Stephen Nairn is the epitome of the passionate chef. His love for food, the industry, his team and for always learning more is palpable. I had spoken to Stephen over the phone for Broadsheet when Yugen Dining opened and quite frankly I was grinning like a lunatic on the other end of the line because I was just lapping up the way he described the dishes. He pointed out that when he says the menu is led by the five senses, thats not just a fluff statement. I doubt Stephen ever makes fluff statements. He is articulate and thoughtful, and I could listen for hours, I learned so much. When he mentions a sensory approach, he is talking about identifying a range of ingredients he wants to work with and then applying salt, acid, fat, umami, steam, charcoal, not so much to manipulate the flavour in order to change the ingredients, but to extract the most out of the flavour. For example, he says, thedepth of flavour in the Drunken Poussin on the Yugen Dining menu "sings from all the right notes". When I arrived to speak to him in person, we talked about our days and I mentioned I was a teacher. Stephen comes from a family of teachers, but was himself drawn to cooking and once in, could not get enough of it, starting in Glasgow and working himself up through the best restaurants there, then London, then New York and Eleven Madison Park. He came to Melbourne, intending to stay only two months, and 10 years on, he has worked for Shannon Bennett, Scott Pickett and is nowLK Culinary Director Yugen Dining, Yugen Tea Bar and Omnia Bistro & Bar. This was one of my favourite conversations and I can't wait for you to read it.
Stephen, I'm so pleased to speak to you. When I spoke to you for the Broadsheet article about Yugen Dining, the way you described the food was amazing. So when Renata suggested I speak to you, I said, yes please! And congratulations on being a new dad.
I'm a five-week-old dad. It's been absolutely fantastic. As much as I hoped it would be. Its not without its challenges, but its really, really awesome.
It's a lot to juggle, isn't it, with all that you do here.
It is pretty full on. And we're about to add another restaurant. We've got Omnia, Yugen Tea Bar and Yugen. And we're about to add our event space in May.
Is that for weddings?
Weddings, birthdays, some corporate events, whatever you want. It's an amazing space. It's absolutely beautiful as well. It is two floors up. I think that that'll be a nice little addition. We get a lot of requests for private dinners and things, but we don't have anything that entertains a lot of what we get requests for. So I'm happy to add that to our repertoire of restaurants.
It is a lot. But I feel as though you've been in so many incredible places along the way, and then I guess the next challenge is to be overseeing something like this in an executive chef role with a few different restaurants, and they're different cuisines as well, aren't they?
That's right. You don't think that's the way it's going to end up when you start off, but the climate changed dramatically. You to have to adapt and take opportunities where you get them. As you get more experience, you realize the thing that you're actually in love with is transferrable. You know, the restaurant is not just the really intimate, fine dining, 40 seats, one menu. Theres something magical about Omnia as well. Its an amazing place as a young chef to start off. I've got a great team up there. It's a different style of exposure to ingredients. If you really love the connection between nature and the producer, the grower, then bringing that full circle back into the kitchen, having multiple different styles of restaurants is very rewarding.
And are you still on the tools?
A hundred percent. Obviously, you have to balance it accordingly. If you've got a day like today where I'm chatting with yourself, the day needs to be adjusted. But also there's a growing period. For instance, when you open a restaurant like Yugen, I'll have the head chef who operates the hot kitchen downstairs and I'll do the pass with him for the first three, four months to give them the training that they need to get over the really hairy, intimidating pieces where you're dealing with going from the big jumps of covers. You don't do 200 covers right off of the bat. You'll maybe start at 120 and 130. Then when you start really refining the menu, showing them how to operate under different levels of pressure, how to reorganize the kitchen, how to handle mistakes, these are all the key principles. But then after a period of time, you have to step back and allow them to flourish. Otherwise you're just kind of micromanaging them. Then it moves to the point where they're really running the day-to-day of the kitchen. Then Im saying, right, okay, let's start working on this dish. Mud crabs are coming in season. I need you to free yourself up five hours on Wednesday. Which might sound like nothing, but that can be challenging at the start when you're just completely scrapping to be set for service.
Whereas now the relationship is different with your head chef where you're saying, let's work on the dish together, this is how I want to cook it. What do you think? You cook it, and then it's very collaborative. It's a full mentorship process. I'm always trying to make sure that we're staying true to our original vision with the restaurant and at the same time giving them what they want, which is to work next to me and to understand how to get to the next level of a chef. There's different kinds of, 'on the tools', you know, when you move to the position I do, when you're actually running the businesses, overseeing the kitchens. If the restaurants don't work without me filleting the fish, portioning the mud crab, then there's a problem. There are many different aspects that you need to know, that require your attention. Its a bit of a balancing act, but you know, that also just comes with experience.
Absolutely. And I'm thinking as you're speaking, you must be so well organized to hold all those things in your head. You're thinking of different venues and then you're thinking about the season that's coming in, the mud crab coming in, and what you might do with that and who you're going to work with. Is that something you've learned over time?
It's definitely something I've learned over time. I used to always be in awe of the chef. When you're a chef de partie, sous chef, commis chef, you don't really know what's going on. You're just completing tasks and all of a sudden things are appearing.I say the old days, but 10, 15 years ago – this is my 20th year this year – you didn't just chop and change restaurants, you stayed, you worked. You didn't leave until youd really worked through the sections. You would be on the veg section for the four seasons. So you understood that in autumn the mushrooms come, then there was spring, then you started to be aware of the game season. But then as you get a little bit more experience, you're developing supplier relationships and you're actually working very, very closely with them. For example, a prime example would be Tasmanian sea urchin. That's a product that I absolutely love. I'm working with the producer very, very closely. I'm tracking it month by month. In my office I have a massive seafood chart that's the same thing that they use at the Sydney Fish Market. I can see months in advance. I'll be talking to the supplier, is it happening now? Six weeks behind? We're expecting it here, its this size at the moment and in two weeks its going to be exactly what you want. Then we're negotiating price. Whereas before I'd just be creating one dish for Omnia, now I'll be saying, okay, we're going to go through this at Omnia, we're going to go with the Irish muffin, we're going to go with a brandy bavarois, the sea urchin, green Granny Smith apple, and a sea urchin jus. Then I'll be speaking to the sushi teams; do you guys want some for your Omakase? Is this something you feel that you can use? I'll be speaking to the head chef downstairs about how we can incorporate it there?I'm working with the farmer, or the grower, or the producer, or the fisherman, or, you know, whoever it is. If it's a hyper small seasonal produce, I'm trying to buy as much as I can and distribute it accordingly.
Year one, when I'm working with the head chef or the sous chef, I will probably be providing the majority of the narrative. But then as a relationship grows they will then be saying, Hey, I know last year we did the sea urchin tart. What do you think about this? And I'll say, brilliant, let's go. Theyll say, do you have a recipe for this? How would you do this? Okay, no problem. I'll show you how I would do it, but I want to see how you're going to organize it. In turn, their skill level is increasing and I'm really the sounding board and the mentor.
Then I'll start talking to the somm and looking at a beverage pairing. Can we bring this in? Do they still have this great sake? How much do they have of this particular product? Then hoping the following year, they'll be then coming to me saying, okay, this is the dish. This is what we're thinking we'll pair it with this beverage wise. Then the restaurant is improving and improving and improving. I'm then really able to just provide that very fine minute detail as if I am the guest.
Does that require longevity in staff? Is it easy to keep them in this day and age?
It's not easy to, no. It's not easy to keep them at all. But when you get to a certain level of chef, sous chef and above, for instance, Evin Doherty is our head chef at Omnia, and he's been with me for four years now and there is a mutual level of respect. I have things that are non-negotiable. And he understands. By non-negotiable, I mean, the guests would suffer if we didnt do it that way or we do it that way because it stays in line with the vision for the restaurant. But everything else is fully up to where he's at. As we build each skill level, he then takes on another level of responsibility at his own pace and the mutual level of understanding and respect is there. I'm not micromanaging, I'm not shouting, screaming in front of the boys. I'm literally saying, Hey, I've noticed this. I think we could do this. Or he's coming to me saying, I really want to do this. How do you go about it? It does require longevity, but that's on the chef, they need to have the maturity to understand that they're getting an opportunity that they won't get anywhere else, and they're not getting hung out to dry. Whereas you might take another job somewhere else, but are you going to have the access to the resources that we are offering here, I highly doubt it. Are you going to be in the kind of arena where you can make the mistake and someone else is going to come and help you through the process? That's a massive attribute when you're a head chef and when you're learning the ropes, because when the time comes, you're going to go and do something else or whatever it be. You want to have made the mistakes with me as opposed to going out on your own. So it's a mutual level of trust and respect. And that's the same in all of the restaurants. I would say it's more a collaboration than longevity. And then I think when you get to a certain level of chef, you've been in the ring long enough that you can see that what we have at Omnia and Yugen: our event space or production kitchens or pastry department, it's very rare to see that in Australia. It's something much more commonly found overseas. It's almost like a hotel set-up without a hotel.I'll push them hard to get us to the end goal, but the ball is in their court. I think that some people flourish under that opportunity. And of course, some people don't. But that's natural. Its a two-way relationship.
Absolutely. And did you have a mentor or mentors along the way who were like you?
Absolutely I did. The first chef I worked for was a guy called Brian Maule. He was the chef of Gavroche, a three Michelin Star, he was a chef there for 14 years. He left and opened his own restaurant in my hometown, Glasgow. I started there when I was 15, 16. I was there for best part of six years. I went from apprentice to commis, first commis, demi chef, chef de partie, junior sous chef, sous chef. And then I left. He was a great mentor in some aspects, but very old school in some aspects in terms of he loved the screaming and the shouting, but that was part of the criteria back then.
In terms of handling products, there was true respect long before waste and sustainability was fashionable. We didn't waste anything there. Every single scrap was either refashioned or turned into something else, but it was a very difficult and gruelling place. I learned the rigour of hard work from him as a mentor. I left there and took my first sous chef position in restaurant Number One, which is one Michelin star restaurant. The chef there, Craig Sandle, he was a phenomenal chef and an amazing teacher. He was an excellent craftsman, strict, but very kind in with his time and had a very gentle approach that was completely opposite to what I'd learned with Brian. But both were key markers in my learning. Then when I went to New York James Kent was another mentor. And in Melbourne, obviously Shannon Bennett and Scott Pickett; two fantastic chefs. Then you find other mentors that are not necessarily the chef or the boss. I worked with loads of amazing different guys, David Hall, Brian Lockwood, and even guys that are still on my team right now; Sam Holman and John Demetrios. Theyre not the big chef, but they're fantastic people that you're learning with. Youre learning constantly. I'm still learning right now. But in terms of mentorship though, I think those early chefs are really going to install the right things in you. If you don't understand the value of projects and seasonality and how to handle things, then you go into something like a three-star Michelin restaurant, it's not going to work. You're going to get exposed really, really quickly. I would imagine that you might find a role, but you're not going to be active in service. You're not going to be cooking if you don't understand how to handle things, how to portion things, how to respect ingredients, how to work cleanly and organized, how to be presentable, how to show that you're a professional as opposed to maybe coming in hungover and not being able to give a hundred percent. I think those early guys that I worked for definitely installed that hard work and rigour.
Then the other thing that always spurred you on was people that looked down their nose at chefs. Even more so front of house, they didn't understand it. People used to always say to me, so what are you going to do for your real job? If you're an ambitious person, then in your mind, you're like, I'll fucking show you. I think there was a lot of that, we were happy and I wouldn't change a single thing about that. Obviously, there's certain things that are clearly not best practice, but that's the same of any job in any generation. We were really happy because we were just learning, and Im talking about just always getting this unbelievable produce coming in, whether it was coming from Scotland, whether it be the game, whether it was immaculate shellfish and fish, and you could see the rigour and the process of the chef and the sous chef trying to make the dishes, but the general manager coming in and providing a little snippets of, oh, you know, I'm concerned about that on the tasting menu, it might take too long to eat, or we can't pair something with that. All the little dramas that would happen and you were completely bought in. At no point are you thinking it was a job. I think that's maybe where that helped as well.
I never in my entire life ever heard anyone in the kitchen complain about the hours, even the guys that were married. It was either you worked in the professional kitchens, the ones that were ambitious, that were chasing the Michelin stars or had an offshoot of another one of the big chefs restaurants, whether it be someone from London or whatever. And then if that wasn’t for you and you wanted something that was more approachable, you just went and got a job that didn’t have dinner service. That was the landscape. From what I remember, I was very happy doing that. I loved it. It was difficult, but you were spurred on by ambition. You fully bought in to it, you read those cookbooks and the recipes and the photos of the dishes are amazing, but that’s not what I actually loved. I loved the first sections of the book. It was about the chef’s story. That was way more inspiring because then you were like, oh, fuck, this guy’s the same as me. ~ Stephen Nairn
You come from a family of teachers. What made you think about becoming a chef?
School wasn't for me. I was a bit of a renegade, a bit of a bad boy. More of a cheeky chappy as opposed to anything too bad. I literally left school at 15 in the summer, and then I just took a job as a kitchen porter just to get some cash under the belt and a bit of independence and to show that I was actually trying to do something I didn't even have a clue about.
I liked food, I liked to eat it, but I had no idea about chefs and Michelin stars. I worked for an amazing Indian chef, a guy called Nitin Sharma and a guy called Barry, two Indian guys. They could see that I actually liked working. I think to be a good chef, you need to actually like working. You need to be not afraid of graft work, hard work, its thankless work in the early days. They offered me a day or a few hours here or there in the kitchen. It was the most basic of basic stuff. Then I'd done that, and I was kind of enjoying it. They both collectively pulled me aside and said, look, if you really want to be a chef, you have to get out of here and you have to go and work at a top place, otherwise, it's a terrible job. They were personally saying that because they had left India and come to Scotland purely for financial reasons and to try and provide some income that they wouldn't be able to get in their home country for their families. Very admiral sacrifice that these guys were making. But they were telling me that it was a brutal game when you get old. They were married, they had children, so they knew what they were talking about. They were basically getting rid of their staff, like me, who's the guy who was doing all the work; the cleaning, the deep cleaning of the fryer, all the bullshit that guys like them don't really want to be doing. They pointed me in the right direction. I literally Googled the best restaurant in Glasgow and the one guy came up all the time, Brian Maule. I went to him, and it was an absolute reality check. He said, you're a blind canvas, youll probably last a month, do you want it? It was 3.10. He couldnt give me an hourly rate but he could give me a salary. It was 7,000 a year. Pounds. That was in 2006, so it was absolute peanuts. But then I got in there and I had no idea that there were grown men and women and that this was their fulltime job. I didn't understand that level. I just thought it was something on TV. After a few months of doing all the brutal jobs, the constant deep cleaning, the picking cases and cases of spinach, peeling mirepoix vegetables, by the 50 kilo, doing all the brutal cleaning of girolles, just scraping cases and cases of girolles, cleaning out the guts of all the game birds, the snipe, widget, teal, mallard, grouse, then I actually started realise I was really enjoying it. After a few months Brian realised I wasn't a time waster and he was happy to take me on and actually devote some time to me, but he told me it was going to be absolutely hardcore and was I up for the challenge? I was only 16. I had nothing to compare it to. I said, let's do it. And then, you know, the culture there was amazing. We worked hard as hell, but when you're 16 and you're going out for drinks with the big guys at the end of night, it was unbelievable. We would do 18 hour days, then go to the pub, have five, six pints, then come back to it.It was amazing. It was so much fun. And you were learning absolutely heaps. Next thing I know, I started to take it deadly seriously. I started researching and understanding, when all the guys would be talking about the big names, like Pierre Koffmann, Marco Pierre White, Gordon Ramsay, then I started to understand that it was in Europe as well, with all the big guys in France, legends like Ducasse, Robuchon, Gagnaire, Paul Bocuse. I started in my own spare time to dedicate myself to reading; it was only cookbooks, it wasn't YouTube, I would try and buy them or go to charity shops to get these books or the other chefs would share the books. Then I started to really be completely addicted to reading and getting really into the Michelin star. Then on my holidays, my chef would set me up stages and I'd go on my annual leave and go and work in these places in London. London was like the hub of where it was at. Next thing you know, it's not actually a job. You're just in this constant pursuit of trying to get into these amazing places, whether it be eating in them or trying to get a stage or just any kind of exposure whatsoever.
That sounds like an amazing experience, but I imagine, as you say, it's hard graft and to get to that point in, in that time, especially in Europe, you didn't have the, the eight-hour day or restrictions we have here now.
No, that didn't exist. But we didn't want it either. I never in my entire life ever heard anyone in the kitchen complain about the hours, even the guys that were married. It was either you worked in the professional kitchens, the ones that were ambitious, that were chasing the Michelin stars or had an offshoot of another one of the big chefs restaurants, whether it be someone from London or whatever. And then if that wasn't for you and you wanted something that was more approachable, you just went and got a job that didn't have dinner service. That was the landscape. From what I remember, I was very happy doing that. I loved it. It was difficult, but you were spurred on by ambition. You fully bought in to it, you read those cookbooks and the recipes and the photos of the dishes are amazing, but that's not what I actually loved. I loved the first sections of the book. It was about the chef's story. That was way more inspiring because then you were like, oh, fuck, this guy's the same as me.
Then the other thing that always spurred you on was people that looked down their nose at chefs. Even more so front of house, they didn't understand it. People used to always say to me, so what are you going to do for your real job? If you're an ambitious person, then in your mind, you're like, I'll fucking show you. I think there was a lot of that, we were happy and I wouldn't change a single thing about that. Obviously, there's certain things that are clearly not best practice, but that's the same of any job in any generation. We were really happy because we were just learning, and Im talking about just always getting this unbelievable produce coming in, whether it was coming from Scotland, whether it be the game, whether it was immaculate shellfish and fish, and you could see the rigour and the process of the chef and the sous chef trying to make the dishes, but the general manager coming in and providing a little snippets of, oh, you know, I'm concerned about that on the tasting menu, it might take too long to eat, or we can't pair something with that. All the little dramas that would happen and you were completely bought in. At no point are you thinking it was a job. I think that's maybe where that helped as well.
I just spoke to someone recently who was saying that he worked in Edinburgh for a while. He's from Australia, but he was over there and he mentioned that the level of produce was so impressive and that there are families that have been taking care of a particular thing way back. We talk a lot about how great the produce is here, especially from Gippsland, but how does it compare to that?
The produce is completely, utterly different. I don't think it's to compare worse or better. I work very closely with an asparagus and a corn grower here in Cardinia, John Hobson. He is third generation grower. He was 80 three weeks ago, still at the farmer's market. Now his corn, his sunrise corn, his baby corn is absolutely exceptional, he has snow corn as well. Thats a product that is comparable to what comes from France that I've had exposure to. But it's a very different style, purely due to the climate and the way it's grown. Sometimesin Victoria we will get morels, but you cannot compare the morels that you get here to the morels you get in in Europe. Same with the black truffle. I think that there's been seasons here that we've had black truffles better than what I was getting from sometimes from Perigord. I think the produce is very different, but it's all about how much effort is the chef going to put into dealing with the farmer. Because they're very used to just not dealing with chefs who are hands on the product side of things and just shipping it into, you know, to Queen Vic market or to the wholesaler and then the wholesaler dealing with the chef.But if you actually have the relationship I'm having, I get things grown especially for me. For instance, Mark Foletta, my very good friend and grower, his black star cherries are better than majority of cherries I've had in Europe. I take the full 100 kilo harvest that he gets. So, you know, again, we are working year on year where he's saying to me, I'm not happy with this particular flavour profile. I think that's because this happened. I am the soundboard to him and I let him know if I've noticed that when I am preserving them, the flavour's not as concentrated as the previous year. He's a winemaker by trade. So he's making these adjustments. It's very collaborative again. So in terms of, is the produce in somewhere like Scotland just so much better. I think it's very difficult to say that. I don't actually agree with that. I think it just really depends on how much work you are putting into your sourcing. I've had things in Australia that are just absolutely exceptional and second to none of course.You can't tell me that Steve Feletti from Moonlight Flat in Batman's Bay, one of the best oyster producers, you can't tell me that man's any less passionate than the best growers in Britain.
Well, no, absolutely not. I think too, it can sometimes be our own experiences. It's the context that you have them in. I lived in the south of France for a year and everyone says the light is different and so the fruit tastes different in Provence. I had friends who worked at the March dIntrt National where they were exporting all the best apricots and tomatoes, and eating an apricot from there was like eating sunshine.
I completely agree with that and especially in Provence.
But I think that's the same, you know, we have regions here renowned for certain things.
Yes, if you look at Mildura, they produce some absolutely incredible things. I think something that would be a hard press winner that would hands beat something down, it would be something like berries and stone fruit. Now, when you get those kind of apricots, like you're talking about in Provence that are like jam inside, that is their hero, but you would be able to, if you sourced it hard enough, you can find these magical moments in Australia. And I think it's just literally about putting the work in to actually get to it. Something that's a little less sexy would be potatoes. Now I've got a garden, Jones from Warrigal. This guy's given me some potatoes before and, Scotland is famous for its potatoes, especially in places like Blairgowrie, unbelievable, but I've had stuff from Jonesie that I'm like, fuck, that's absolutely incredible. I think it's all tied to memory and sense of occasion. But when you're a chef and you're working with the ingredient, that is very, very different than just looking at something black and white because I need to know how it performs, how it holds, how it travels. What's its yield? These are all contributing to me saying this is a better grown area than over there. Now when, if I'm just making one Pomme Anna at home, whether or not the potatoes are in the style of Ratte potato or whether they are something like a Nicola, at home, I'm making one Pomme Anna, it's not so much of a problem. But you buy 200 kilos of potatoes at premium price per kg. Now if the shape of the cut dramatically impacts the execution of the Pomme Anna for the restaurant team, that's a problem. But then when you speak to the grower Jonesie, and I'll say, for instance, I'll say, I want marble potatoes. And I'll show him. On my computer I have everything documented from all my travels in Europe and in America. I'll say, I want these, they are about 50 cent size, and they weigh five to 10 grams. And Jonesie will say that one, in Australia, we don't have the machinery that when the potatoes are raked from the ground that these get trapped. And two, we can't pay anyone an affordable rate to pick them off the ground. Whereas in Europe, that's something very different. Someone will go on the paddock and pick them up. Whereas here he's telling me, I can't pay someone enough. That means that you are going to buy them, otherwise I'm going to have to charge you $45 a kg. So, you know, there's all these different economic challenges that come into handling produce in restaurants. These are conversations that people don't really see.
You're in the business of creating all those Proustian moments, and as I said, I remember that apricot, from the nineties, but you are creating those moments every dinner service for people and you have to be the kind of person where you are open to suppliers and they trust you with their product as well, as you say, it is very collaborative.
That's taken over 10 years to develop that network. Wherever I go, these guys go. Its the same for ceramicists or the cutlery guy, or the guy who makes all the woodwork. Whoever it is, who has some kind of collaborative thing whenever I've got a new project, I will always, always give them the first refusal. I give very little direction because when you get to know someone's work, it's not as enjoyable to just say, okay, I need a platter for afternoon tea.It needs to be eight centimetres on the bottom. Then the next one up needs to be six. And then that to me is not that awesome. What I would like to say is like, this is how I would like the guests to access it. It's got to be lightweight. I've got to be able to clean it and store it. But apart from that, it's totally up to you. Its much more fun for them and fun for me. Because it doesn't feel like it's just a random commission.
The lifestyle in Melbourne as well is very different to the UK and Scotland. I’ve taken some big risks and had some big opportunities. Things have worked out in a way that I didn’t actually imagine. Slowly it’s just became home. Now I have a terrific team that I’ve been working with, some of the guys I’ve been working with for nearly eight years. I have a great group of friends in the hospitality industry. I just absolutely love Melbourne. I couldn’t see myself going anywhere else. ~ Stephen Nairn
And New York must have been different again.
New York was very different. I was relatively young to move to New York completely on my own with very little money.
Was that because that was the next big challenge?
The thing was, I used to always do stages in London, and I had an opportunity to go to the Ledbury and I'd staged there for a couple of weeks. I thought, I can always come back to the Ledbury, but I can't get this. There was something about the New York restaurants at that time that I just loved. When I worked for that first chef, we went and represented Scotland for a game dinner in New York. I was 18, and because the head chef couldn't go because he would have to run the kitchen in the big chef's absence, I was the next best guy who didn't have the big responsibility, so I managed to go there. But obviously I was going to get pasted for two weeks straight because I would be doing all the cooking. But he took me there and I'd never been in a three star. I'd been to multiple two star restaurants in London, but I'd never been to a three star Michelin at that time. Danielle was a three star, I think Jean George was a three star. This guy took me to all these restaurants. It was a completely different working environment. It was way more regimented and professional in terms of, there was no rock and roll stuff going on there like there was in London. London was the wild west, where this was a little bit more professional. It was much more of a workplace. I just absolutely loved it. I met a big chef over there, a guy called Jason. He was an English guy. He told me not to go to London, but to go to New York. There was a J1 Visa which was much easier to get if you were under 25. He told me I could go to London when I got back because I wouldnt get this visa once. was over 25. They look unfavourably on chefs, once they were over 25. It was a good point. That other guy, who was the great teacher, Craig Sandle, he had decided that he was going to leave the one Michelin star place where I was working, which was like massive for me. I was absolutely gutted. I absolutely loved him. I didnt want to go through a new chef coming in. There's nothing wrong with a new chef coming in. But Id gone to work in that restaurant because Id heard this guy was an amazing teacher and he was patient. Whereas the other environment that I was in, the minute you made one wrong incision into a fish, it was chaos. But this guy, Sandle would ask, have you ever boned out a suckling pig? I'd say, I've not. He would tell me to come in the following Friday on my day off at seven o'clock in the butchery. And then there would be three suckling pegs. He'd spend like five hours showing me how to prepare them. I was dedicated to that guy. He was so kind. So anyway, when he decided he was going to leave, I'd had the exposure to New York and I decided I was going to just write some letters and some emails to all the top kitchens; obviously Eleven Madison Park, Danielle, Jean George, all these. EMP was the one that I wanted because that was like modern as hell. They had a great website. They had these videos were Chef Humes was doing all different kinds of techniques. They replied to my email and said, yes, come and we'll give you a trial. We can't guarantee you anything, but just come for a trial. It was literally like 1500 for the accommodation and the flight. That was like everything I had. So I just rolled the dice, went in, I think I had a two day trial. First day was skills assessment and putting you through the rigour. The second day you had to cook a dish against someone else. And the other guy was from French Laundry. So I was absolutely bricking it. I thought, there's no way I'm going to get chosen over this. But then James Kent, who now has his own one star called Crown Shy and a two-star called Saga, he gave me the opportunity and said, look, we can help you. We can sponsor you, but you need to get the Visa. That was it. I made the call, rolled the dice, and went to New York. Luckily I had a friend who he knew, a guy I'd never met in New York. He said he could put me up for three days. I had three days to find an apartment. Luckily I found something in Harlem, which was upper westside. I got a room in there and managed to just get my head down and get that year long J1 Visa. And that was it. But completely different environment to what I was used to. It was extremely organized on another level. Every avenue of Eleven Madison Park was just filled with passion from the front of house to the Somms, to the office team, to the marketing people, to the chefs, to the kitchen porters. It was just complete professionalism, which was just amazing and, and very inspiring.
I saw a documentary about it.
Was it when they'd done the refurb, was it?
Yes. And it was just like choreography, watching them all work together. How big is the staff?
I don't know what it is now. That was 10 years since I was there. When I was there, we had well over 40 chefs and well over 50, 60 front of house.
God. Well, you'd have to be organized for that to work.
You definitely need to be organized. The workload that we had there, if you were running a section there, just the prep guy, and some guys started on the prep section, and then they'd make their way to the sections. Luckily, I got on cooking straight away. The mise en place list there you would not be able to give that to people these days. They would be saying that it was a mental health challenge. It was an absolutely enormous amount of work and you had a very short space of time to prepare it and everything was made from absolute scratch every single day. It was just incredible. We did a lot of covers. Over 150.
New York was an eyeopener, but just not just for those fine dining moments, but exposure to Mexican food, great burgers, barbecuing, amazing bar culture, phenomenal pizzas, old school hospitality, that kind of very romantic sense that Americans have with how they deliver things. And an amazing arts culture that they've got there, from street performers to museums. It's just an unbelievable place to live and learn. I still reference a huge amount from my time there.
Amazing. I had a few days in New York, but it was a few years ago and there was an arctic, vortex, so it was largely covered in snow, which dampened things for a while. How did you come to Melbourne after that?
I went back to Scotland for three months because my now wife, but at the time when I went to New York, she didn't get a visa. So we were apart for 12 – 15 months. I went back for three months to woo her back. Then she wanted to travel. But deep down, I had no intentions of traveling. When you come out of a restaurant like Eleven Madison Park, you really only want to continue learning. I was happy to go to Melbourne for a little bit and then get to somewhere else that was a big name. So I thought I would only be in Melbourne for six months. Bit it has been nearly 10 years.
And is it the people and the venues that have kept you here?
The lifestyle in Melbourne as well is very different to the UK and Scotland. I've taken some big risks and had some big opportunities. Things have worked out in a way that I didn't actually imagine. Slowly it's just became home. Now I have a terrific team that I've been working with, some of the guys I've been working with for nearly eight years. I have a great group of friends in the hospitality industry. I just absolutely love Melbourne. I couldn't see myself going anywhere else.
Shannon convinced me to stay longer than six months at Vue de Monde and I literally thought, I'll do three months and I'll be out of here. I'll be in Sydney for six months, then hopefully I'll get back to France. I actually had a great opportunity at Troisgros and I was thinking I'll do this like sabbatical for a year, then I can get back to the real stuff. But then, I loved Vue de Monde. Absolutely loved it. After Vue de Monde, I thought, you know what? I'm going to have a crack and try and open a restaurant in Melbourne, because Melbourne's an amazing hospitality scene. I think at that time there was an emergence of these smaller, restaurants, which I know sounds odd because I have Omnia, but those smaller, more humble restaurants, I absolutely love. I thought there was a good space here that I might actually have the opportunity and time to get a venue like that. Then its the lure of the big challenge that sucks you back in. Next thing you know, you're like on a massive journey, like this.
Well, I think lucky for Melbourne that thats the case.
Melbourne's been very good to me. I'm forever in its debt, that's for sure.
Yugen Dining, Yugen Tea Bar, Omnia Bistro & Bar
605 Chapel Street, South Yarra