Tyler Preston is a passionate chef who discovered his love for cooking at just 12 years old in Wellington. After graduating high school, he moved to Melbourne at 18 to start his culinary adventure. With over 20 years of experience, Tyler began his career at the iconic Vegie Bar in Fitzroy, mastering the art of wok cooking. After a brief stint in music and audio engineering, Tyler returned to the kitchen, becoming Head Chef at Melbourne hotspots like Declieu and Seven Seeds and working at Chin Chin. In 2013, he and his wife opened Sir Charles cafe, which was shortlisted for Time Out's Best Cafe. I first met Tyler and chatted to him on the podcast a couple years after that when he was at Dr Morse in Abbotsford and happily caught up with him again when he was in Byron Bay running Bang Bang. During COVID, he founded South East Canteen, offering Asian-inspired private dining and ready-made meals. In 2023, Tyler moved to Bali to join the Milk and Madu Group, launching Longtime, a modern Asian diner and bar. Tyler is thoughtful and articulate when he talks food and hospitality and we discussed the ups as well as the downs of the industry as a whole. There are definite ups where Longtime is concerned. This is an exciting project and Bali is firmly in the travel plans when Longtime opens in August.
How are you, Tyler? I bet that where you are in Bali is a lot warmer than where I am.
I'd say so. It's usually high twenties, mid-thirties. And you would be in a freezing cold Melbourne.
It is really cold. It feels like it's about to rain. How long have you been in Bali now?
Eight months. September last year.
How did that all come around about? You are executive chef of the Milk and Madu Group, is that right?
Technically, yes. It's a group chef role. It was originally meant to be a lead into the role at Longtime. The only reason why I'm here is to open that restaurant. But the timeline was convenient. We were ready to jump ship and just get this thing done. The executive chef of the group had recently vacated. So not only did I end up taking his house, I took his job as well. Well, I basically filled that role. It was supposed to be maybe three or four months max of, creative, get in, revitalize the menu, Melbourne-ify it, modernize it, make some tweaks, do that sort of creative stuff and learn the language as much as I can, understand how things work here, meet the people, so that I wasn't just jumping into a new restaurant, completely blind. But, like anything it can drag out. And in this case it'sdragged out to eight or nine months.
Basically it's been a full-time executive role for the first few months across the venues, thats six or seven places. Theres Ulekan, two Watercress, The Common and then theres another Milk & Madu on the way. We just refined it after a few months when we realised it was going to take a bit longer to get Longtime open. We just refined the role to focus only on Milk & Madu which is still a giant job because there's three of them spread out. They do a thousand covers a day.
A thousand covers a day. Good grief. So is it really booming over? Have things gone back to normal over there in terms of tourism?
Yes, they have. Like everywhere that came out of Covid, there was a boost. We're quite stats driven with this company because it's so big, so you need to be, but we look at figures and that first year out of Covid was the biggest on record. And then the next year was once again massive. This year it's still trending in the right direction, but it's at different times. We thought that this Christmas and New Year was going to be the biggest ever. And it just wasn't. But then February, March I've been extra busy and it's extra busy now. It's usually quiet and there's so many Aussies and Kiwi here. It's ridiculous.
How's your Indonesian going?
Very good. I'm making a point of learning too. I work with Indonesians all day and the Balinese are lovely. Most of the chefs don't speak English. think it's my responsibility to learn. I've always wanted to learn a second language. Learning te reo is one thing, but we never really speak it, do we? You never have a conversation in Maori. I thought I might have missed that boat because there's no reason for me to learn another language living in Australia and then, when I got here it was perfect. It's something I never thought Id get to do. And it's exciting. I really like doing it. I do a lesson every day with one of the front house staff and I make a point of using it as much as possible, even if I don't need to. I can definitely get by and certainly get myself out of a pickle if I need to.
Necessity is a really good teacher. When you've got a reason to learn something, then you do. And I really like that you are, it's really respectful to be in a country and speak their language. Do you need it for suppliers as well?
One of the things that we have here is an entire purchasing department. I don't actually need to really speak to suppliers. Regardless, everyday interactions; going into a shop, just being polite and just speaking the local language gets you a lot further and a lot of benefits, especially because there is such a big tourism culture here. People have certain perceptions of Bali and what you see on online, people being idiots and so on. The majority of people that come here are really respectful and well behaved. But there is that element of hooliganism and shittiness that sort of does impact the way that some locals view you if they think that you're just another tourist . So the moment you show some niceties, speak a bit of a Bahasa to them, they immediately treat you like one of their own.
I guess your cooking is a result of your environment. And if we go right back to the start at say De Clieu, my environment was basically carefree, no rules, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted because I had nothing to lose. And that was at a time when hospitality was still thriving; staffing wasn’t really an issue, inflation wasn’t happening, people were really interested in local cafes and restaurants because it was part of the MasterChef movement and I was young and carefree and almost fearless. So I just cooked things that were fun and interesting. And then as you grow, you have to start fitting into different shapes. And depending on how hands on your owners are or how complex your menus need to be, then it’s less about the creative, more about the logistics. I felt like I just continued and continued right up until Bang Bang and then I just needed to do something free again. That’s why I started the catering business. But I think now my approach is almost back to the start because I’ve got the resources. ~ Tyler Preston, Longtime Bali
It's been quite a long time since I've seen you in person and we spoke on the podcast a long time ago, and since then we ran into you in Byron and you were doing cool things there. How has your approach to cooking changed over time?
It's almost probably gone full circle to be honest. I guess your cooking is a result of your environment. And if we go right back to the start at say De Clieu, my environment was basically carefree, no rules, I could pretty much do whatever I wanted because I had nothing to lose. And that was at a time when hospitality was still ; staffing wasn't really an issue, inflation wasn't happening, people were really interested in local cafes and restaurants because it was part of the MasterChef movement and I was young and carefree and almost fearless. So I just cooked things that were fun and interesting. And then as you grow, you have to start fitting into different shapes. And depending on how hands on your owners are or how complex your menus need to be, then it's less about the creative, more about the logistics. I felt like I just continued and continued right up until Bang Bang and then I just needed to do something free again. That's why I started the catering business. But I think now my approach is almost back to the start because I've got the resources. It is quite a lot to unpack, but the industry has turned and I think I could speak for most chefs, when I say that it forces you to, not necessarily become a 'No chef,' but more a 'can we actually realistically do that chef'. When your boss says, we want you to make noodles and rotis in house. That's pretty much impossible because we're understaffed as it is. Whereas now, my business partners and I talked about making rotis and noodles in house, and now it's yes, absolutely. We'll do that because that's the best option and we can. So, I think my attitude has probably come full circle in a way, but the foundations are always the same. I still like to break rules, but I still find myself heavily rooted in the fundamentals. Especially if I'm doing something outside of Western food. If it's a tonkatsu ramen, I'll do a deep dive into the purest form that I can find of that dish and try and get that to a stage where I will hopefully put it in front of a ramen master, and they would accept it. And then maybe I might start trying to make it my own but usually it would just stay as it is.
How do you get there? You do a deep dive. Where are you diving into? Is it YouTube?
It's always YouTube. There's just so much there. I find if I watch a hundred videos, I might take something from each of them. And then it's just trial and error. Kimchi and ramen took me years.
How do you know when you arrive? Do you just think, I've got it now. Is it that or are you always thinking about tweaking and improving?
That's a good question. I'm always tweaking and trying to improve and sometimes to the detriment. that's just the type of curious nature I have. I'm always thinking, could we do this? Can we do that? In the past I've chefs working with me going, chill out. But what if there's something amazing there to find? I think it's a feeling, once you get to a point where you're completely in touch with the process and you don't need a recipe and you don't need to weigh everything. That's when you can think, well this is now my recipe. This is my item, my dish. And then I would start to get technical. I think when you got that natural feel, That's the spot.
I'm all about uplifting hospitality, but there's still a lot of top-down critique from certain media outlets and so on. Who are you cooking for? Obviously, you're cooking for the diner, but is there a shadow figure of what people will say about your food? I guess Im asking, what drives you?
I think it's just a progression. Once you're in this thing, I've acknowledged that this is my career, I enjoy it, its taking me places. We got to move to a beautiful place in Byron Bay to open what turned out to be, basically the Chin Chin of the north. It's an institution and I'd say we'll be doing the same here at Longtime, filling that niche market. But I don't really cook for anyone. I mean, I cook for everyone. It's my job, and I guess it's my career. I love doing it and it's exciting and maybe I do it for myself. It makes me happy, it's good.
I love seeing people eat food, but look, at the end of the day, I have to enjoy it. You know what, fuck it, I'll do it for me
Great. Tell me about Longtime. It's set to open in August, is that right? Where is it on the island?
It's in Berawa, which is the suburb nestled right next to Canggu. So it's right in the thick of it, you've got Seminyak, Berawa, Canggu, so it's all in that strip there of big suburbs, big beach clubs, awesome restaurants. It's really close. It's on a new strip, like Ghost Kitchen with Tim Stapleworth who was at Supernormal, a Kiwi dude. There's some really cool spots in the strip.
Longtime is a partnership between myself, Jordie Strybos and Pablo Fourcard who are the founders and owners of the Milk & Madu Group and all the restaurants under that banner. Randa Assi is the general manager of the group at the moment. And she is ex Gordon Ramsay. She opened London, New York. We actually worked together randomly for a short term back at the Lucas Group a long time ago. She's a gem and shes the fourth partner and that's us. It's a contemporary, modern Australian Asian bar and restaurant looking at about 140 seats, very much a progression in my culinary journey.
It's still all rock and roll, hip hop, big flavours, Southeast Asian, Japanese, Chinese, but a little bit more refined, a little bit cleaner than Bang Bang. Bang Bang was six years ago and this is where I'm at now.
I read in the press release that there's an eight metre bar? That sounds huge. I'm picking that that drinks will be important as well.
Very important. Yes, the bar is eight metres. Its a beautiful marble bar and it's all one level. So the cocktail bar team is there, they make the cocktail, then put it up on the bar, and they slide it across. It's really intimate, really nice. There will be food at the bar, we will set itevery night as though its a restaurant seat. It'll be a really cool spot
Is it an open kitchen?
Not really, no. The layout didn't really suit it. It is viewable. The pass is four metres open and then there are stained glass windows either side of it. You can definitely see the action and you can feel it, it's not just a hole in the wall, but there's not seating around it and there's no viewing deep inside the kitchen. But once again, our pass is single level. Whatever the chefs are doing there, they're just going to slide it out. All the actionand noise behind front facade will still contribute to the experience.
Will you be on the pans?
No. I'm not on any pans. My role is predominantly an 'in restaurant' role, an on the floor role. I will expedite when required from outside the kitchen and I'll be at tables quite a lot. The vision of Pablo and Jordie is pretty cool. I am glad I'm the beneficiary of it. They know that everyone wants to talk to chef and ask questions and so on. And most of the time the chef is busy in the kitchen. But because we have the resources, we can facilitate more of a modern role where I'll take food out to the tables and be accessible to the guests. So no, it's not a hands on role, obviously I'll be in the kitchen training and during peak hours, I'll be hands on. But no, it's a completely new style chef role.
That's great because in our first conversation we talked about sustainability of not just food and produce and protecting the planet, but also sustainability of chefs. And I think it's a wise move to keep yourself in the game but to change that role, and it sounds like a really nice way of doing it. You're bringing all your expertise to it and it's great. I like it.
I like it too. One of the things that we did talk about amongst all the challenges and struggles of being in hospitality, the thing that kept me was the social aspect and meeting people, that you can just have fun and joke around and take the piss all day. You can't do that in the office. So now for that actually to be an official part of my job description, not just be a larrikin on the clock, but actually, to have to be social, it's great. It's a nice progression and it is a nice departure from the traditional chef role.
That's right. You get all the creativity aspect and then the delivery I guess as well. So it's perfect.
I'm looking forward to it.
I’m always tweaking and trying to improve and sometimes to the detriment. that’s just the type of curious nature I have. I’m always thinking, could we do this? Can we do that? In the past I’ve chefs working with me going, chill out. But what if there’s something amazing there to find? I think it’s a feeling, once you get to a point where you’re completely in touch with the process and you don’t need a recipe and you don’t need to weigh everything. That’s when you can think, well this is now my recipe. This is my item, my dish. Tyler Preston, Longtime Bali
Bali has seasons, but not quite the same seasons as we have here. What does that mean in terms of a menu and seasonality?
Nothing really. It would almost be easier if there were seasons. There's the rainy season and there are some things that you can or can't get. And if it rains too much, things get washed away like herbs. Sometimes it's hard to get things like coriander because the whole valley got washed out. Finding produce here has been one of my biggest challenges. I thought that everything that I could get in Australia, I could get here. And it's quite the opposite. Indonesia has a really strict set of import laws. It's so huge. I didn't really even know, but there's 300 something million people in Indonesia. They pretty much have their own economy. They don't need anything else. So they don't really let you bring things in that they could sell or make themselves. Like my favourite brand of fish sauce and oyster sauce, which I'm accustomed to using, its in all my recipes. You can't get it here even though Thailand's just up the road. You have to use Indonesian brands. All of our beef is imported. We're using Aussie beef, Kiwi beef. Pork we get here. I sourced a local heritage breed black pig, which I'm really happy about because it's a beautiful product. And even things like spring onions, they don't grow big spring onions here very easily. So if I want to use a lot of spring onions, you have to basically slice chives.
But from that, a lot of cool new recipes have come out too. I'm grateful. But if I look back and say, what are the positives? Instead of just falling back on recipes that I've always had, that I've just used again and again, I had to rethink and restart. Which, looking back at it, I probably should have been doing that anyway. So that's the positive. I've come up with some things that if I had hadn't been challenged, I would've just used a version of something I had before.
August is a little way off and I'm not sure where you're at with the menu and whether things might change by then, but what are some examples of some dishes that people could expect at a Longtime?
Well, the menu is done. There are going to be some classics like my five spice braised, twice cooked pork belly with tamarind sauce. That will probably be one of our biggest sellers. We will be making all our own dumplings, prawn and pork dumplings. We've got some beautiful local like hamachi and sashimi.We've got a really nice supply of oysters. They are Canadian. I just don't love the local ones. But we've actually had Carvallo, which is a crockery and plateware company create for us, some ceramic oyster shells. In this climate, keeping things cold and serving things really cold is quite challenging. So, we're going to have these big Canadian oysters served on ice in these frozen ceramic, oyster shaped shooters that come straight out the freezer. Then we've got some fun stuff; we've got a dry ramen, it's not dry as in crunchy, but it's not a soup. It is served with a big slab of bone marrow. We're keeping the menu quite simple and it's wording and then what happens on the plate is always going to be a couple of levels up.I've got a couple of Thai curries. I've always got my massaman curry at Bang Bang was pretty famous. And we've got a version of that. But once again, it's elevated. It has progressed. It's not just curry and meat, potatoes in a bowl tasting delicious. There's a bit of a spin on that. We've reworked it. I don't like really saying a spin, but everything's elevated and becoming its own dish for Longtime specifically. Nothing has been recycled, there's nothing just the same as we've done it anywhere else because it was good. That's not good enough. This place has to have the best and the newest of each thing. It's a process. Pablo and Jordie are really in tune with what's happening out in the world. Their feedback and the way that we work together has been really productive. I'm stoked. And the menu's feeling really good.
That's so great. Perhaps just to finish off with, because now you've had all these different experiences: you've had a really varied career and at one point you thought about getting out of it and going more of a music way. But then you came back into it and it sounds like you're really excited by things. What would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?
Oh, Jo, thats such a stitch up. I don't know, man. It's a massively loaded question. Working in Northern Rivers over the last six years, staffing became the hardest thing. And then you'd get a kid who really wanted to do it and he'd tell you, I want to do it. And you'd say, look, you're going to be on a section for six months learning. You're not going to move. And they'd be like, yeah, yeah. And then two weeks later they're asking why they are not the head chef. So I don't know if I answer that question. Is there anyone out there listening? Are the young chefs still coming through? Does anyone actually want to hear it? I still talk to all my buddies back home and obviously I read the news. What's happening in that industry. If it's not broken, it's breaking. Where is everyone? Where are the chefs? What incentive is there? If someone was listening to my answer, I don't know what I would say.
Well, maybe it's more, what do we say to the industry? That's a much bigger question, The people that I speak to, you all love it. It is certainly hard and it's certainly got many challenges, but you do love what you do. And it would be great if we could sell that to young people.
That's a fair point. I love work, but I don't feel like I really have a job. I get to be creative. I get to travel. I had a conversation with a young guy last week. He'd been working at McDonald's. And I said to him, that's actually a good place to work because they have great systems and they set you up. But he said, oh, I quit. I said, why? Because in my head I'm thinking well, this is what's wrong, isn't it? Of course you didn't like it. I didn't like my first job. It was horrible. It was the hardest job I've ever had to this day. But that's what sets you up. I told him, I get to travel, I get to eat a lot. I get to hang out with cool people. Those are the positives. But on the flip side, if I'm in a bar and someone asks me about hospitality and what do we say to the industry? It's the second largest industry in Australia and it seems like every piece of legislation or every rule change or every tax advice is geared to squeeze it and just kill it. There are no incentives. There's no real government support. The award rate is a good example. I don't think there's in any other industry where a law says that someone unskilled, untrained with no experience and walking off the street and immediately gets by the letter of the law, 75 to 80% of the wage that the head chef might be getting. You've never seen an apprentice walk onto a job site and get 80% of the wage that the foreman gets. The foreman's on $300 grand, the apprentice is on $30 grand. But in hospitality they can walk in and get 32 bucks an hour. The head chef might only be getting 40. So that's a problem. Who decides who decides what the award, the award is? Because it's terrible.
Payroll tax is four and a half per cent on top of super. And not everyone really knows this, but this is a throwback to either the first or second World War when the government didn't want companies growing too large because they wanted everyone to stay in their little pockets. If you had more than 20 staff, you'd have to start paying an extra amount of tax. That never got taken away. We are still paying 5% payroll tax. It's a tax on just having staff. Shouldn't the incentive be the more staff you have, the more people you employ, the less tax you have to pay? It's completely backwards and I personally got very, very tired of it. That and all the other red tape. Northern Rivers was an absolute quagmire.
Is it different over there? Can you get staff over there?
I'll just say this, we put up an advertisement for recruitment fair and we were staffing the entire venue of Longtime, maybe 50 or 60 staff. From all the CVs that we received, I filtered through over a hundred and chose a pile of good candidates. And we spent one entire day doing interviews and we hired the entire staff: Front of House and Back of House. And that was selecting the best. Mind you, Milk & Madu does have a reputation for being a good employer to work for. I'm grateful for that. And there is the incentive here to work for busier places there's service tax and staff get their share of 6% of their revenue, which is pretty good for them. It's an enforced tip. You come here, you buy dinner, you don't tip anyone, it's included in the price. All the menus say it. That amount is set aside and it's divvied up between all the staff. So of course everyone wants to work in the biggest busiest venues.
That's good to hear. And they probably do work and want to work.
Oh, they're so happy. Honestly, I haven't been an angry chef for a long time. I always tried not to be, but you know, when you are working your ass off and you've got a front of house backpacker who just couldn't give a shit and it's your heart and soul on a plate and they don't care, that affects you. But they're so happy here, everyone's smiling, the Hindu culture also plays a big part in that. They're also polite, they really respect hierarchy and seniority. There's really no reason for anyone to be upset.
What are you most looking forward to about opening?
I think that's it. Just opening. I think when ou see your vision and all your hard work come to life and it's like when you say, oh this is my baby, it's like watching something grow up, you raise it and I think with any opening, you get that initial hit of opening and then the best part is when it's just humming along and it's all just working nicely and everyone's happy. I think I really look forward to seeing that. That's when you know you've really done the work. Anyone can open, but can you sustain that buzz, that standard or can you take that standard 1, 2, 3, 4 months down the track and then have it humming it up and set up and it's good enough that you can maybe take a step back and start talking with your business partners about the next project.And then, you know, you do that again and again and again. You know, that's the, the most that one I can talk to the most is just putting this one on and just showing Bali what we can do.
Longtime,Jl. Pantai Berawa No.13, Tibubeneng, Kec. Kuta Utara, Kabupaten Badung, Bali 80361, Indonesia