Paul Wilson

I’m just looking through my Christmas present. He’s a good chef, this chap, he’s the chef and owner of Saint Peter in Sydney. He does a lot of unconventional fish cookery; he dries his fish like meat. He uses every part of the fish for a dish, not just the premium cuts.

I think that’s the way things are going, isn’t it? People looking for different ways of doing things and not waste anything. I just went and spent a day at Corner Inlet with Sascha Rust who is working for the Marine Conservation Society for the GoodFish project and he gathered chefs and fishers together and sent them out on the boats together and then had them talking about sustainable fishing and the importance of that conversation.

I saw that on Instagram on Nick Stanton’s account. It’s good to see young chefs taking an interest in these things. 

It’s interesting that you say that because I spoke to a very young chef from the Yarra Valley. He’s 23 and did his training in Melbourne but then went to London and he was lamenting the Australian lack of commitment to cheffing when he had seen something different in London. He thinks the industry is going to go down the tubes because you can’t do stages so easily here any more and it was an interesting point of view I hadn’t come across before.

Europe has changed too. Recently the whole industry has stopped and scratched its head. People aren’t sure what to do with this new…well, not new really…obligation to do the right thing by the award. They are being almost over-protective.

It’s a hard one because yes, there must be fairness and people should be paid what they are due but a lot of chefs I have spoken to also have the point of view that when you are honing your craft, you do have to put the hours in. It’s a tricky one and it has been a bit of a beast this year.

It’s the large corporate entities that have made a lot of money and they have figureheads who have almost flaunted their wealth on social media and then their staff see it and wonder what is going on. That’s the secret: restaurateurs have learned over the years to be very private about their income, but chefs…well, we are show-offs, aren’t we?

Well you are artists, aren’t you? Although I said that to Annie Smithers and she said, no, it’s not art, it’s a trade and I’m just cooking dinner. But people like you and Annie Smithers are not just cooking dinner, you have put in many years to be cooking fabulous dinners. 

We have done an awful lot. I have done some artistic work in artistic restaurants and fine-dining restaurants. I’ve also done some very honest and simple things. My career has had ebbs and flows and if you love the job, then you don’t mind the ebbs and flows. 

Melbourne has changed a lot over the last 10 years; not so much the top-end restaurants, but top-end chefs like myself are now trying to improve the middle ground. I feel as though there’s not much opportunity to improve the top end.

That’s an interesting angle and I guess the rise of cafes and a café culture where consumers expect a certain level of food but under a certain price has become another challenge. And maybe chefs, too, are looking for a more sustainable lifestyle for themselves by not doing all the late nights.

That’s where my head is at the moment. We have had a massive  five or six years with a lot of consultancy work and I started my own business and sold that. That was an ebb and flow; the partnership split and going through the legal process of that is very demanding on the body and mind.

Yes. I guess too, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing here, but perhaps those things came around the same time as people like Anthony Bourdain and Jeremy Strode being in the headlines.

Absolutely. I left England because three good friends of mine passed away in succession. All three fell asleep at the wheel in separate incidents, it was bizarre. I was depressed and unhappy with the lifestyle of a top chef in London so I thought I would have a sea change and come to Melbourne. I’d never worked so hard in my life as when I first came here.

I was going to talk to you about that because I’ve spoken in the past to Paul Raynor and he mentioned you as a mentor and friend and you both came out in the 90s in the wave of British chefs who came and shook up the industry here.

The Brit pack, yeah.

Talk me through that because I have read that a lot. What does it mean to come and shake up the industry? Do you arrive and say, right! Let me clean things up here?

Well, you don’t know you’re shaking up the industry because you’re so self-obsessed with doing what you have always done and having high standards and making other people around you better at what they do. That’s the English, or European way of training; your responsibility is to be a trainer and mentor and leader and if you don’t have those skills, you won’t survive in the European kitchen. So, moving to Melbourne, my only ambition was to survive and make sure the move was a viable success and worth leaving behind my parents. I was driven to be the best I could be and there was no room for error.

Fortunately for us the media loved our style of food; it was quite different to what Australia had produced before, more technical and a lot of language ad food phrases they hadn’t heard before so menus became more exotic and interesting. The whole thing was like a new fashion or new wave of music they had never heard before; it was quite edgy and stylish. England, at the time was really cool…Cool Britannia was a thing in fashion and music and food caught up. We used to have really terrible food in the UK. The British Isles had got its act together and a few of us moved to Australia and kept working hard and demanding more from fellow Australians; customers, suppliers, designers and the whole game got lifted. 

They were great times. All of us were very close. There was a lot of camaraderie which wasn’t apparent in the UK because it was very competitive. We used to meet each other and watch football together which we probably wouldn’t have done in the UK. When those chefs passed away who were good friends of mine, it made me think about what I was doing and was I far behind? Would I get hit by a car or have a heart attack or decide it’s all too hard and jump off the pier? What’s my legacy? Paul worked hard. So I decided to be a bit more open-minded about my work choices with a view to work-life balance. I want to be in the game long-term. I’ve already been in the game a long time; 30 years. I still feel really good and that I have a lot to offer. I’m still really creative and I still like working with young people; teaching and training them. I think it’s my responsibility to give back and that’s my journey now; to give back. To do that, I need to keep myself fit and well; wellbeing in the mind as well as the body.  With a positive outlook, you can do anything. So, I have chosen roles like this, that are not long term, about six months.

Is that to get them up and running?

Yes, and rejuvenate, refresh, retrain.

Is it a hands-on consultancy? I had lunch outside, and I could see through to the kitchen and saw you on the pass. So you like to get alongside?

Yes, you can’t train someone by writing a book or remotely…I have done consultancy work remotely over the years but it is better to be hands on. I say this respectfully, because I’m a chef, most chefs are not really super intelligent, so they need a lot of training and hands on leadership. Some of my chefs don’t speak English. It’s an industry that has many wonderful influences from all over the world, so you can’t articulate things in every language, but you can with a pair of hands and a nice smile. I like the hands-on approach. It can be frustrating at times.

What causes the frustration? Is it from people not understanding your vision?

I want them to be better and for things to be effortless and smooth and for everyone to be happy; customers, the pass people, maître d’s. We will perfect it. It’s only week 2.

I remember when I was finishing off at university and doing some waitressing, it was the end of the nineties and there was a distance between kitchen and front of house and I think that has changed now. I think now it’s more about teamwork and front of house have to be able to understand what the chefs are saying to be able to convey it to diners. It’s a different world.

It is. It is much more cohesive now. You have to make sure we are all on the same page. 

I read somewhere that you started working in a kitchen at 16…

14.

14? That astounds me because I’m a teacher as well as a writer and I teach girls in a private school and I hear these stories of chefs who get out into the workforce at an early age and I wonder how students these days would survive. What drew you in at such a young age?

I was very fortunate. Our neighbour, a beautiful man, the family were Spanish, and our parents were very close. My parents were worried about me not being into sport and not being very academic and worried about my career, so they pushed me into hospitality. I worked at a hotel, The Strafford at St James in Mayfair, from the age of 14, just the weekends, making patisserie. The pastry chef was from Harrod's and he was an extraordinarily creative man. He used to make wonderful wedding cakes and centrepieces and sugar work. I was under the spell; working in a five-star hotel with the uniforms and just the theatre of it all, the atmosphere…it was like I had been reborn. For some reason I was really good at it. They would show me once and I would pick it up. They’d ask if I was sure I hadn’t done it before. I didn’t do everything well, but I realised I had a knack for learning about patisserie in particular; I had a good touch and could pick things up easily. Then I moved into the hot kitchen and it was the same; I’d prep the meat and so on. I loved nature as a kid. Where we lived, it was very pretty, and I used to go fishing a lot so when you’re immersed in beautiful products and the theatre of the hotel, it’s like a progression of growing up in nature and appreciating the outdoors; you have respect for everything.

I was very lucky because my chef was like my godfather in the end because once I started working as a chef, I didn’t see my family, my parents. He would take me to all the top restaurants in the area to meet all the to chefs and I did a stage in each one. It was part of the culture; if you worked at the Ritz, you were referred to the Dorchester then you were referred to the Savoy then you were referred to the Park and that was my career; I was referred everywhere and everyone loved me. I was a big lad and did what I was told. Armando was very popular in the industry. He was a lovely Spanish man, very charismatic. I think, being English, being a big fella and positive and happy, others latched onto me and put a lot of time into me. I learned quickly and climbed the ladder really fast. I was a top chef at Quaglino’s in London, which was one of the busiest and famous restaurants of the nineties when I was 27. I had 40 chefs under my belt and I was spending, for the business, probably about £100 000 a week on food.

Did that side of things feel natural as well, that leadership side, and being responsible?

A little bit. I had no problems telling people what to do because I was confident, but I wasn’t very comfortable with management and it got a bit too much in the end. I had a General Manager who was enjoying my weaknesses. He was convinced that I was too junior for the role but I was the most qualified person for the job because I had been there for five years and no one else could run the kitchen better than I could or understand the food costing more than I but he wanted someone mature and more experienced and more financially aware and I felt that pressure. When I was offered the job in Melbourne, it was perfect, and he wanted someone else, so he got that. I left and they employed a text book executive chef and he lasted a year and Quaglino’s collapsed. It needed that younger more hands on finger on the pulse approach rather than an executive approach with spreadsheets. Quaglino’s was an extraordinary business which became one of the worst restaurants very quickly.

Who else worked there that I have spoken to…? A few chefs have mentioned Quaglino’s…Paul Raynor…I think maybe Paul Tyas…

A lot of Aussies worked there….John Torode presented on Master Chef in the UK and he was a sous chef there. Martin Webb was the Executive chef there and they opened Quaglino’s and I joined as a sous and I employed Paul Raynor…I have always employed Paul. I was best man at his wedding and he was an apprentice with me. I’ve known him forever and he’s a very nice man and a good chef, hardworking.

Did you come over and he followed?

Yes. I brought about eight guys with me. Everyone freaked out a little bit because they loved the lifestyle here, but they didn’t like the hours. We were working more hours in Melbourne than we had in London. In London you have more resources, there’s a greater turnover so you can have two teams in your budget, whereas in Melbourne it was a different sort of commercial set-up and you had to cover a lot of shifts yourself. A lot of the guys left after a year and went back to London because they like the challenge of opening a restaurant but didn’t want to be here long term. I was lucky. I got some press and good reviews and got my ego polished so I kept going.

You’re always describes as a top Melbourne chef, but do you still consider yourself as a British chef or are you a Melbourne chef?

I’ve lived in Melbourne longer than I lived in the UK. Some food writers refer to me as a British chef and that annoys me. But I feel I have a good relationship with some who realise my contribution and don’t just think I’m some weirdo who claims to be good at Mexican food and fish cookery. I’m a good all-rounder actually, I’ve travelled a lot and I have written three books; two have been Latin and one was on the Botanical. The media criticise you for knowing too much.

That’s Australia, though, isn’t it…tall poppy syndrome. I read that you’ve been embracing vegan and vegetarian food and being more plant-based in your focus and I spoke recently with the two Dans at Prince Dining Room and that’s a really big focus for them as well. I thought that was a nice connection and perhaps a legacy from your Circa days.

Thank you. I think Matt Wilkinson was one of the first chefs to get on that vegetable path and he was inspired by Stone Barns restaurant in New York. He came back and built a garden at Circa and when that sold to my clients, they said they had the giant garden on the roof and wanted to know what to do with it. I didn’t think it was working for the business because of the maintenance of it and there are some pretty amazing farmers, so let’s reverse production and still keep the same philosophy. Plant-based food is here to stay. That and premium quality meat and fish. So we talked to a few farmers and got that happening and it was exciting.

Growing your own produce from seed to harvest is a wonderful thing to do. You learn a lot too. You think you know a lot as a chef, but farming is completely different. Understanding how things grow in this country was remarkably enlightening for me. It changed the way I write my menus and how I buy things. We were getting so many enquiries from our clients for vegan or plant-based food and it wasn’t just because it was trendy. People have made a decision on how they want to eat. My brother is now vegetarian. I just gave my brother’s wife a vegan pie recipe last night. 

I just watched the documentary by a Melbourne filmmaker, Damon Gameau, 2040, and it’s an uplifting and positive look at what’s possible with what we have now that could make 2040 better and one of his points was that we should never have started feeding grain to cattle; that’s a huge problem in terms of grain stock and water use and we should in fact be eating a lot less meat. 

That’s so true and it’s how we are treating insects; they are so important for the growth of plants and how they pollinate. Biodynamics is really interesting. Fingal Farm, actually called Transition Farm are very passionate people. A little bit unbalanced passionate like chefs who get unbalanced with their obsession. Robin, the farmer is verging on obsessive the way she grows her stuff but when you taste her stuff, it’s just extraordinary the difference. 

Then people say…like Alejandro from Pastuso who takes his chefs out to see where the vegetables are grown…that they have more respect for the vegetables and there is less wastage when people know the story behind them. 

Very true. 

All of that is important. I see that through your career you have really embraced a lot of different things and even today when I came in you were reading this cookbook, and I feel like that’s part of sustainability as a chef, to constantly learn and be willing to be open to what you need to be open to.

It’s very true. The old saying we have in our trade is that you never stop learning or you are never too old. You hear that all the time as a young chef; your mentors badger you with that. You should always be a little bit humble and have an open mind. I think I’ve stayed in the game because I try…well, for one you have to, commercially if you don’t, how are going to pay the bills?…but I try and have a vision of what is going to happen next. I try and look at what is happening in the world and learn from London, or learn from LA, or Mexico or Peru and then work out how to bring that back to Melbourne. Melbourne is such a wonderful produce bowl and there is so much potential for food. Until you travel, you don’t realise all the similarities between different countries. Then you see the produce and think, gosh, they grow the same type of onions as us and they also grow a different type of onion…can we grow it here? Yes, we can. We are very fortunate in this country and then when you travel you think, how can I celebrate this further? As a chef you can do that.

I don’t put things on the menu to show off, I put things on the menu to say, this was grown here, this is amazing.

I was looking at the menu and I do think we have a slight problem with fish. We have a whole ocean out there and a bay and you can no longer commercially fish there.

There are only eight licences left in Port Philip Bay and they expire in 2020.

Is that about sustainability or is that about recreational fishing?

The government decided that the most sustainable thing to do was to stop them fishing. Then the fishers could argue that without them fishing, things become unbalanced and over-populated and we don’t know the impact. And they have increased the recreational licences.

And that is a little less accountable. It’s tricky. How have you gone about choosing the fish for Morgan’s? I read that it is premium New Zealand and Australian seafood.

It’s a hot potato, isn’t it? Your group do a lot of scaremongering about not eating this fish and eating more of this other fish, but their opinions aren’t based on science, they are based on emotion.

The GoodFish project? They are aligned with the Marine Conservation Society who involve scientists.

MSC is funded. It’s not independent. You have to be a member and they have an agenda.

I guess they are wanting to start conversations, that’s the point.

I think it’s really good that people are talking about it. I was talking to John Susmanwho is probably the most qualified person to talk about sustainability and he works with the Australian government and has seen all the data and works with the fishermen and oversees their catches. He has been doing that over the last 25 years and can tell you what is in decline and what’s healthy. They get government support because of that data. It’s pretty significant data, but even John said that every two or three years, there’s a freak thing in the ocean and no one knows why it has happened. Is it climate change or what?

The fishermen down at Corner Inlet go out fishing every day and they can’t predict what might happen. There has been a large scale depletion in the seagrass population and an increase of sea urchins. These guys are fourth and fifth generation fishers and they don’t always know what is going on. The ocean is still a great unknown.

That’s a really good point and sea urchins are terrible for the ocean. They are a pest. We should be eating more sea urchins. They should be readily available and cheap but they are a delicacy. The abalone farmers have paid people in Tasmania to ban industry because they are destroying their industry. People don’t know that. But to answer your question about my menu and knowing which fish are endangered and which fish are not, based on my own research from talking to people like John and talking to fish wholesalers and working in the industry for 30 years, you see what fish comes across your menus and what is available. Five or six years ago there was very little tuna around and we were told to stay away from it…Skate, Orange Roughy and some of the Dory species. I would never put them on my menu. When we had the first shipment of Patagonian Toothfish which wasn’t endangered, it was from a legal fishery near WA, we got protesters and death threats.

It’s a funny one because that fish fluctuates in its sustainability. I wonder too and I know you can’t do this with fish, but I heard about a goat farmer who only kills his goats to order, he doesn’t pre-package. Apparently there is one place in New Zealand that does it for fish, and only catches what is needed but it’s very boutique and it is probably a tricky way to goin terms of consumer demand.

The real criminals, if you like, are the supermarkets and the fish and chip shops in seaside towns like Rye and so on. They are all selling imported fish and saying it’s local fish. It’s an endless debate, this one. But hand on my heart, all the fish on my menu is sustainable and available.

It’s a lovely menu and you have kept it really simple; you can have the fish grilled or battered and whatever is fresh on the day. 

The essence of seafood is simplicity and we are approaching the silly season so I’d rather have an evolution than a revolution and start off simple.

Looking out at the ocean while eating seafood is one of the best things you can do, I think. Even if it’s not from there.

Half the job is done, isn’t it? When I started at Icebergs at Bondi in Sydney. I took over from Robert Marchetti who is a very good chef. His food was very complicated with lots of garnishes, his food was very tricky food. I couldn’t get my head around it. One day I was leaving work and Baz Luhrmann tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Master, Master chef. At last we’ve got someone who gets it; simple food at Icebergs, I can’t believe it, we have found the missing link.” Baz Luhrmann is a pretty crazy creative man. If anyone who appreciates the gregarious outlandishness in film, it’s him, so I was pleased to hear that from him.

A lot of mature people come here from Sorrento; people who have retired here.

Do you get to stay in Sorrento while you are doing this job?

We have relocated. My main focus is going to be the Continental Hotel. That’s going to be a beautiful hotel and should be ready in about a year’s time with four restaurants, two ballrooms and 150 new rooms.

That sounds huge but it does sound  like a nice place to be doing it.

It’s a real privilege to be asked to relaunch such a beautiful old hotel; it has been there since the 50s. There is a lot of history in the area. So, for myself as an English person and becoming a Melburnian, it’s a real privilege to be asked to do something like that.

Morgan’s, 1 Esplanade, Sorrento