Johnny Ly has been the head chef at Green Man's Arms for five and a half years, bringing creativity and passion to plant-based cooking. His journey began at University House at Melbourne Uni, where he completed his apprenticeship and worked for a decade, gaining experience across a variety of cuisines. After stints at RACV fine dining and vegan eateries like The Alley and Serotonin Eatery, he was drawn back to restaurant-style dining, ultimately landing at Green Man's Arms. Johnny takes an innovative approach to plant-based food, reimagining classic dishes while accommodating dietary needs. He credits his mother for sparking his love of food and fosters a collaborative kitchen where his team shares in the creative process. For Johnny, food is deeply personal; a way to evoke memories, bring people together, and create something meaningful.
Hi Johnny. Thanks for your time today. I came into the Green Man's Arms when it first opened, which was quite a few years ago. I had a chat to, to the chef there then and now you've been there for five and a half years. It's quite a good stint.
It's been quite a while.
You must love it. Where were you before that?
I started off at University House, which was a private club in Melbourne Uni. I started my apprenticeship there. And then I basically worked there for maybe five years and got qualified. From there I worked at Novotel for a couple of weeks. And then the boss called me back and said, Hey, do you want a job? We have a CDP position for you.
I said, sure, I'll come back for a bit. Then I worked there for another three years, and then the sous chef left, and I stepped up and became the sous chef. I worked there for another three years, and then I left again. I started working at RACV, fine dining, in the city. I worked under James Blight, who was the chef then, and he had worked in Michelin Star restaurants in the UK. I worked there for seven months and then the boss called me back again and asked if I wanted to go back. I worked there for another three years or so. University House in total was about 10 years. The whole time I was there, a close friend of mine who I went to high school with was also working there.
What kind of food were you doing there?
University House is a private club for the alumni from Melbourne Uni and the members. We did a bit of everything, a lot of functions. We had a little cafe for a buffet lunch. And then we also had our a la carte. It was honestly a mix of everything. We did conferences, so it was always super busy, with heaps of different things at once. I got to learn a lot, which is great. He would do like all kinds of foods, French or some Italian and Vietnamese or Chinese.
What a great experience. And obviously they really enjoyed you because they kept wanting you to go back.
The boss was the general manager. I think the second time I came back I said, I'll come back on one condition. I told him I wanted I wanted a sous vide and a vac pack machine. He said, sure, I'll get it for you. I had learned all this stuff and I wanted to bring it to them and teach them how to use it. I was really interested in that.
I get my ideas from everywhere. Sometimes, and this is funny, I get ideas from my mum. My mum would do something and I’d say, that’s really cool and I’d be thinking, actually I’d like to try and do that in a restaurant setting. And then I bring it to the restaurant and try it and can see it will work, but we have to just do it slightly different. My mum is an amazing cook. Also from my staff. I talk to them and I try and let them have a little bit of creative freedom as well. I like them to think about what kind of dishes they want to eat, so they’re proud of the food that we put up. ~ Johnny Ly, Green Man’s Arms
When you arrived at the Green Man's Arms, did you have much experience in cooking vegetarian or vegan food?
I originally started when I was at Melbourne Uni. I started learning a lot more about the dietaries then. I wanted to be aware of serving vegetarian and vegan dishes. I became quite interested then. I wanted to make it creative for them so they would just have more than the standard people would normally get, which was quite boring. I wanted to try and give them dishes that were similar to what they were having on the function menus.
That's what kept it interesting for me. And then I worked at the Alley, which was a vegan a plant-based burger place that was on St. Kilda Road. I worked there for three months and I learned a lot about vegan food. It was vegan fast food. And that was quite interesting. From there, I applied for a job at Green Man's Arms, and they said to me, oh, sorry, the head chef has decided to stay on, so I decided to see what else was out there. I saw a cafe job, Serotonin Eatery, and I thought it looked cool. It was healthy food and it sounded interesting. I worked at Serotonin for about two and a half years. I learned a lot about healthy eating and I was trying to bring a bit of my restaurant experience to the cafe food, making food look pretty as well as nutritious and healthy. So it was like mixing everything all together. It was also very fast paced, so it was super busy and I was just trying to be creative at the same time. I put a lot of interesting dishes on there. And it was mostly plant-based, 90% of it. We had some eggs on the menu, obviously because of the cafe and some cheese, but apart from that, most of it was plant-based.
After two and a half years, I kind of wanted more. I missed doing restaurant style dishes and dinner. I felt like there's food that you can't do for lunch, that you can for dinner. And I was just really missing that. I saw the Green Man's Arms job come up again and I thought, oh, I'm going to apply for this again. That's when I went for it. I got the job that time and that was five and a half years ago now.
Are there certain things you have to consider when you're doing plant-based food that's different to cooking with meat or dairy?
I think for me, I want to try and be quite creative as well. There's a lot of plant-based food and options out there. For me, I want to try and do something a little bit different. I think the point of difference is it's plant-based, it's also healthy and where I can, I'll try and omit certain things like onion and garlic. It doesn't sacrifice the flavour of the food. I find ways to try and incorporate it in other ways. We use hing in some dishes, which is a spice that has a very onion or garlicy smell. I try and use that a little bit in some of the dishes. And we use garlic oil to finish. We have hummus on the menu, and instead of putting garlic in the hummus, we don't put it in there. It's completely onion, and garlic-free. What we do instead is we just finish it with garlic oil. And then if we have someone with a garlic allergy, we just use olive oil instead. We do a lot of stuff like that.
Where do you get your ideas?
I get my ideas from everywhere. Sometimes, and this is funny, I get ideas from my mum. My mum would do something and I'd say, that's really cool and I'd be thinking, actually I'd like to try and do that in a restaurant setting. And then I bring it to the restaurant and try it and can see it will work, but we have to just do it slightly different. My mum is an amazing cook. Also from my staff. I talk to them and I try and let them have a little bit of creative freedom as well. I like them to think about what kind of dishes they want to eat, so they're proud of the food that we put up. I sometimes talk to them and ask them, what's one dish that you really like and you miss, something that you are really fond of. One guy said he really missed scallops and blood pudding. I said, let's do that. We started with oyster mushrooms, and we cured them with salt, and turned them into scallops, and then did a cauliflower puree, and then put some pickled cauliflower in them. We made blood pudding out of black beans and oats. We recreated the dish, had some fun with it. I wanted them to do something they were proud of and wanted to eat. So, yes, I get inspiration from my staff. I work with them on it, and then they're really proud of it. They get really happy and they're really motivated. I also think, what do I want to eat, what's something that I really miss as well? Or what do I think that other people will miss, that'll be amazing to make, like a sticky date pudding that's gluten free and vegan. Things like that really motivate me to put something like that on the menu, favourites.
I see on your LinkedIn that you describe yourself as a food enthusiast. I was going to say, where does that come from? But maybe it comes from your mum?
It definitely does. I always remember when I was a kid I used to walk around the house, I think I was about six years old, and I used to say to my mum, oh, mum, I have a taste in my mouth. I always had to be eating something. I was obsessive about food. At one point my mum had to lock the cupboards because I just kept wanting to taste something. I think it got to the point where she gave me chewing gum, so I could chew until I ran out of flavour. Which is quite funny. To this day, she always mentions it to everyone. She's like, I had to lock the cupboards on him. He was going to eat the whole house down
And at what point did that translate into you thinking about being a chef?
Honestly, if I was to tell myself 20 years ago that I was going to be a chef, my old self would say, no, there's no way. I always had a love for food, but I never really put two and two together. I originally started studying multimedia design. I was just really creative. I was really interested in computers, so I started studying that. Then I had a bit of a change in my life. My sister passed away. From there, the whole trajectory of my life changed and I didn't want to do that anymore. I started thinking about other things I could do. I saw an ad for an apprenticeship, and I thought, okay. It was at Melbourne Uni, and I called and the guy said, do you want to come in today? So, I just turned up. I always knew I loved food, but I didn't know to what extent. I guess it just started from there. I've been cooking for about 20 years now. People have been asking me lately when I last had a holiday. I think the longest amount of time I've had off since I started as a chef was three months between jobs. But I've just been working from job to job. I have always been interested in food and I tend to stay at a place a long time. I think I just become so immersed in it. I just love food that much.
For me, food is very personal, and I think there are a lot of memories that come with food. As a child or as an adult as well, tasting something brings out so many fond memories. I think that's probably part of it. When someone cooks you a meal, at home especially, so much love goes into it. It's such a huge gesture: I've cooked you this meal. And to see someone appreciate it and to see the look on their face, that feeling you get, nothing can really replace it. It's just making someone happy. It's such a special thing you can like give to your family and your friends.
I try to keep the kitchen where the vibe’s pretty relaxed. I know that when it’s busy, everyone works hard. We try and work all together as a team. I like it when everyone works together as a team, you help each other out. I feel like it makes things less stressful when everyone’s working together. We play music, sometimes we play it a little bit too loud, but we play fun music and we cook the food. The food goes out, everyone’s happy, all the food always looks nice and I feel like part of that is people being happy in the kitchen. I feel like the customers see it, like, I’ve had a customer come over one time and said, oh, you guys just look so happy, you’re having a good time. What could be better? It can be stressful but as long as you’re having fun and you’re happy, I feel like you’ll get through it. ~ Johnny Ly, Green Man’s Arms
What's a favourite meal memory you have from maybe growing up? Do you have a particular memory that sticks out?
I'd say my favourite memory would be just be sitting around with the family. We'd be sitting at the table and my mum would make rice pepper rolls for us. She wouldn't make them for us, but she'd put all the ingredients out, set out in a nice, beautiful platter with all the veggies. We would have some meat on the table and then she'd soak the rice paper and they'd put it on a wet tea towel. She'd have all the sauces laid out, and then we'd just sit down all together and we'd put the rice paper on our plate and we'd make our own rice paper rolls from a really young age. That's my all time favourite meal. I always have this discussion with people. If you had to choose one meal for the rest of your life and that's the only meal you could eat, what would be that meal? They tell me their meal and I say, rice paper rolls, hands down. I could eat that for rest of my life. It's healthy, it's good for you. It's filling, it's just so many things.
I love this idea of all sitting around together and making them. I just recently went to a cooking class at the Brunswick Kitchen and we made rice paper rolls, and the teacher was saying to us that it is a really great activity you do with your friends. If you have people around, you don't make them beforehand, you do it together. That's such a nice idea being involved with the food and chatting.
It's so beautiful. It's so communal, everyone's making their own and enjoying the food and everyone makes them a little bit differently. It's just really fun as well. They're so light. I feel like you can put anything you want in them. You eat them and you are really full. Then half an hour later you think, oh, I probably could have some more.
It sounds as though your style as a head chef is to be really inclusive of your team and you look to them and include them in the ideas and so on. Did that come naturally to you, that leadership role? Or did you have to think about how you would go about it?
I definitely manage in a way that I thought would be helpful for everyone. Not helpful, but also motivating in a way that I wish that I was mentored. I felt like I looked at other people's mistakes and thought, I know how to not run a kitchen. If I want my staff to respect me and feel like a part of the team, I need to make sure I include them and they're proud of the food they do. I don't try and coach my staff in a way that I just tell them how to do something, it's more about explaining why we do it. Why we do things a certain way. That's such an important part of cooking. Someone can just tell you how to do something all day long, but if they don't explain to you the reason behind it, then you're just following an order. I like my staff to be more creative and have thoughts that they can try and solve on their own, stimulate themselves and try and be more creative. I feel like that's something that's a skill you need to work on. If someone doesn't really try and bring it out of you, you get stuck in this rut of just doing whatever someone tells you to do. I feel like it's always there in someone. You have to bring it out of them a little bit, and give them a bit of confidence. If they are discouraged, say, let's try it again and let's do it in a different way. Even myself, I get discouraged sometimes. I might make a dish, and think, what is this? Then I might come back to it in six months and I have a different idea and a different approach and it just comes together and sometimes you make a dish, it comes together straight away. Cooking is just such a strange thing.
Is it stressful in the heat of service or do you manage that and just enjoy that ride?
I try to keep the kitchen where the vibe's pretty relaxed. I know that when it's busy, everyone works hard. We try and work all together as a team. I like it when everyone works together as a team, you help each other out. I feel like it makes things less stressful when everyone's working together. We play music, sometimes we play it a little bit too loud, but we play fun music and we cook the food. The food goes out, everyone's happy, all the food always looks nice and I feel like part of that is people being happy in the kitchen. I feel like the customers see it, like, I've had a customer come over one time and said, oh, you guys just look so happy, you're having a good time. What could be better? It can be stressful but as long as you're having fun and you're happy, I feel like you'll get through it.
Well, with all that in mind and with your experience in various kitchens, what would your advice be for young people starting out as chefs?
I would say, try to find something that you are really passionate about, something that's unique to you and then try and make it your own. I feel like focusing your energy on something that you really love and enjoy is a really good thing and then just try and chase that. But then I guess it could be sometimes hard as well. Some people aren't sure what they want to do, but you have to try and find your way at the same time. Try and find something you really enjoy about in cooking and focus on that.
Great. Well, thank you so much. And are you cooking tonight? Are you in at the pub?
I managed to get tonight off. My other thing about work as well as that you need to be happy. You also need a work life balance, right? I feel like that's such an important thing about being a chef. Try not to get burnt out. Don't feel guilty if you have a day off, or if you're sick. I feel like the environment makes it really hard and people do feel often guilty when they're sick or they have a day off. I try and reassure them it's okay. You're allowed to.
Absolutely. Well, enjoy your night off and thank you so much.
Green Man's Arms, 418 Lygon Street, Carlton