Timothy Sharp

Conversation with a chef: Hi Tim, it’s lovely to meet you. You’ve got a very rich story to tell. You were a chef for 15 years, and now you’re doing something quite different. How did you get into cheffing in the first place? What drew you to hospitality?

Tim Sharp: My parents were not very good cooks. Love them both to death, no shade to them at all, but not very good. When I was a kid, I’d go to friends’ houses and some of their parents were really good cooks. I’d say to my mum, “Why doesn’t our food taste like so-and-so’s food?” And my mum said, “Well, if you think that food tastes so good, ask for a recipe and then you can cook it yourself.”

I obviously took that as a challenge. I’d ask for the recipes and go, “All right, Mum, here’s the recipe they gave me. This is what I need. Can we go to the grocery store and buy it?” Then I started cooking, and it just made sense. Food has always made sense when not everything else in the world makes sense.

From then on I cooked two or three times a week. Eventually Mum and I would go grocery shopping once a week and she’d ask, “What do you want to cook this week?” I’d say, “I’m gonna cook this on Monday, this on Tuesday. We’ve got a sporting event on Wednesday, so maybe we’ll get pizza that night.” I was planning most of what we ate throughout the week.

I finished high school, got a job as a kitchen hand, which very quickly led to an apprenticeship, and I was in the game. I was qualified by 19 and head chef by 21 at a place in Brisbane. It all moved real quick.

So you’re originally from Brisbane?

No, from here. About three months after I qualified, I got offered a head chef job up there. They were willing to cover relocation costs and all that stuff. I’d just turned 21 and thought, “Cool. Let’s do it.” Fresh challenge, let’s go.

Had you been a sous chef?

I was doing a senior CDP slash sous chef role for probably the last 18 months of my apprenticeship. Our sous chef had quit and I filled the spot while I was still an apprentice. Doing the role but getting paid apprentice wages, as is the nature of hospitality.

I thought at the time I knew the ins and outs of all that stuff. Menu writing was always my strong suit. Costing, not so much. But that’s often the way.

And what about leadership, working with a team?

I think I’ve always been reasonably good at that. I grew up doing martial arts and was pretty good at it, so I knew how to lead teams. Very much “do as I do”, lead by example, rather than “do as I say”. I’m not going to say, “I’m not doing this, this is your shitty job.”

As head chef, I’d be the first one in the dish pit if the dishes were getting swamped. I’d jump onto someone else’s section if we were getting dicked in the middle of service. I wasn’t going to say, “I’m the head chef, so I’m just going to call these dockets from the pass.”

Part of it was being so young. I was always trying to prove that just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m no good.

What about the team you were leading? Were they the same age as you, or older?

I was the youngest.

How did that go?

Everyone was very apprehensive at first, which I think was rightfully so. If I was still full-time in kitchens now and some 21-year-old walked in and said, “I’m the head chef now,” even with my own history I’d still think, “All right, you’ve got some proving yourself to do there, buddy.”

I understand the apprehension, especially now as an older chef. But for the most part I think I earned that respect. Within eight months of my being there, the restaurant got a hat.

Wow. Congratulations.

Thank you. I think the work I was doing was speaking for itself in what we achieved in such a short period of time. Obviously, it wasn’t just me. It was the whole crew. I’m not going to be the one who says, “I’m the head chef, it was all me and you guys didn’t do anything.”

There were many services where I was the one in the shit and they were pulling me out of it. Because I’d done that for everyone else, they were able to do it for me as well, rather than, “Here’s the head chef, let him drown. Fuck him.”

Was it modern Australian?

Modern Australian with Italian inspiration, because I did my apprenticeship on Lygon Street, so Italian was my bread and butter.

I was at that restaurant for about 18 months, then went on to become the head chef of a brewery in Brisbane. I was there for about three or four years. That was a bit more low-key. It wasn’t fine dining. We made it refined dining, modern Australian. I took burgers and pizzas off the menu and made everything a little bit nicer, a step up from what it was.

You’d still come up to the bar to order, but you’d be served something and think, “Oh, all right, this is a little bit interesting, a little bit different.” I really enjoyed that. As much as I liked the fine dining stuff, it was a lot of pressure, especially at a young age. Doing something refined and creative without getting there at nine in the morning, leaving at 11 at night, six days a week, was more my speed.

Once I got to the point where I thought, “All right, let’s find my place in the world again,” I went and worked for Scott Pickett. I was part of the team that helped open Chancery Lane. Scott at the time was seven or eight years sober, I think. I don’t know how much you know about him or how well you know him. He’s fiery. I’ve got a lot of respect for him and what he’s done. Him and I clashed a lot. We’d clash in the kitchen about the job and then go outside. I still smoked cigarettes at the time, and he smokes cigarettes. We’d have a cigarette and talk about sobriety and addiction. He was very much a leading hand in that regard.

Timothy Sharp

I’ve heard, and it could be changing, that Brisbane has a different pace of hospitality to Melbourne. Everything happens a lot earlier in the day. Is that right?

Most of the time. Everywhere other than fine dining restaurants, we’d be finishing service a quarter to eight. I’d start packing the kitchen down at 7.30. Last orders would come in around quarter to eight, and more often than not you’d be out the door by 8.30. I’ve worked places here where at 11.30 we’re still serving mains.

It was a slower pace. I can’t speak for now because I haven’t lived there since 2018, but people would take their time to sit and eat a meal. It wasn’t hour-and-a-half cover turnovers. People were booking and staying for three hours. They’d be drinking, spending money on entrées, eating them and having three drinks before even thinking about ordering mains. It was a long, drawn-out experience, whereas it’s a lot faster paced here.

Which is not great, is it?

I like to just sit and chat and talk shit.

I always thought it was because the weather was so good up in Brisbane. Everyone gets up really early and exercises, and then they go to bed.

That’s probably part of it. The first thing I noticed when I moved back to Melbourne was that I moved back in winter and I couldn’t get up before nine or ten in the morning because it was so dark outside. In Brisbane, even in winter, the sun’s up at six. I’d sleep with the blinds up, wake up when the sun came up, go for a walk at six, go to the gym, then start my day.

In Melbourne I’d sleep with the blinds up and the sun would never be up until 9.30. “Fuck, I’m late for everything!” It’s just wild.

There’s a sort of malaise that comes over people in winter in Melbourne as well. They just stay inside.

The seasonal depression.

I think it’s funny because I come from New Zealand, obviously, with my accent. I’m always surprised that here the autumn can go on for so long and it’s so beautiful. As soon as it gets cold, Melbourne people say, “Oh, this winter’s too long.” It’s been one weekend!

“Brother, can’t do this!” I remember I lived in Brisbane for about five years and I wore pants about 11 times. Maybe 12. It was shorts all year round.

Do you have access to different fish and produce up there, or is it much the same?

It’s largely the same as we get down here. The stuff from Moreton Bay and Mooloolaba is definitely cheaper up there and easier to get fresh. A lot of what you get down here from up there comes in frozen. Shock horror to anyone who loves to know about frozen seafood. But it’s a lot easier to get it fresh up there, which is amazing. Fresh seafood from those areas is just fucking incredible.

Did you come back here because you’d had enough, or did you have a job lined up?

There was a café I used to work at down here very sporadically while I was still doing my apprenticeship, and I knew the owner pretty well. He’d already opened one burger restaurant and was opening a second.

While I was living up there, I’d come down every six to eight months for a week or so to help with the menus at the café and burger place. I was consulting, tidying things up, because he didn’t really have a chef running things for him. He had a bunch of cooks, and he wasn’t a kitchen person. He was a front-of-house hospitality person, so he needed someone to shape things a little bit.

He offered me an executive chef role across all three venues. I was 25 at this point, so I thought, “All right, cool.” It was a similar deal to moving up to Brisbane, with relocation costs covered. I’d been there a while, and I was very young when I left Melbourne. I thought I’d come back and see what it was all about.

That was mid-2019. I did that for eight or nine months, and then COVID. Two of the three shut. The café stayed open, but it was a café, and realistically they couldn’t afford my exec chef wage with one business open.

I said, “I understand the situation we’re in. I’m not going to send you broke trying to pay me.” I gave them time and wrote up about six months’ worth of menus, all costed. I said, “Here you go. Change your menus. It’s all using stuff you already order, so your ordering lists don’t change. I’m good.”

At that same time, I got sober. It was a very big transitional period for me.

Then the lockdowns started lifting. There was probably a 12-month window where I didn’t do much, partly because of COVID and partly because I was newly sober and thinking, “I’m probably not going to go outside because there’s bad things and the world is scary.”

Once I got to the point where I thought, “All right, let’s find my place in the world again,” I went and worked for Scott Pickett. I was part of the team that helped open Chancery Lane. Scott at the time was seven or eight years sober, I think. I don’t know how much you know about him or how well you know him. He’s fiery. I’ve got a lot of respect for him and what he’s done. Him and I clashed a lot. We’d clash in the kitchen about the job and then go outside. I still smoked cigarettes at the time, and he smokes cigarettes. We’d have a cigarette and talk about sobriety and addiction. He was very much a leading hand in that regard.

Even though we clashed professionally a lot, he never let that get in the way of being a mentor for me. That really meant a lot because to him I was just some guy who’d come to work for him, part of the opening team. I was just a CDP, not even senior. I was working my section and that was it. He didn’t have to go out of his way the way he did for me.

A lot of people have a lot of opinions about him. From everything he did for me, despite our professional differences, I think he’s a good person and he helped me a lot.

I just spoke to a chef in Kyneton who opened Chancery Lane. Rob Kaboord.

Rob! I’m actually planning on going to have lunch with him in about two weeks. He was the head chef at Chancery Lane when Scott was the exec, so I was part of that same team with Rob.

I loved talking with Rob. He’s so great.

Phenomenal. I haven’t seen him in about three years, but we were texting about a week ago. I texted him and said I wanted to come up and see him. He texted back and said, “Here I was thinking you were being rude and didn’t reply to me, but I didn’t reply to your message and I’ve just realised. So I’m replying now. Come up anytime.”

Oh, you’ll love it.

Rob’s food is incredible. I’ve not met anyone who’s got a mind like he does. I think it was New Year’s 2021. We sat at the bar together. He had a beer, I had a beer, and we said, “Happy New Year.” That was it. He’s a phenomenal dude. Got a lot of time for Rob.

So when did the decision to step out of hospitality happen?

It was gradually, and then all at once. I developed a condition called cholinergic urticaria, which basically means heat rash. What happens is, because I’ve been in kitchens so long, my body’s baseline that it requires to sweat is really high. I very often don’t reach that threshold to start sweating. My body will try to start sweating but doesn’t actually get hot enough to do it. It releases all these neurotransmitters, called choline, which is what tells your body to sweat, but they don’t do anything because I’m not hot enough to sweat. Then my white blood cells attack the choline and I break out in hives.

It started probably in 2022 and initially it was treatable with antihistamines. I’d take an antihistamine and be fine. Then in 2023 the antihistamines stopped working, and three or four hours into every shift in the kitchen I’d start breaking out in hives, getting really itchy and uncomfortable. I couldn’t deal with it.

There were referrals, doctors, dermatologists, all that. I got put on immunosuppressants, which worked for a little while but caused other issues: hip inflammation, joint pain, fatigue, low energy.

While this was going on I was right into gym training and had started studying to be a PT. I was thinking the PT side of things might be the way forward, but with all the joint pain caused by the immunosuppressants, it made my own training hard. It was a catch-22. Sure, I’m not itchy, but I’m in constant pain trying to do anything remotely physical.

I never really got an answer for it. It was just, “Take more of these immunosuppressants. They’ll sort it.” But this is shutting down my immune system. There’s a finite amount I can take before I’m fucked, basically.

I hit that and my GP said, “Just go off them. See what happens.” The urticaria came back full force.

While I was on immunosuppressants, even when they weren’t working, I was still in kitchens here and there, working casually at an RSL. Some weeks that was one day, some weeks three or four. Some weeks I’d get an hour into a shift and have to go home. It was so unpredictable. I couldn’t be part of a team and consistently do what I was supposed to do, let alone try to survive. I didn’t know a way forward.

I’d got the PT thing off its feet and was doing meal prep for myself at home when I could. Even the home kitchen could make me too hot. I’d put something on the stove and the heat would be too much. I’d go and have a cold shower, turn the heat right down on whatever was on the stove and think, “Please don’t burn.”

That’s full on.

It was unreal. People had seen me bring in the meal prep I’d been making for myself and said, “You’re a PT but also a chef. You could do meal prep.” I said, “I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose I could.”

That snowballed. Some people wanted meals, then quite a few people wanted meals. Eventually I thought, “The home kitchen is far too small for me to do this.” I went back to the RSL where I’d been working sporadically and asked if I could hire their kitchen while they were shut, from two to five, once a week.

Then it got too big for that. A friend of mine who runs a winery, they’re shut Mondays and Tuesdays, said I could hire the winery on a Tuesday. So I moved into doing that.

Because that venue was completely unoccupied, when I got too hot I’d go outside and pour water all over myself, wait until I was an appropriate temperature, go back into the kitchen and keep doing what I was doing. Rinse and repeat.

Eventually, on the urticaria side of things, a Reddit thread I was part of said, “If you’ve got urticaria, you just need to force your body to sweat.” I thought, “I’ve been trying. Trust me, I’ve been trying.”

Someone suggested an infrared sauna and a friend of mine had one. I was at the point where I thought, “Either this is going to be the single most painful thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’m going to want to flay my skin off my body, or it’s going to work. Let’s give it a go.”

I tried it. I sat there feeling pretty itchy for six or seven minutes, but then I started sweating. That night was the first night in probably 12 months that I hadn’t woken up itchy in the middle of the night. I thought, “Okay, cool. So the sauna is the way to go.”

One of the gyms I was training at had a sauna too, so I was using a sauna two or three times a week, either at the gym or my friend’s house. All of a sudden I could be in the kitchen again, doing meal prep for all these people and being functional.

I was back in the kitchen. The menu I’d written was food I wanted to make, but macro-friendly. I was doing everything on my terms now.

Amazing. Are the meals for people who are weight training?

Anyone, really. They’re healthy meals that I like. They’re geared to be reasonably protein-heavy, just because if you’re training, that’s what you want.

What’s an example?

My current menu has chicken korma with brown rice, teriyaki chicken with white rice, chilli con carne with white rice, smoky pulled pork with hand-cut potato wedges, beef brisket ragù with spaghetti, chicken rosé rigatoni, slow-cooked brisket with sweet potato mash. I do a chia seed pudding and a protein brownie. It’s 11 or 12 items.

Do people buy a week’s worth? How does it work?

At the moment there’s a seven-meal minimum to order, but I’m changing it in the new year. I’m about to close for all of December. Come the new year, I’m doing subscription-type packs where you can buy a month’s worth and the minimum is 20, which would be five a week.

If you pay upfront for the month you get credits, and those will give you either free meals or add-ons. Every time I change the menu I release a little PDF recipe book of my previous menu, so you can use the credits to buy that recipe book.

I hate repeating menu items. I’ve had people say, “When’s this coming back on the menu?” I tell them, “I’m not doing that, but I’ve got a recipe book. If you want, you can make it.”

I never enjoyed bringing back old favourites in restaurants. Now it’s entirely up to me. I do what I want, as long as it meets the macros people are going to want to eat. I don’t want to repeat myself, so I’ll sell the recipe book.

How many people order from you?

It varies weekly, but I do between 120 and 160 meals a week.

Wow. You’ve really made a little niche for yourself.

It’s tapping into the two markets I was already loosely part of and thinking, “How do I make all of this work together?”

Because it’s all my own thing, I write the menu. It’s always food I want to eat. One thing I hated about working in restaurants was the owner saying, “Make sure you put this on the menu, make sure you put this on the menu.” I understand it’s your restaurant, it’s your venue and you want it on the menu. That’s fine. Also, I personally fucking hate that dish. With this, it’s entirely whatever I want to do. I change the menu every three months. Clean slate.

You were saying before that menu creation was always your strong suit. Obviously you’ve got a full repertoire from all the years you’ve been cooking. Where do you get your inspiration? Does it just come to you, or do you look things up?

It’s a mix. Anyone who’s ever written a menu would understand that sometimes you have no idea where something comes from. It’s just, “I think that’d be nice. Oh, that’d be nice with that. What if I did it this way?” And all of a sudden you’ve got this dish you’ve pulled out of the air. There was no aha moment. A little idea appears somewhere and the creative parts of your brain roll upon it, and suddenly you’ve got a dish.

A lot of what I do now is that. Other parts are just, “I really feel like eating this.” If I’m making it every week, I can eat it every week, so I’ll put it on the three-month menu. By the time the three months are over and I change the menu, I’m sick of it anyway.

I had spaghetti bolognese on there entirely because I wanted to eat bolognese every week. It ended up being one of my bestsellers, so it worked pretty well.

You can’t argue with a good bolognese.

Exactly. A lot of it is just that I want to eat it, so why not make it every week and have a reason to eat it?

And you do the personal training as well? You must be really busy.

Sleep is not something I get a lot of, and time off is somewhat fleeting. I’m in the gym probably four days a week and in the kitchen one or two. I do a prep day on Monday and Tuesday is my full cook and portion day. Sometimes it’s a short day; sometimes it’s a very long day.

There have been times I’ve done prep on Monday, got in on Tuesday at nine in the morning and left at about 3.30 the following morning, then been back at the gym at 10.30. That’s what you do when it’s your business.

You’ve got to weigh everything. Not that you’re not precise in a professional kitchen, but you’ve got to be more precise when it’s a macro label and you’re saying this is exactly how much is in there. Two or three grams either way is probably the most swing it can have.

Funny, I was talking yesterday to a chef from America who got in touch because he wanted to share his story. For a time he worked for Delta Air Lines. He was saying that, for different reasons, they have to weigh everything because of everything that goes onto a plane. I’d never even thought of that. It’s on the plate or it’s in your stomach. It’s all weight. He was saying when something was meant to have four grams of parsley and people just chucked parsley on, you couldn’t do that. I was amazed. You’re weighing for different reasons. And you’ve written a book. Was it initially for yourself, as a kind of therapy, and then to share your story in the hope that it might help other people?

Initially it was very much just, “I’m doing this for me.” It was journalling more than anything. There was a lot of my life I didn’t really remember. Not necessarily from trauma. I think it was just growing up neurodivergent, then becoming an addict, and my entire life revolving around food for the better part of ten years. If it wasn’t in that wheelhouse, my brain went, “Eh, not important,” so I didn’t remember it.

The more I started writing, the more I started remembering, and the more I remembered, the more I wanted to write. It ended up becoming a book, unintentionally laid out in a way that someone could follow: early days of my life, cooking career, addiction, getting sober.

I showed it to a couple of people and they said, “You could publish this. You don’t have to do much to get this to be a book.” I’d never even thought about that. So I spent maybe three or four months tweaking it, and then thought, “Ah, fuck it, I’m just going to release it.”

I put it on Amazon, which is surprisingly easy. I had no idea. As long as your manuscript meets their formatting standards, you can upload it and have it approved and published in less than ten days. I didn’t expect much. I think I’ve sold about 65 copies in almost 12 months.

Congratulations. It’s huge, putting out a book.

Thank you. I thought my mum and her friends would buy it and that would probably be it. To have 60-something people buy it from, I think, 11 or 12 different countries is actually pretty cool.

It’s a really interesting story.

Thank you. I’m in the midst of writing a second one, because I apparently don’t stop. Sleep is not my friend, so I just do other things. I’m about halfway through what I suppose is the sequel.

Maybe it’ll be made into a movie. Who would play you?

Ryan Gosling. He’s done a couple of movies where he’s played characters with face tattoos, so it kind of suits. And I just like Ryan Gosling.

Amazing. Well, thank you. It’s been so nice to hear your story, and thanks for getting in touch.

Sharp Power and Performance