Nada Thomas

Hi Nada. I've just been reading about you, so I have lots of questions.

I'm nervous. I'm not used to talking about myself.

It's funny, isn't it? When you become a head chef, suddenly you have to do everything. You are not just doing menus and food, you having to talk to people as well.

When I was just a pastry chef, it was just my section, as sous chef there is a bit more, but now I feel like it's the whole picture. I had never done it before, but I wanted it. At first, I thought, wow, its a big role I'm carrying, but I have a lot of support, a lot of love, which is good.

It's a great group to be with for that.

That's why I joined them. My husband has been working them since the day dot, and I was at Cecconi's and I watched them, how they treat their staff.

And you are from Turkey originally?

Yes, Izmir. I came first. I wanted to study here. My sister and I came and we brought our younger brother with us. We didn't want to leave him behind. We left our parents back in Turkey and we picked Melbourne because of me. I wanted to be a chef.

So you always wanted to be a chef?

I wanted to be a teacher. I love teaching. I love kids. I tried Uni back in Turkey. I was giving private lessons, English lessons, helping my brother, but it just didn't happen. I loved cooking as well, so it was always the thing; which one? But in Turkey, we didn't have those kind of schools in Turkey. Being a chef in Turkey that time, as a woman, wasn't big thing. We did some research and all my friends said, if youre going abroad, maybe do something fun. So I thought, I love cooking, maybe I'll try to be a chef. I used to watch all those movies about cooking but I didn't know how hard it would be back then. In our research we saw that Melbourne is the best place for culinary things. And I found William Angliss, and they said it's one of the best schools. So because of me, we came to Melbourne.

How old were you all?

I was 24. I wasn't young, but I was like a princess. I had never worked before. People used to ask me, what were you doing before? Id say, I was a princess, because I was the middle child, so I was like that. My sister is the oldest she was the leader and I was the middle and we have a baby brother. I looked after him. We came here, I went to school, learned everything and then start working. It was a different world. It was hard at first because It wasnt like the movies. It was hard. I had some trouble. I thought, what should I do? Should I change career, be a teacher, but a cooking teacher because I love cooking. Then I met great chefs, which changed my mind about food, cooking desserts. What led me to desserts was a Spanish chef I met at Scusami and he showed me the world of desserts. I was always working larder and desserts together, which was very hard. In some restaurants you don't have time to give a full attention to the desserts. And then with him, I started learning more about desserts. Then The Press Club happened. I was just desserts and then I jumped to Cecconi's. Then 10 years of just desserts, it was my life.

I feel as though Cecconi people have links to the Arbory group.

Nick Bennett was the reason I started at Cecconi's. He hired me as a pastry chef. But by then he was searching for another job too. He was sous chef there.

I was just talking on Monday to a pastry chef in Port Melbourne, Mariana Chedid, she owns Brulee. She's from Lebanon and she really wanted to be a chef and went to Paris, to the Le Cordon Bleu because she was very interested in Julia Child and her story. But she was talking about pastry and making cakes and dessert and said that you have to be so precise and that it's different to general cookery. What is it that you love about pastry and desserts?

I was never trained as a pastry chef. I learned everything by myself with the cookbook. My first nougat that I made was like a marble. Because I just changed an ingredient instead of whole almonds I used slivered almonds and it was totally different because there was too much density. You have to be precise. There's a reason you follow good recipes. But for me, it's your own world. When you're on pastry, everyone leaves you to it. Its peaceful. I found everything is more organized. The kitchen is more hectic; you can add a bit of this, a bit of that, everyone has a little way of doing things. But with pastry, if you're doing a custard, you have to do it a certain way. Otherwise, it just doesn't come out right.

I imagine that Turkey has some incredible desserts, but often when we talk about pastry sections, we're talking about the French way of doing things and the French technique. Can you marry the two?

Everyone was asking me about Turkish desserts. I never made Turkish desserts. The first baklava I made was at Press Club. They asked me which baklava I liked? I said, Lebanese for me, I love Lebanese. My dad is Libyan, so I saw a lot Arabic desserts as well, so Middle Eastern things. Turkish desserts arent so different. And mostly I always work with Italian dessert ingredients all my life.

What's your favourite dessert to make?

For myself, I love apple pie. I'm a good old apple pie girl, no walnuts in it. Just apples. And a big scoop of ice cream. I love it. My favourite dessert, and not because I made it, is the Marsala apple. I love it so much that whenever I put on the plate, people say they feel the love that I have for it.

Amazing. There can be some very complicated desserts. What are some desserts you've got on the menu here? I know you are overseeing everything now. You're going more European now in the menu at Her?

We are just doing a little bit of everything. There's a good variety and people can see different things. Some ingredients are good with some cuisines, like Italian and Spanish. I love Spanish food, there are some Greek influences. So I can bring in a bit of Turkish influence. It just naturally happens a little bit of pepper or cumin. Here I mostly like Italian desserts because of my background at Cecconi. I mostly brought the desserts that I really love. There are the Marsala apples.

What is that?

It is basically an apple pie without the crust. We serve it in a bowl. I cook the apples slowly with Marsala, lemon juice, vanilla beans with sugar, slowly so they kind of lose their shape. Then you heat it up, plate it. And I do a pie crumble; instead of being in a pie, the crumbs are on top of it. Then just a nice milk ice cream with salted caramel.

Delicious.

It is. It's a pie without a base served in a nice bowl. It's not so sweet because the pie crumble doesnt have much sugar in it. The good thing is with that because there is no base, there's no butter, so it is vegan. I made another crumble, which is vegan, gluten-free, nut free everything. So I can cater for dietaries. And I just serve it with like apple sorbet. I'm working on another chocolate dessert with tahini and dark chocolate, so it's totally vegan, but it's still delicious. When people eat it, they don't even know it's fully vegan. I like to do tick the boxes to cater for everybody. I try to, but it's hard. But if I want to make it, I want to make it really good.

If you're coming up with those kinds of recipes, I guess you're inspired by something and as you say, you looked at recipes and so on when you were learning, but then how long does it take you to perfect something like that? Do you have a few attempts, or do you get it right the first time?

Not all the time. I have an idea, I think a lot about it, taste things. Then I ask my staff, let's have a think. And I listen to everyone, because they always have some different ideas. I take them all on board and then go back to my corner. Sometimes I challenge myself, because I want to use a certain thing. Or there are a couple of ingredients and I think about how I can marry them. It depends. When I was just doing desserts, it was easier because I only thought about that. I had my menu, it's good and I was thinking of my specials and just working towards that. But in a role like this, its a little bit harder because there are so many things to do. It is a young team and a small team, there are five of us. They are hard working. They love it because every day they are doing something different. I try to make everyone know all the other sections so we can work around and it's better when it's busy. We can just help each other out.

You've brought in a new me menu with more European touches. How big is it?

It's a good size. Im going to make it a bit smaller. I am dropping to two desserts instead of three, so I can change it a bit more or I can do specials.

I think sometimes choice is a fine thing for people. It's nice to have a big choice, but it can be overwhelming. Its good when the menu is tight and you just think, right, thats what Im having. The lamb skewer with Moorish spices, is that something from home?

This is the recipe that me and my mum always made at home. I thought I wanted to try it here, everyone liked it, so we kept it.

Do you have free reign over the menu? Can you do what you like as long as the food costs work?

Yes and Paul the new Executive chef and I have such a good connection too. We think alike which is good. I do have a lot of actual freedom, which was good. But of course there's always a limit. I always ask, how about this? People here know what the clientele would like. They like snacky items. And I've been putting on some specials.

I saw some really beautiful photos on the press release that went out. What was the pasta?

Paccheri is a pasta from Campania, a tube. I was researching different pasta, and I became obsessed with Paccheri. I love rigatoni, thats half the size of paccheri. Some people like fill it up and then it stands alone. It looks like a small cannoli. So that's what I wanted to use for a small cannoli. I was thinking how great it would be. But then you have to have the right cheese. So I tried a little bit, but then the pasta I had was a different shape and it became paccheri and I serve it with summer squash. Then I had some squid ink paccheri pasta, and I cooked it and filled it with Moreton Bay bug mousse and I crumbed it and fried it and served it with squid ink aioli and capers and shallots. Everyone said they had never seen it before. I saw it somewhere where an old guy was making it with subtitles and I thought it looked interesting. But it was with Napoli and ricotta.

How delicious. And so these ideas that you're having, are they just coming to you or is it still books? Or is it Instagram?

Some come from Instagram. I like to look and if I see something, I think what can I do to it? How can I do it differently? Otherwise, it's just copy and paste. But I take and idea and then add something else to it. The paccheri I saw was in Napoli sauce standing alone ricotta. And I thought it was a cool idea. Then I had some Moreton Bay bugs, I had some squid ink and some squid ink pasta.

It sounds delicious. And you're working with really good produce as well; I see Somerset Farm leaves, Clamms.

I'm still lucky enough to work with a company who I think started in London. They came to Australia, to Melbourne, and they go to the little farmers who don't have access, and can't do deliveries to the restaurant. They reach out to them and we can order through them and they go to the different farmers and bring the produce to us Monday to Saturday, which is great. Every week they tell us what's out there and then we just order. The good thing is you don't need to order a lot. Sometimes if you want to put on a special maybe eight, ten specials, then that's good. Sometimes things are limited too. So other restaurants share. If I'm getting 10 kilos of something, I take a little bit next door so we all using and sharing.

That's nice. I like to think there is a community amongst restaurants. I guess you are in competition with each other, but there's a level of community as well. That's good.

I think it's nice that we can have a friendship between restaurants too. Like Tipo 00; Alberto was my sous chef. I love him. His risotto is the best. It's good to have that kind of connection. If I want something, or I want to learn something, I know I can always go to him. I love that.

That's great. This is your first menu, so I guess, it's a bit like a reflection of you. Where do you start and how do you know when you're done, when you've made your menu? I imagine you have lots of ideas for lots of dishes you want to show off.

There are so many things that I tried and they were good, but I would think, okay, maybe not yet. Well park it. I had so many seafood ideas, but then it would just be a seafood menu. I'm definitely not done. It was good to have Paul. Paul worked on the menu with me. We did it together, we slowly changed things. It's coming, but I'm not there yet. Weve had good feedback. It's good to see what is selling and also to see how the kitchen is working. I cant just create something, but then it's everything in one section, which is hard.

Absolutely. I see. You were saying before, when you learned to be a chef and you came into industry, it was hard and you had some second thoughts. What were those hard things and how has that changed now?

I think maybe back then or where I was working, it was larder. It was hot larder, cold larder desserts. When I was working, I was by myself. But when I was off, there were three people in the section. It was so hard but people said, Nada you can do it. But it was too much for one person. I would start early and finish late. I didn't go on the breaks because it was so important for me. It was like my second home. I think it was too much. I got to the point where there was nothing to give anymore. I wasn't getting anything back. That was hard. I started thinking, there should be something else. But my head chef was so nice. His wife had a cake shop. I worked there a little bit and seeing all the cakes and learning about that. But it wasn't what I wanted. I missed service. That was the thing. I love service; that rush, the plating up. And I love to hear about how people enjoyed it. Now I work downstairs. I don't see the people, which I miss. I love to watch people, how they eat, what they say. I worked at the Chef's Table at Press Club. I had customers around me and I was talking to them or selling them the specials. That was good. I missed it. I worked three months in the cake shop. It was a good life, nights off, but I'd rather be have that fire in me. So I went back but I didn't want to be in the kitchen. I said, I want to do desserts. So I joined Press Club. That was my London. A lot of people from Australia go to London and work in these Michelin restaurants and when I joined them it was like that because there were so many chefs who had come back from London; Joe Grbac was amazing. It was a whole new world for me. We worked hard. I learned so much. And I met Paul there to our executive head chef. It was hard work and that became too much. But then Cecconis happened and that was my home.

So you really got into the groove of it.

Yes, because I had the freedom. There was no freedom at The Press Club. They would tell us what to do and we did it. It was good. I learned a lot. We had an idea but they were shut down all the time. Theer are some places like that. So when I joined, my now brother-in-law, Daniel Kranjcic was the head chef. I had some figs and stuff and I asked if I could make a financier and he said, go for it. So I just made my first special and they liked it. The owners said how nice it was. And I made my first cannoli there, everything. I had freedom. I knew my limits, what people liked, so I tried things out. Then they gave me so much freedom that we changed the menu. It was a bigger dessert menu. I had four plated up desserts. But then I think when I started repeating myself after 10 years, I thought I needed something fresh.

Now that you are head chef and as we were saying before, you've got this overarching view of the menu, the restaurant, staffing, all of those things, what's your leadership style, do you think?

When I do a menu, I like to talk about it with my team. I like to share. I'm not by myself. I always believe that by myself I'm not going to be a winner. It's not just me. I love the fact that when I'm not here, I hear that people came into Her and it was beautiful. That makes me happy. I want it to work amazingly without me there. So when I do anything, I always ask them, I want to do this, what do you guys think. Sometimes it has to be me deciding, but I like to be fair.

That teaching aspect that you were interested in earlier on. Are you able to do any of that?

Yes. Now I have two apprentices, which for me, if you have apprentices means that you would like to teach them. That's the reason. I have to go back to the basics, show them everything, this is how we do it or setting up their sections. But I give them a little freedom to see how they're doing it, just rather than telling them, no, this is how I want it.

Absolutely. And nowadays wellbeing's really important, making sure that everyone is working the right amount of hours and checking in with people to make sure that they're okay because it's a pressured job. What happens in this group in terms of wellbeing?

Oh they're very good. Our HR Miranda, if we need something, we can always call her. But I knew my group before I even become their head chef. I was working at BKK, so I was down there prepping. So they feel comfortable to talk to me if there's something. If someone is feeling a bit low they find they can talk. One of my girls was feeling sick yesterday and our executive chef was here. So I said, Paul why don't you join me tonight? And we had a good time with him downstairs. I think everyone is supportive. They're look after their employees very well.

And when you're at home, do you still like to cook? Do you cook Turkish food?

We love cooking, but I have a good deal with my husband. He cooks for me. I'm the larder. I do the sides, I do the dishes, and I prepare everything. We always cook barbecue. We like it. And it's less mess in the kitchen. We cook most of the time. We make our marinades, our dressings from scratch. But if I'm cooking, I always love my Turkish dishes. I love yoghurt. So I always make something with yoghurt. And I love eggplant or one pot wonders. We do a lot of them. But we love cooking. We never get takeaway. We always either go out or cook.

Now that you've been working as a chef for, for a while, and I guess you've been able to taste lots of different flavours and different dishes. Can you still be surprised by dishes, by someone else's dishes or flavours?

Yes. Theres always something new. I love the fact that sometimes I get to try something and then Im curious and I want to know how they did it. There's always another way of doing things I think.

And just to finish off with, what would be your advice to a young person starting out as a chef?

They should really love it. Its not just a job, it becomes your life. You shouldn't just be coming in nine to five. Its a different world. It's alive. I think you have to love it, otherwise it's hard. You work at the weekend, you work on a Sunday and everyone else is off, or public holidays. Some people feel its not their kind of thing. But there are so many good things about it. For me, a day is a day. When I do the roster, the staff will say, oh, you gave me Saturday off and you are working. But for me, Monday, Saturday is the same thing. We can be busy both days. As long as the prep is there it doesn't matter. As long as I have enough people it's fine. Bur yes, I think they should love it.

Her Melbourne, 270 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne