What a wild and impressive ride of a career. When I went in to chat to Sunny Gilbert at the Hofbrauhaus, I did not expect to hear about cooking whole crocodiles in a bread oven in China. A career as a chef can certainly take you places. Sunny hadn't planned on being a chef, but once he got into a kitchen as a kitchenhand, he was quickly hooked, loving the adrenalin rush of service and wanting to push himself as quickly as possible. From starting his career in Darwin and taking the crocodiles to China and so on, to moving to Melbourne, working in hotels, owning his own restaurant in Docklands and eventually becoming head chef at MoVida Next Door, Sunny has had so much hospitality experience. He brings all that knowledge to the Hofbrauhaus, a Melbourne institution which has been around for 56 years. Sunny is executive chef and owner of this incredible place thats sees chefs crumb to order hundreds of schnitzels on a Saturday night and where the tables in the upstairs beer hall next door are reinforced, "because of the dancing." The Hofbrauhaus is a good time and Sunny is there for it, a firm believer in the goodness of hospitality and the importance of nurturing the next generation. I loved this conversation and I'll see you up on the tables in the beer hall after I've eaten a schnitzel and had a Bavarian lager.
Conversation with a chef: Thank you for your time today. Sunny, I've been reading a little bit about you and I read an article, from, What I did/What I do.
Sunny Gilbert: That was Maria Petrova. She was my partner a few years back and she was a writer and she did a few of them actually.
It's a great idea. It really gave me a good idea of you and what you've done and how you got into becoming a chef. You didn't initially think that you would be a chef and you had some other projects going on.
This industry, you can fall into it and fall in love with it pretty quickly. For me, I suppose it was more the adrenaline that I got from it. That instant feedback that you can get being in a kitchen environment.
So that was up in Darwin?
I was born and bred in Darwin. And I was luckily in the right time at the right place. I used to play junior cricket and one day I finished up a job and then I was just walking the streets and an old friend of the family said, oh, what are you doing? I said, actually, I'm looking for a job. This was before I decided, because I wanted to go to Uni and do some marketing, but he said, oh, the old cricket club's got a job as a kitchen hand. I said, great. So I went there and I met John Walsh, who was Malcolm Fraser's chef. He was quite a young guy. Well, I thought he was old. He was 33. But anyway, he was a very talented chef and he took Darwin by storm. I managed to just fit in there and I fit in well, and that was it. That was my journey. He and Andrew Fielke were the two chefs that started the native ingredients, the bush tucker. That was in the early nineties. That was a moment in time where he was doing really exciting stuff with kangaroo, wallaby, lemon myrtle, lemon aspen, quandong. A lot of these native ingredients were coming straight through our doors, and we were cooking with them. I was doing that from pretty much the get go.
I think that's really interesting because I was at a dinner last night at Bottarga Brighton, the chef is Italian, and his partner is from Thailand. He brings those two strands together, and he's also weaving in the native ingredients, but I don't feel as though I see those native ingredients in a lot of places. And I feel they're pretty amazing to work with.
Yes. In the beginning I did a lot of Australian food promotions overseas. The first one I did was in China in Guangzhou in 96. I was still an apprentice, but I was the head chef of the restaurant that I was working in. They took us over there and we partnered up with a company in Darwin called Parap Fine Foods. Its a really old fruit and veg store that turned into more of a deli, got the finer things in Darwin. They took me over there and we did a month long takeover of the hotel in Zhuhai. We were baking whole crocodiles in pizzas ovens.
Did you take those with you?
Yes, we took everything over there.
Whole crocodiles?
Yeah. Six foot crocodiles.
Thats a big pizza oven.
A baker's oven, sorry.
A Baker's oven…even so!? How do you cook crocodiles? You obviously remove organs and things. Do you?
It was really cool. It was so cool. So we had three crocodiles and it was for the final dinner, the big buffet. The head of the crocodile was still on, which wasn't a norm, but we managed to have that. And also the claws intact. So we got some muslin cloth and wrapped them up, made them really wet, so they wouldn't discolour or bake.And then the whole carcass and the tail, we actually rubbed with honey and wattle seed. Then we wrapped it in paper bark. Then we baked it and it was terrific. It was delicious.
I've had alligator in Florida, but I haven't eaten crocodile here. Are they very similar? Kind of seafoody, but chickeny.
If they're farmed, they eat a lot of chicken.
I bet that was that went down quite well in China, did it? Because it'd be a pretty impressive.
It was pretty amazing. There were 450 guests and we had a full buffet, including possum and lots of weird and wacky stuff. Green ant studded smoked salmon. And the buffet was set out and literally they asked each table to go one at a time, which they really didn't, they saw these crocodiles on these massive buffets and it was a big deal for them and us. They just ripped into these crocodiles and it was literally like being at a museum afterwards, just bones, within minutes.
What was the object of that? Was it to start exporting to China and did that happen?
There was was a lot of introductory stuff. So we followed that up with a, another one in, at the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, which was, that was very exciting. So we took over a couple of their outlets. One including the Derby Room, which was their fine dining restaurant, which back then was absolutely next level. That had a full induction kitchen. And this is early to mid-nineties. They had state of the art everything. Basically we were introducing the flavours. Vic Cherikoff, who was the original guy that was cultivating or gathering these ingredients. They were very expensive, but we were just trying to lean them into the Asian flavours. So we were not just doing classical French cooking with these ingredients, we were going down the Asian route. In Darwin there's a lot of Thai, Malay, Filipino, and Chinese. So those flavours are already there in the territory, and the Indonesians as well. We were building our menus and it was cohesive as much as we possibly could because we were really trying to sell. This was also backed by the DATI, which was the, the Darwin branch that were trying to literally export anything from Australia.
We were doing barramundi, snapper, also Tasmania was doing ocean trout and the salmon as well. It was a pretty big deal.
How long were you involved with that?
I was actually still doing it when I arrived in Melbourne after 2000. So the last one I did was in Hong Kong at the Mandarin Orient, I think in 2005. Same sort of deal, just putting together an expression of myself and what I've learned over this time. Which was super exciting for a young chef.
Had you left the Cricket club then?
The Cricket Club was only a year where we started. Then he opened a restaurant called the Cornucopia Museum Caf which was on the water, which was really, really awesome. And I did that for a few years.
So you worked your way up?
I was pretty much the head chef after the second year of my apprenticeship. I really pushed hard. Very hard. I really was always dedicated to what I was doing. I was working all the time. But it was super exciting. It wasn't just a run of the mill, go to work, make some salads or cook a couple of steaks. Back then, it was really cutting edge actually. John Walsh was classically trained, so I was classically trained as well. Cooking proteins perfectly, sauces were all perfect, the attention to detail was very, very high.
Right. What made you think about coming to Melbourne? Just to push yourself a bit more?
It was capped in Darwin, it's a small town. When I left, maybe there were 80,000 people there. It was very tiny. It's like a suburb in Melbourne. But I did all the apprentice competitions and did very well. I really wanted to push myself.
Do you think all chefs should do competitions?
Yes. It gives you some confidence, A lot of confidence actually. And you meet a lot of people in that space as well. I did the Golden Chefs hat twice, and I met a lot of cool young chefs just by being in the same space and seeing what they produced in this amount of time from the restaurants or the hotels that they were working in, it gives you a pretty quick snapshot of what is possible. Same with these Australian food promotions. Not only were we taking food over, we were seeing what they were doing as well. It was continuously learning and absorbing everything that was in my way.
This is my business now. For me, the culinary part of it, the cooking, the comradery, and passing on knowledge to the next generation, that’s very important. I’ve always been an advocate for positive reinforcement for kitchen staff. It’s a hard demanding job. And it is just pressure, pressure, pressure. But it doesn’t have to be an angry angst, pressure. I’ve really shifted towards mentoring the team and usually the young people. And I really enjoy their growth. It’s more about showing them there’s a right way to do things, and it doesn’t have to be so insanely difficult. ~ Sunny Gilbert, Hofbrauhaus
What do you think makes a great chef as opposed to a good chef? And I guess it's those things: curiosity, pushing yourself, wanting to go further.
And being exposed. A lot of the young chefs these days are very lucky because they're exposed to stuff. Theres a work culture that's a little bit better than what it was before. I was lucky. I suppose my trajectory was so fast, I missed the real big push in some of these kitchens. My ambition was quite high to be a head chef and had already attained that. It was about surrounding myself with people that were going to be able to teach me and give me some knowledge. I was fortunate. I didn't get the crazy chef. John Walsh was very strict. He was a very hard man. Occasionally we saw his temper, but there was none of the horror stories that you hear.
That's good to hear. Obviously no one wants to be in that sort of environment. I've just been watching The Bear. And in terms of that fear that can live on from being subjected to it and people often can replicate the way they've been taught. So then there's this enduring cycle of harshness. I'm a firm believer in whatever emotion goes into the food must, it must somehow affect the people eating it, having read that book, like Water for Chocolate. Its nice to know people have a nice atmosphere in the kitchen, I think. So you came to Melbourne. Were you at MoVidaNext Door straightaway?
No. So I got a posting with Accor, I had worked with them in Darwin. I left the restaurant and went to Accor to be the sous chef. I thought hotel experience would be very important for my next move in my career. I applied for a position here at the Mercure Hotel on Spring Street. It used to be the old Sheraton a long, long time ago. I did that for a year. And then I found a job that I was interested in, which was in the Docklands when the Docklands first went up, it was called Liquid Bar. I did some tapas there. And that was around the same time that Frank was doing his stuff as well, actually in Hosier Lane. And then I opened a restaurant, another big restaurant, which was mine in the Docklands called Vic Harbour Kitchen and Bar. It was more a big family style restaurant. And the Docklands failed miserably. We lasted seven years. I worked very hard. In hindsight, probably shouldn't have. It impacted my career quite a bit. It took a big chunk out. But then after that, a good friend of mine and Frank's, he used to work with Frank, Matt Germanchis, we actually went to culinary school in Darwin. So Matt did a couple of years in Darwin, and he knew Frank. We got talking, and then I went to MoVida Next Door, which is probably the best fun I've had cooking. It was just so awesome to be able to have amazing ingredients come in every day, and then just build and just basically cook as many things as I could within a week. I'd speak to the guys at Clamms and say, well, what have you got? They'd bring in something awesome, whether it's was live scallops or Marrons or surf clams. That would all come in and we'd just go crazy. It was awesome. It was so busy, it just turned over and literally in that kitchen, you are pretty much in the dining room.
That's right. There'd be that real adrenaline rush, I think, in a restaurant like that.
It was so cool.
You went in as head chef, and I did read in your piece that you were reflecting on it being quite difficult coming from the outside as a head chef. Did have to work with the team in perhaps a different way?
Yes. I was the first head chef in the MoVida group that wasn't one of Frank's apprentices. I was acutely aware of what that meant. And in the end it was pretty good. I mean, all eyes were on me. But at the end of the day, we were producing some awesome food, the team and the business was super strong. We had a lineup outside the window every Friday and Saturday night. I did that for a few years and I loved it.
I feel like you've had lots of different experiences and as you say, even though that large chunk maybe where you might feel as though it took something away from your career and so on. You have had a lot of different experiences: cafes and the cricket club and hotels and working in Docklands and with your own place, and now you are still in it. Has what you loved about it initially; the thrill and the adrenaline, has that shifted? What do you love about it now?
Now, it's shifted. This is my business now. For me, the culinary part of it, the cooking, the comradery, and passing on knowledge to the next generation, that's very important. I've always been an advocate for positive reinforcement for kitchen staff. It's a hard demanding job. And it is just pressure, pressure, pressure. But it doesn't have to be an angry angst, pressure. I've really shifted towards mentoring the team and usually the young people. And I really enjoy their growth. It's more about showing them there's a right way to do things, and it doesn't have to be so insanely difficult. I've been a group executive chef for the company that used to own this place. I was a group executive chef for the Oriental Tea House group. I was also the group executive chef for TGI Fridays for about eight months. I've got a really good grip on how big teams work in management teams and then it filters down into these small departments in each restaurant. There were multiple restaurants with the company prior to this. We built and designed a lot of restaurants, a lot of kitchens, a lot of menus. My real strength now is working with people and designing things that are, I suppose, achievable without cutting any corners with quality.
So how long have you been at the Hofbrauhaus?
Five years, maybe six. And I've owned it for the last year and a half.
How are you putting your own stamp on that? It's such a fun concept and I love how German it looks and how that can transport you elsewhere. But what would you like to see for it?
Philip is the marketing guy and the manager, and he's as German as they come. He's Mr. Authenticity. I've been to Germany, I've been to Austria and did a lot of work with the previous company to understand the culture behind it. And we just want to be as authentic as we can possibly be. Everything we do here is made from scratch. Nothing is bought in. We make all of our sauces, we crumb out Schnitzels to order, which is a huge thing. When I first heard that, I thought you guys are absolutely out of your mind, but it makes a massive difference. It's about quality control now for us. And this place has always been really friendly, really warm, and so much fun. When people leave here, they have had the best night of their life. We're doing big numbers, so it's not an easy feat to do what we do in, in fact, it's very impressive as far as a kitchen point of view goes. At the moment, we sell more food than we do drinks. You wouldn't think that, but it's a restaurant first and foremost. And then the hospitality that we have. We have live music every Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Sunday.
Is that an accordion?
No, no, a full band.They play the traditional stuff and then they move into the more Neil Diamonds and things that people get up and dance and go a little bit crazy. There are two parts of the restaurant. This is the restaurant. This restaurant's been here for 55 years, 56 years this year. And then next door we have a bar, it's called the Alpine Bar. And we have a beer hall upstairs as well. The capacity is about 350. Most Saturdays we are doing 600 plus
And crumbing all the schnitzels to order?
Hundreds of them.
Well, it would be hundreds. Is that the main thing people order? And you must have wurste as well, do you?
We have lots of sausage available. But we do the pork knuckle as well, which is the whole hock. People go crazy over it. We have what we call a HB platter, which is a platter with all the favourite bits. It has pork belly, the knuckle, some schnitzels, sauerkraut, mash, red cabbage and some sausage as well.
It's crazy. 600 that's huge. That's feels very sort of German styles to be doing those numbers.
What we're trying to do is have Oktoberfest anytime you want it.
Amazing. Does it go especially mad in October though?
Totally. We're very fortunate. We get an extra six weeks of what we call a Christmas period. Traditionally it starts in the middle of September. We start when Germany starts and then we go to the end of October.
German cuisine wasn’t my first choice of it being awesome, because it comes across at a first glance as quite stodgy, quite unattractive. But the reality is that it’s far from that. The simple things we do again and again and again are very difficult. Crumbing chicken to order is very difficult, cooking them perfectly is very difficult. Getting the sausage at the right temperature and then cooked the way they’re meant to with, and the knuckles, it’s not an easy thing to have this perfectly crisp knuckle. And the pork belly is the same as well. I’ve introduced a lot of modern techniques to help us with making sure our proteins are perfect. We’ve got some pretty cool ovens in there. We’re still doing some sous vide on our steaks and stuff like that. We’ve got old style cooking, but we’ve also implemented some techniques so that it’s perfect so we can do the numbers that we do and have it as perfect as we can.~ Sunny Gilbert, Hofbrauhaus
So much fun. I was in Germany as an exchange student just before the wall came down. I feel like a museum relic. I could be wheeled out and it's a long time ago obviously, but I have really vivid memories. I wasn't there for Oktoberfest, but I was there for Fasching, the carnival in February in Barvaria and it was amazing. Germans know how to have a good time.
They definitely know how to have a good time.
Which is funny because people often have this idea that they're really serious, but they definitely know how to have fun.
I think they try to tell us that they're serious but we really know that they're not.
So do you get to still be on the tools?
Yes. I still cook most days.
Is that important to you?
Yes. It just lets the team know that I try to lead by example as much as I can. I'm stepping out a little bit more than I have done before, only to give a clear voice to the head chef that's in there now. Being the executive chef and the owner, it can cloud the team's judgment. If I'm not there, who are they looking at? I'm mentoring this person to be the best head chef that she can be. And you have to recognise that if you are in there all the time, then everyone would just be looking at you. I've consciously given space, but on her days off, I'm there.
Great. And can you still be surprised by food and flavour?
Yes. German cuisine wasn't my first choice of it being awesome, because it comes across at a first glance as quite stodgy, quite unattractive. But the reality is that it's far from that. The simple things we do again and again and again are very difficult. Crumbing chicken to order is very difficult, cooking them perfectly is very difficult. Getting the sausage at the right temperature and then cooked the way they're meant to with, and the knuckles, it's not an easy thing to have this perfectly crisp knuckle. And the pork belly is the same as well. I've introduced a lot of modern techniques to help us with making sure our proteins are perfect. We've got some pretty cool ovens in there. We're still doing some sous vide on our steaks and stuff like that. We've got old style cooking, but we've also implemented some techniques so that it's perfect so we can do the numbers that we do and have it as perfect as we can.
What's your favourite thing to eat? Not necessarily here.
Well working at MoVida and being from the Territory, seafood is a big thing that I love. I love cooking with seafood, Theres not a big opportunity for us to do that with the German cuisine. We do have a fantastic fish dish on the menu though. There's always one and it's always awesome. At home, I try to shop at the market and we will pick up some fish, or some shellfish when I can. I love prawns and scallops. They're my thing.
You also don't need to do much to them, do you?
No. I think keeping things as simple as possible is always the best thing.
Hofbrauhaus, 18 28 Market Lane, Melbourne