Josh Rudd

Josh Rudd: Since you spoke to me last, I opened Her Bar for the HQ Group. That was another challenge similar to this, but a multi-level venue with lots of moving parts. Opening a venue is something I like to do. I like to put my stamp on it nice and early. I enjoy building the procedures and building the team and watching us all grow together, which is something that I’ve found again here. Being able to start from the start and put the menu in place, put the procedures in place, contact the suppliers and use all the relationships that I’ve built over the last 15, 20 years now. It’s nice to be able to have suppliers that you can call and rely on, and they’re more than happy to help you out and send you things, and they want to work with you. After that, I went to do some catering, weddings and events, and that was a different challenge for me personally. It wasn’t a new opening, but probably a business that needed my help to transform their offer. I definitely took the mentality of bringing restaurant-quality food to events and trying to delete that stigma that wedding food is bad food. We were trying to do multiple 200 covers, multiple events, up to 14 events per week, with quality produce.

Is that at a certain venue or are you going into other venues?

It was for a company called Nudo. When I started there, we had seven venues. We produced all the food out of the prep kitchen and then transported it on the day and executed the function. My job became a lot more planning, a lot more logistics and a lot more staffing. Trying to build a small full-time team into quite a big casual pool on a Saturday night was challenging, but it was a new challenge. Definitely leaving there, I felt a sense of accomplishment in being able to change their food offering and put them into a position where they’re now considered a caterer, not necessarily just a wedding planning business. Now their catering arm’s really successful and they’re known for having good food, which is a really nice thing to be able to do.

Does that mean that you weren’t so much on the pans then?

Still on the weekends, definitely executing the functions, but midweek, definitely office-based. With wedding planning, you end up writing a menu probably eight to nine months in advance. We changed the menu twice a year, a spring-summer and an autumn-winter menu, and having to write an autumn-winter menu in the middle of summer is challenging Seasonally, but also trying to train your brain to think autumn and what’s going to work. Because obviously the couples and the clients need to lock in their menu three to four months before their event. So we have to do tastings about three months before the events would start. It definitely taught me a lot of organisation and a lot of planning. It really honed in on my procedures and my documentation of stuff.

What sort of numbers were you catering for?

Those functions were probably no less than 100 normally. But like I said, when I started there, we were doing six or seven functions a night, sometimes 14 a week. So sometimes you’re feeding 2,000 people in a week.

I’m always amazed at the volume of food that comes out in these places anyway. In a restaurant, and you were just saying that you did a lot of covers here over Father’s Day yesterday, and the last time I spoke to you when you were at Asado, you’d done 275 for Valentine’s Day. That sounds like a huge volume of food, but that’s coming out in more of a staggered way in a restaurant. How do you make sure that everything is consistent and all coming out at the same time? How do you train staff to do that?

It’s definitely back to the planning piece and getting a lot of the hard work done beforehand. The finishing kitchens at the event are just that, finishing kitchens. It’s about trying to use fresh produce and designing dishes that can be really process-driven. You might have a chain of three people: one person does a purée or a garnish, then a meat product, then a sauce and a garnish, and it’s out the door. Being able to do 200 dishes in 20 minutes is a really good challenge, and it’s definitely restaurant-quality food. You probably have to do a little bit less sometimes. Sometimes less is more. I think you’d prefer to have two or three really great touches on a plate than five or six where some of them are a little bit half done or maybe not as perfect as you’d want them to be. I was really happy with the food produced, and I guess doing those huge numbers really set me up to come to a venue like this that’s super busy and, again, big volume, but a whole different world. You’ve got the pub classics and big volume downstairs, and then coming up here, we thought it would be busy, but it’s probably surprised us a little bit how busy it is and how consistent it is.

I think that speaks to the fact that it’s really good here, because it’s now word of mouth. I think everyone probably was waiting for a few years, because it sat empty for so long. And it looks so beautiful. People are curious and they come in, and I’ve told everyone about how great it is here, just because it really is. Even when you walk up the stairs here into Flores and there’s that beautiful scent…

It really covered everything. There are the little one-percent things that probably drew me to the group itself. A similar concept in my cooking style is those tiny one-percent changes and being one per cent better. They ticked a lot of those boxes in designing the venue and the people involved. They didn’t take any shortcuts, and I guess it’s paying off now for us to have such a great clientele and people accepting us in the local community. But it’s a beautiful place to come to work as well.

How does it work? I had a chat with Justin. What’s the delineation of your roles?

Justin’s definitely concept-driven. He’s based out of Sydney, and he’s got a few other things that happen in Sydney with his work life. He comes down normally two days a week, but he’s definitely a mentor for me to lean on if I need support. In terms of concept, that’s driven by him, and then getting the concept to fruition is more my role, with his support. He’ll say, this is the concept we’re going for. We want Flores to be Mediterranean sharing plates, but it needs to be accessible and approachable for people in Melbourne, and somewhere you can come a couple of nights a week if you want to. The people that live next door, the people that live across the road and the people that travel to come here. It needs to have a price point that works. That’s the stuff that he would work on, and then he gives me the menu to go for it. Then we work back and forth. He’s got so much experience and so much knowledge that it’s been another great reason for me to join the group, to work alongside him. To be guided by him as well. He’s super supportive and he’s been really great for me as a mentor.

I’m hungry and ambitious to tackle a big project and really challenge myself, not only in the culinary side of things, but in the people management, the planning and procedure. Being able to open a venue is great, but to be able to sustain it and also pass on what I’ve learnt and what I’ve put in place to others is something that I really enjoy.

Josh Rudd, Flores

It sounds a little bit like when you take on projects, you can guide and fulfil the ideas of the concept, and then do you need to move on? Because you have goals that you want to achieve, and then you want the next goal?

I think so. I’m hungry and ambitious to tackle a big project and really challenge myself, not only in the culinary side of things, but in the people management, the planning and procedure. Being able to open a venue is great, but to be able to sustain it and also pass on what I’ve learnt and what I’ve put in place to others is something that I really enjoy.

Watching the junior staff grow and taking a commis chef into a chef de partie, into a sous chef role, as we all grow together, and being aware that my role can only grow if they grow underneath me. I do enjoy the challenge and putting myself under a bit of pressure. This has been fantastic. My role here started with opening the ground level first, getting that settled with procedures and suppliers and menus and things. Then my focus changed and I started working on this. Now I’ll be starting to focus, not so much on the Saint in St Kilda, but definitely having an input there. I won’t be running the building necessarily, but those procedures and things that we’ve driven here, we want to make them Refinery Group staples. This is how we use this product, this is how we use this supplier, et cetera. I’ll start working on procurement and supply negotiations and stuff like that. So that’s a really exciting move and another tick for Refinery Group in terms of why I wanted to come here and the growth that I saw in this company.

The Saint seems to have gone through a few groups.

It has.

So hopefully this one sticks. I wonder what that is all about?

The location is tough. The demographic is completely different to Malvern. But the people in the background of Refinery Group have done their research. I think there were fine dining-ish concepts there that didn’t really work and weren’t well received. With the building itself, we want to do what we did here. We took it back to its bones a little bit and then obviously made it beautiful with the finishes. They’re beginning to do the same with the Saint: take it back to the raw bones and make it a beautiful place to be. A really confident space. Again, make it approachable and accessible. Have things on the menu that people know, and the price point will be approachable. Somewhere you can go a couple of times a week for a meal or a drink or both.

When I spoke to you last, you were saying how much you enjoy travelling and that gave you lots of inspiration for cooking and so on. Have you been able to do much of that in the last seven years?

I’ve done a couple of Europe trips, which always inspire you when you see things that are new and flavour combinations. It definitely refreshes you. Even if you don’t necessarily see something while you’re travelling, you might see something online. Social media is obviously so big that you might see something and you’ve got a bit more time to take it in and think about it. I enjoy the time on the plane a lot. I can write some notes and relax and try to get all the ideas that are going around in my head onto paper and come back refreshed and relaxed.

I just had a week in Bangkok, actually. We had a bit of a gap, and I thought, you know, I need a wee k. So I took a week off and went to Bangkok and just ate, and it was amazing.It’s such a crazy place that has so many amazing restaurants and amazing vendors. Again, you come back inspired. You eat good food and you come back inspired to serve good food.

That feeling that it gives you when you eat a great dish, or you go to an amazing venue, or you watch a group of people work really seamlessly, that inspires me to come back to work and give that to someone else. Someone might come to Flores and sit at the kitchen bar and think, these chefs are really flowing and working and ducking and weaving and getting it done. The food side used to inspire me more, and now I’m more inspired by the industry.

That’s interesting. I really loved it when I came here to eat. It’s described as more Mediterranean leaning. I feel like you can go out a lot in Melbourne and the food’s quite samey. I felt like this was really interesting and different. I worked my way through the whole snack menu. I didn’t have a main that time around because I was going somewhere else. But the hash brown! So delicious. I know that they’re in other places, but for me it felt really different. And I had the peppers and chorizo…fantastic.

I think a lot of this menu came quite naturally, which is one of the hardest things. If someone says, write a menu, it’s quite difficult if you’re not in the right headspace to be creative. But when you are in that headspace, it’s quite enjoyable and quite fun. It flows.

Knowing what I know about suppliers and what’s available and having a rough price point in the back of your mind about what you can get and when you can get it, makes it a little bit easier. That chorizo, for example, is a beautiful product. It comes out of New South Wales and we used to use that at Asado. So I know that I can source that product from a local producer and it’s really beautiful. We get great feedback from that and we don’t really have to do too much to it. Whereas something else like the prawn toast is becoming a bit of a signature dish, which is cool because it took a lot of work to get it to where it is.

It was a dish that we used to do in more of an Asian setting with sesame seeds, and we had to switch that concept into Mediterranean. Swap out the sesame seeds and sesame oil for maybe paprika, use pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, change an Asian-style mayo into a saffron mayonnaise. t took a little bit of practice, but it’s paying off now.

Also, being able to put that snack section at the start of the menu is probably a little bit selfish, because it’s how I like to dine. You come as a two-top or maybe a big group and everyone’s like, oh, we’re getting oysters or scallops. Someone doesn’t want them, but we have to get them because they only come as a two or a four or eight or whatever. Being able to order one hash brown and one prawn toast makes it hard work in the kitchen sometimes, but it gives everyone that choice to choose their own adventure on the menu. I think it’s a really beautiful way to start. You don’t like prawn toast, but I do. There’s nothing stopping me from getting that. You’re not restricting anyone, and it comes back to being really approachable for the client. They can come here and choose their own adventure. Some people just come for a glass of wine and a pasta, and some people come in and have a full chef selection. They’re here for a couple of hours and have a couple of beautiful drinks and five courses of food. And it’s constantly changing. You could come the same week and get a completely different experience.

I find it really fascinating that you’ve moved from, obviously you still really love food and menu creation, but you’re probably thinking as much about the flow of that menu as you are about the flavours. How will that work? And I love that you’ve opened up that idea of accessibility for different people coming in.

Being given two brand-new kitchens in the venue, you’ve got to make sure that you don’t oversell yourself and say you can do something that is not achievable in a kitchen. But you’ve also got to make sure you use the kitchen to its best ability, and I think on both levels we’ve been able to do that. They’re both beautiful kitchens and no expense has been spared. So it’s a really lucky, privileged place to be for us and the rest of the chefs.

So there’s an open aspect to the kitchen?

Very open. Downstairs is closed in the back of house. Up here it’s pretty much open. The back of house here is just the kitchen hand and plate area storage. But all the space you can see there is the kitchen. There’s no secret prep area or anything. We haven’t got a prep kitchen. We’ve got a kitchen on level two that does the functions. We’ve got a function room upstairs. But all the prep’s done there, and quite often people are sitting up there at the kitchen bar and the chefs are making pastas and making desserts and churning their ice cream. We don’t really shy away from doing anything on that bench when there are people there, because they can see us making it with our hands and see the care and the process that goes into it. Hopefully that is relayed on the menu itself.

When new people join the team and perhaps aren’t used to an open kitchen, I remember you saying that you are a calm chef in the kitchen. How do you share that ability to cope under pressure?

That’s another procedure I’ve probably built based on my experience. There are things that are acceptable and not acceptable and things you might have to adjust a little bit in terms of presentation and the cleanliness of the kitchen. You might sweep the floor more often and change the bins a bit more often than you would. I enjoy watching the young chefs evolve into that and being able to tell them to stay calm. We’re all going to support each other.

It’s a nice feeling on a Saturday night when we’re doing 250 covers, watching them all work together and help each other out. Being able to instil that from the start has put that block in place that we’re one team, we’re all together. Even on this side of the kitchen, the cold larder comes from a little island bench there. From the pass it’s actually quite a long way away, so the chef on this side can get a little bit isolated. But someone in the kitchen, whether it’s the pastry chef or the grill chef, might have two minutes to go over and double-check: Do you need anything? Do you need help? Do you need something? We’ve got flexibility in the team, and pretty much everyone can do most sections. So the adaptability piece has been really strong for us. But it’s also about remaining calm. I tell them that if I’m not stressed, then you don’t need to be stressed. So far, so good.

You’ve got Lately upstairs as well? Is that a different snack menu too?

It’s the same snack menu, with a few snacks off the top of the Flores menu. We toyed with the idea of writing a completely different menu, and we do have a beautiful kitchen upstairs that could service that. But going back to the original brief and branding message for Lately, we want it to be drink-led. The snacks are there just as a little something if you’re a bit peckish. It’s not somewhere where you get a plate and a knife and a fork and a napkin. It’s more finger food because you’re a bit peckish maybe after dinner. So that ticks along, but it’s definitely beverage-led up there.

And there’s another function space as well?

There’s the Angel Room at the back of Lately. That’s 50 seated, or we can do 100 canapés standing up. Designing that menu was another privilege of being able to open the venues. Using my function experience from my time at Nudo, I’ve been able to use that experience, this new menu and the public bar menu to write a really amazing events package that ticks a lot of boxes. For people who want food from Flores, people who want food from downstairs. We have our sausage rolls, we do a cheeseburger downstairs and we do a mini version for the canapés. We do the prawn toast, we do the hash brown. It can be accessible to lots of different groups. We’re getting quite a few school mums and school groups. Then on the night before Father’s Day last week, we had 100 school dads here. To be able to facilitate three different types of functions over three days from the same package has been really important. We’re not saying no to anyone.

What are you looking forward to over the next few months?

Just really solidifying our spot and beating that drum of the suburban restaurant. Talking to a lot of friends and colleagues in the industry, the city is a really hard place at the moment for restaurants. We’re having quite a good patch being in the suburbs and we want to keep driving that. We don’t want to be one of those restaurants that opens really busy and then dies off. It’s about being able to keep adapting and keep growing and listen to the feedback from the clients and the locals. We’ve just started a Sunday roast downstairs. We just started a lunch menu up here for Thursdays and Fridays. So just keep adapting and keep evolving the business. Keep driving the functions and keep using the momentum that we already have. Obviously I’ll be working with Justin and the team at the Saint to get that open. I feel like that role will be more hands-off, but a lot more about having the answers to questions that, when I started here, I didn’t necessarily have the answers to. I had to find out the answers myself. Now that I’ve got that data and information, I can help them get their answers a little bit faster. The venue’s still ticking along, which is great.

It’s exciting, and as we were saying, you love that challenge. When do you know you’ve succeeded?

I don’t know. For now, there’s definitely a sense of success in being able to launch the venue, having some really good feedback, having a really good team of chefs, everyone’s happy, and the owners are happy with where we’re headed. But there’s always room to grow. Keep evolving the menu, keep evolving the team, keep growing. Like I said before, they keep pushing me up, they keep pushing each other. People come and people go, so there’s that element as well. I’m not sure success is something you can necessarily tick off. Because I guess you can’t take it for granted. If you switch off and think our job is done, then I think that’s when the success probably falls off.

It’s seven years on since the last time I spoke to you. What would your advice be now to a young person starting out? A lot’s changed in the industry over those intervening years.

I think you just have to put yourself out there and have a go. Try, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. That’s something I would definitely try to tell myself as a young person. Don’t be afraid of your age. Use your experience and life experience, and lean on everyone around you, whether they’re junior staff or mentors, both personally and professionally. Soak up as much knowledge as you can and build relationships. Because when you get to a role like this, where you need those relationships, whether they’re suppliers or people in the media or people personally or professionally, you’ve got a contact list full of people who like working with you, want to work with you and want you to succeed. They’re the people you lean on when the going gets tough.

Flores, 641 Dandenong Road, Malvern, Melbourne