Terindah Estate is a beautiful winery on the Bellarine Peninsula where you can eat gloriously while looking down the vines to the ocean and across to the You Yangs. You can't ask for a better dining experience than that. New to the restaurant but bringing a great deal of experience from Europe and Dubai is Ivan Roianov. I had been hoping to chat to Ivan in person when I was at , but if you create fabulous food in such a setting, you are likely to be way too busy to chat. This is the telephone call I had with Ivan between Christmas and the New Year.
Hi Ivan. Let’s start with how long you’ve been a chef.
More than 16 years I guess.
And you started studying in the Ukraine?
Yes. I was 16 years old.
So you knew you always wanted to be a chef?
Not always, but I just started studying it because being a chef was a popular job in the Ukraine then and I liked cooking from my childhood; my grandmother always cooked and I decided to follow it as a career.
I read that you were you in Dubai before you came to Australia.
I spent a couple of years in Dubai working in some big hotel properties as a chef. I have only been in Australia for six months.
Is cooking in a winery different to cooking in a hotel?
Cooking in a restaurant is different to cooking in a hotel. The systems are a little bit different. When you work in a restaurant you concentrate more on the food and when you work in a hotel, although you do still focus on the food, you also have to focus on organisation because there are a lot of staff working in a hotel. I led more than 25 people in my kitchen in Dubai and you have to organise them properly so they know how and when to do things. It is more of an organisational job than a culinary one.
Do you have much creative input in those large hotels?
In Dubai, for example, one hotel can have a few different restaurants. The last hotel I was in had fine dining, a steak house, and so on and there was quite a lot of creativity but of course if you have stand alone restaurants you can put more passion into your menus. I worked in restaurants in the Ukraine and I could make my mark there. But in my opinion every chef should have some experience of working in a hotel.
Because of the different aspects to it?
I think the organisation that is needed for hotel chefs makes you a more rounded chef; you have to learn about hospitality in general. If you have hospitality and culinary elements, you can be at a much higher level as a chef.
I think Australia is a young country that is developing very fast. You can find different flavours and different cuisines here. Australians seem to like local produce.
I hadn’t thought of that, it’s very interesting. When you study to be a chef in the Ukraine do you learn a French style of cuisine?
No, in the Ukraine we don’t have much French style cooking. We have our own traditions or Russian. When I was learning, in my country, as well as in Europe, fusion was very popular; a little touch of everything. We cooked French, Italian, Spanish food because there were a lot of tourists in the Ukraine so we had a touch of everything.
What do you prefer? Do you have a favourite cuisine?
My favourite cuisine is Italian because I spent about eight months in Italy studying there in between culinary school. For me Italian cuisine is really understandable and approachable for a lot of people. I also like cooking French cuisine because it has lots of flavour and it is more complicated; for the chef it is more interesting.
How are you finding Australian food to work with?
First of all I have only been in Australia for six months so I am still forming an opinion about what is going on here. But I think Australia is a young country that is developing very fast. You can find different flavours and different cuisines here. Australians seem to like local produce. For example, working here at Terindah, I have to provide people with food from the local area and they will be really happy about it. Mussels, oysters and local fish are popular so as a chef I have to provide that because people really like that. In general I think Australians like healthy food too.
You’ve certainly chosen a beautiful place to work.
True but it’s a little bit far from the city centre. Again that means I can do a different kind of food. I think in the metropolitan area, as a chef you can suggest whatever you like but if you are somewhere like Terindah, it has to be local food.
90 McAdams Lane, Bellarine Peninsula