thailand, which we just randomly booked. We wanted to travel Thailand for the food, for the culture and basically talking to him at the time, It was around the same time as the restaurant we were working at was closing. We looked at each other. We sat in our apartment. It was a Friday or Saturday night. We sat there, and we had a nice bottle of wine. It was a real, what's happening next? We've got this got a holiday booked to Thailand. The restaurant I'm working at is closing. There was nothing really at the time that I could see myself getting involved in. We thought, do we finish up and just go have this holiday and come back and see what's there? Do we head on to Melbourne and just see what's going on there? We slept on it. I remember the next day, we basically booked and sorted our Visa for Australia. We sold our furniture, sold all of our stuff, left for Thailand with a suitcase each, and then had the two weeks in Thailand, and then straight on to Melbourne.
What year was that?
2011.
That's when I moved here as well.Can you remember what your thoughts were when you arrived here?
I just remember it being very different. I remember stepping off the plane, the whole smell, very weird, but the smells, the warmth. Everything just felt very different. Then the further you come into Melbourne, you start getting the smell of eucalyptus trees. Even the sounds of the birds were different. Everything for me was just, like, woah. This is completely different from anything I had experienced before. It was really exciting. I remember it being really exciting. We were here probably a week, and we'd already found work. So we thought, this is it, we're staying. Melbourne's the place.
Where was that where was that initially?
Cutler and Co. I was sponsored by a guy called Chris Watson.We had been backwards and forwards through email. I touched base with him, went and had some dinner there, and that was that.
You had a few years here, but was there another stint in Copenhagen? Did you go back?
We did. We had our first daughter who was born here in in Melbourne. At the time, I was at Bistro Guillaume in Crown. I loved the place, loved the food. I really enjoyed working for Guillaume. But we found out we were pregnant, and we thought we're probably better off being back around family, friends, so we went back to Copenhagen and had our daughter. Everything was great, but we missed Melbourne. We always kept talking about Melbourne. Remember this cafe. Remember this. Remember that. It made us feel homesick. So, we ended up coming back to Melbourne.
Did you work as a private chef when you went back? I thought I read something like that.
No. I worked around a few different places. I worked at a place in in Tivoli Gardens called Nimb Terrace. Tivoli Gardens is an absolutely incredible, beautiful area of Copenhagen. I would ride to work, lock my bike up, walk through the gardens. It was really cool. Every Friday or Saturday, there were bands who would perform there. Aqua, Roxette, people like this. Some mornings youd walk in, grab a coffee from the restaurant, stand there and watch Roxette doing their warm up. Then youd realise you needed to get your work done so you're ready for lunch.
How idyllic. I love it.
It's a very, very special place, for sure.
It is probably a pretty good cliche, but just be a sponge. Absorb everything you can, write everything down, take notes, surround yourself with good people, people who you know can help you grow and, evolve, and just don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to jump in and take risks. Not everyone’s the same. I know it’s easier said than done, but I feel that’s always been key for me. Then, obviously, don’t be afraid to evolve, change, adapt. That would be key for me and just learn your trade. Learn to make a terrine. Learn to cook things from basics, from scratch. ~ Adam Sanderson, Maison Batard
It is nice to know that you felt drawn back to Melbourne. It's interesting, isn't it, when somewhere becomes home that you might not have expected.
It's definitely been like that. Even when we went back to Europe for a month and saw friends and family in Copenhagen and London, and I love both places. But definitely by the beginning of the fourth week, we were ready to go home. And home was definitely Melbourne.
Great. And you had some time on the Peninsula at Ten Minutes by Tractor? How was that? Working at a winery is a different experience again.
It was very different. It's very, very cool. I love the peninsula. People down there were incredible, the local growers, farmers, producers. We made some very, very good friends, almost family and having the kids down there was one of the main reasons we moved down there. We had our second child at that time, so we went down there with Anna as a baby. The idea was just be out in the open, local produce, and Ten Minutes definitely gave me the opportunity to do that. It was a pretty cool experience.
You're someone who needs to be inspired and challenged. There's a lot going on here, so I guess that's at that level. But do you still read books or look at other what other people are doing? Do you like to have discussions with other chefs about food trends or, what do you do to keep it alive for you in amongst the busyness of work?
Definitely discussions with the team here. Again, Im lucky to be surrounded by like-minded people. I think that's an important one for me, to be surrounded by people who are like minded who you can get ideas off. There are a couple of guys here, we just bounce. We can sit there and talk for hours about ideas, what we want to do, and the progression and things we will do coming up. Social media is a is a big part of that for me, Instagram, which I'm sure a lot of people use and get inspiration from. I do follow a lot of my friends who have gone now or people I've worked with at the Fat Duck or back in Copenhagen, who are doing their own things now. I see their stuff and think, that's incredible. Id love to one day experience their food, and hang out with them and see what they're doing. So there is definitely social media, the people I'm surrounded by here, with the business, and friends who I've worked with before who've gone on to be pretty successful and have done amazing things.
And can you still be surprised by flavour? I feel like when I eat out, I can have those eye closing moments of going, oh my god. This is so amazing. The flavour is so delicious. Can you still get that?
Definitely. I love the smells of cooking, texture, flavour. Very, very big on that. So for me, it doesn't have to be a fine dining restaurant. It could be a cafe or a pub, which Melbourne has so much of. So much diversity as well that you can go out every night of the week probably and be surprised or blown away or just really enjoy eating, drinking, and being out.
Will the menu change much here, or is it a classic menu that won't change?
No. I think things will evolve. I believe so. I think for now, we're keeping it pretty stable with what we're doing, but there will be some sort of evolving in the dishes and the menu. It won't be a massive change. Maybe just little seasonal bits here and there. But people seem to be enjoying it, so why change it for now? We will introduce specials here and there and we'll do events; wine dinners, and things like that.
With all that in mind and your different experiences in different countries and different kitchens and styles of venue, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?
It is probably a pretty good cliche, but just be a sponge. Absorb everything you can, write everything down, take notes, surround yourself with good people, people who you know can help you grow and, evolve, and just don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to jump in and take risks. Not everyone's the same. I know it's easier said than done, but I feel that's always been key for me. Then, obviously, don't be afraid to evolve, change, adapt. That would be key for me and just learn your trade. Learn to make a terrine. Learn to cook things from basics, from scratch.
Maison Batard, 23 Bourke Street, Melbourne
Photography credit: Pete Dillon