Zoe Birch

Hi Zoe, it’s really lovely to be here at Greasy Zoe’s in Hurstbridge.

I hope you enjoyed the drive out.

I actually really did.There’s a point where it changes, where you come off the Hume and start driving through some really beautiful rolling hills, and that’s when my heart gives a little leap because it’s so nice to get out of the city.

It’s like going from concrete city, literally, to green wedge.

That’s right. And you were just saying, it is actually still part of Melbourne, but it feels like it’s a little village in the mountains somewhere. You’ve been here for nine years, and you made that decision with your partner, Lachlan, to open something on your own. How did you find Hurstbridge and the space?

Lachlan grew up in Warrandyte, and then his parents built a house in the Christmas Hills, which is part of the Nillumbik, which is where Hurstbridge is, but it’s also a little bit close to the Yarra Valley. Lachlan’s mum, Kylie, was, for a good long while, a sourdough baker. Greasy Zoe’s used to be a little organic fruit and veg shop, and Lachlan’s mum, Kylie, sold her bread in this very building. When the owners of the little organic shop decided that they weren’t going to do it anymore, and Kylie knew that Lachlan and I were pretty frustrated. We didn’t know if we were going to keep on going with hospitality. We were weighing up our options. Kylie just came up to us and said, well, look, I don’t know if it’s suitable, but this building is available. Maybe you should just go and have a look and see if that works. And we did. When we walked in, it was very different to what it is now. There were walls everywhere. But I don’t know, Lachlan and I walked in, and it was just such a nice vibe. I’m so sick of that word, but it was a nice vibe. It felt right. It’s strange to say, but it was actually a smaller space than now because of these strange walls everywhere. But, I mean, you’re in here, it’s tiny. It’s basically like a living room. But for us, we thought, oh, we can definitely make this work. We can do it with just the two of us. We’ve both been working in hospitality for such a long time. We were really confident with what we did. Our friends and family were super concerned. They weren’t sure if this was a good idea: end of the line, Hurstbridge. I think when we first opened it, it was about 12, 14 seats, so it was more than what we do now. We were calling it Greasy Zoes. People were a little bit worried, and they weren’t shy about telling us. Lachlan and I opened this when we were both 28 years old and we didn’t have kids and we didn’t have any responsibility at that time. We didn’t own a house and it was just like, well, let’s just give it a go. We had worked for so many other people, and we had our own concept of what we wanted to do, and we couldn’t find a place where we could do that. We thought, let’s just put our money where our mouth is, give it a go. If it doesn’t work out, it’s fine, and at least we can say that we did it, but if it does work out, then that’s great. We can create a lifestyle business. So we did, and as with all small businesses, it took a while. The locals weren’t 100% on board at first because it was very different. Even though we’re only 45 minutes from the Melbourne CBD, there was nothing like it in the area. We were essentially a relatively fancy restaurant. We were doing all these dishes that people had never seen before. There was a bit of pushback. But then there was a lot of support as well, from people in the area that drive all the way into the city. And now we were here. It took a while. It took a good year, I reckon, before people really embraced what we were doing and accepted it. Obviously in that time, things were changing, people were learning more about food and all that sort of stuff. It’s been an amazing journey, nine years on.

Well, you would have been one of the first micro restaurants in Australia.

Honestly, we didn’t do that on purpose. We had worked in hospitality our whole lives, so we just didn’t have any money. We didn’t have the option. I just don’t think we had the option of staff or an incredibly expensive fit out. For us, it was like, okay, cool. It’s a space we can manage just the two of us. The rent is relatively affordable. It’s at the train line, which is really good for getting people from different areas. So we didn’t really do it on purpose. It wasn’t like we sat down and said, let’s be the first micro restaurant ever. It just actually happened like that. And I’m so proud that we came up with such a unique idea and just did it because I’m 38 now and I don’t know if I would necessarily have the confidence to do that now just because I’ve got so much more baggage now being older. I think you become a little bit more conservative as you get older. There’s so much more at stake. I’m really glad that we did it when we were that age and then we just stuck to our guns and we just said to everyone, we understand that you are concerned, and even to the locals, we understand that you don’t get it, but I swear we know what we’re doing and you just need to give us a bit of time. I’m really proud that we actually did that.

Everything here is a reflection of Lachlan and I. I wanted people to see that. It would be strange if you couldn’t just have a conversation with me in the kitchen. There’s nothing to hide. You are at our home for dinner. Lachlan’s going to pour you wine. I’m going to cook for you and you can chat to me throughout the experience.

Zoe Birch, Greasy Zoes

The idea of a set menu, was that the idea was from the outset?

No. When we first opened, we were cautious, I would say. Now we do eight seats. When we first opened, it was about 12 to 14. The way that the actual dining room was set up was a little bit different. We had a printed menu, which we don’t do anymore. And it was literally a couple of snacks, three mains, and a couple of desserts, and you could choose or we had two set menu options, and it was basically, you can eat the whole thing, or we’ll add a couple of dishes. At first people did the grazing thing, got the odd set menu. We progressively got quite busy, which was great. And then 8 months in, I got pregnant with our first child. We took a little break over the summer period just to sit and reflect, which we do every year, and it’s a great idea. If you own a small business, even though it is a bit of a financial burden to take time off, especially if you’re a small team. But we do it every year because it’s nice to step away, reflect, come into the new year with new ideas. We took some time off, reflected, and decided just to do the set menu. We thought, we’ll do a small set menu, we’ll have two options and we’ll roll with that. We were concerned at first about whether people would get it. We’d already had a little bit of pushback from the community. People got it straight away. It was great. Then we progressively chopped and changed and took seats out. I think that when we first opened the restaurant, the concept was always going to be smaller than what it was, but we also were aware that we needed to get the word out, get bums on seats, make a little bit of money. It literally went to plan really well. We started off a little bit bigger, went to the set menu completely, and then we took some seats out, and we’ve been rolling with this since COVID, the eight seats. I think eight is the Goldilocks number for us. Over COVID, we could only do six and I think it’s just a little too quiet, even though it’s a very tiny space. But with 8 people, there’s more ambiance, there’s more chatter. You get a little bit more of a buzz, I think.

It really feels like I’ve come into someone’s home. It’s so cosy and with the wood on the ceiling and the brick and the wood detail. There’s a lot to look at. But there really is nowhere for you to hide. How was that initially? Were there things that you learned about yourself because of that?

Oh, I don’t know. I’ve worked in a lot of open kitchens, but I also think that Lachlan and I don’t have anything to hide. We are really confident with what we offer, and we want people to know that. I don’t necessarily think that every restaurant is truthful all the time, it’s really easy to write on a menu that it’s seasonal and local, but it’s not necessarily true all the time. Whereas for us, the places that we get our fruit and veg from, they’re our friends and we talk to them and we see them regularly. We’re using local spirits and the tables are handmade from locals and the plates are handmade and everything here is a reflection of Lachlan and I. I wanted people to see that. It would be strange if you couldn’t just have a conversation with me in the kitchen. There’s nothing to hide. You are at our home for dinner. Lachlan’s going to pour you wine. I’m going to cook for you and you can chat to me throughout the experience.

As you say, you are who and what you say you are. It is sustainable. Waste is important. And local, hyper local is important. You were talking about it being your friends who are suppliers. It feels like there must be a real community here. How do you get to know who’s doing some of these cool things?

It’s literally word of mouth. If someone’s not sending me an email or an Instagram saying, Zoe, I’ve got strawberry gum or I’ve got excess this, or would you be interested in that? Another person saying to me, have you heard about Tom? He’s at the Healesville Market. Have you met him before? Sounds exactly like what you would want to do. It’s literally a matter of word of mouth, somebody rocking up one day and just saying, I’ve got quinces if you want to buy them. I’ve put it out there that if you’ve got stuff, tell me and I’ll buy it. When we first opened, we were living in Christmas Hills. It’s very close to here. I only knew about some of the people based in farmers markets that I went to. I did a bit of research on the area, but then I also had a lot of people after we had opened, just approach us. A lot of the people we get produce from are, if they don’t have on-site farm gate, they are at markets. We’re not big enough to be able to fully support them. We’ve got quite a few people that we do get fruit and veg from because everyone does something a little bit different. We’ve got a farm in St. Helena called Caring Farms Co-Op that we get seedlings from. They grow a lot of specialty items, which is really nice, but then we get a lot of bulk veg from Strathewen. They do eggs, they used to do mushrooms. We used to get our mushrooms from them, but then they also do broad beans, garlic. And then we get a little bit of stuff from Timbara Farm, and they do really restauranty stuff: the pretty leaves. They’re actually amazing botanists and they supply a lot of seeds to places, which is kind of impressive.

You’re changing the menu every day. Does it feel like a chore to come up with something each service?

It’s just natural. The whole menu doesn’t change every service, because I think that you would lose consistency. For example, we just had the week off for Easter which is nice. I don’t write anything that I do down. I don’t like to remember anything that I do. So each year, when a an item of produce comes in, like quinces are sort of slowly staying to come in and we’ve just had all this corn. I’ve been getting beetroots. I just got cherry guavas, which I’m very excited about. When it comes in, I go, oh, cherry guavas. Oh, what did I do with those last time? Oh, I can’t remember. That’s fine. I’m going to do this this time. It’s a fun game of working out the problem or putting the puzzle piece in the right place. I really enjoy it. Sometimes I get stuck, but often a lot of the ideas I have just actually happen while I’m doing service. I’ll be serving something and I’ll be like, oh,  actually, I think that that would go better with the broad beans and maybe I’ll do it like this. I like this dish, but maybe tomorrow I’m actually going to do this, this and this. It’s a bit of a natural progression, I would say.

I guess because you’ve got a repertoire of flavours and textures and combinations. I just think that’s incredible. Do you get inspiration from elsewhere? Do you look at books or online?

I do have a lot of books, but they’re more for very specific things, like fermenting or making miso or stuff like that, cheese making, things like that, technical things. But in terms of really pretty books, I don’t have a lot of those. I don’t want to see something amazing that someone’s done and make it. I’d prefer to go and eat somewhere and be, that was delicious. I’m going to make sure I never do that. It’s nice to gather inspiration from what people are doing and I don’t have an issue with people doing it. But I also really like challenging myself to come up with something different, maybe something a bit more unexpected. Most of the inspiration would come from actually trying to work with the produce and sometimes it doesn’t work. That’s fine. The idea doesn’t work. Also being on the farm and smelling it and seeing it, you gather inspiration from the farmer’s excitement about the product. Or that something hasn’t worked out. Like, oh, we grew this corn and actually it hasn’t been pollinated properly. Half the kernels aren’t there and you’re like, oh, that’s okay, because actually maybe I could use them to do this, this, and this. You gather inspiration from the whole story.

I guess that’s the way that people would have cooked in the past when people were living off the land and had to work with what they had.

It’s an exciting way to cook, for sure. It’s nice challenge. And it’s easier for me because I’m only serving eight people and I’m in the kitchen on my own. Obviously, for a bigger restaurant, there’s more customers to consider, and there’s staff that need to be trained and need to be shown. It’s actually super easy for me to just go, right, I’m going to do this.

Tell me about bread, because I think bread is really important for you.

I love bread. I think I’ve said this a few times where I feel like bread’s falling out a little bit. I feel like I go to restaurants every now and then and it’s maybe not featured as much as it used to be, but I love bread so much. Whenever I go out and I see the bread on the menu, I always order it. I get very excited about it. I eat too much bread. I was actually saying to someone last night. It’s basically my major food group. I’ve been making it for a really long time. It was probably one of the first things I learnt to make with my mum when I was a little kid and she loved making bread. Every restaurant I’ve ever worked in we’ve done bread. It’s something that I have always just really enjoyed. I’m a very physical learner, I like getting my hands in there and feeling it and being involved, that’s very much me. I do it at home. It’s just a bit of a routine thing. The bread’s changed and progressed the longer I’ve been doing it, and especially at Greasy Zoes, because we get the flour from Tuerong, from Jason and Emma. I was really excited about the flour when I first found out about them and I remember I got it because they do all sorts of different heirloom varieties. But the flour can be really difficult to work with and they do lots of different types for flavour. But flavour doesn’t necessarily translate to texture. I remember that initially, for weeks, I couldn’t get it to work. And it was great because for me, I’ve been making bread for so long and it had been working out so well, bread was easy. But then to have this product that I really wanted to use, and I really wanted to support these amazing people doing this incredible thing, and I remember being, how do I make this work? I used a couple of different flours from them and it changes all the time. I really enjoy watching people when the bread comes to the table because the bread here comes a little bit later. It comes on the last entrée before the main course because that tends to be a saucy dish. I think a lot of people are a bit like, oh, we’re not getting it. Where’s the bread? And then when it comes out, people get really excited. I like watching that.

I’m a French teacher, and I lived in France for a year a long time ago, but I just remember growing up in New Zealand, it was really bad manners to mop up sauce with your bread. And in France, that was like absolutely okay.

Italy as well. A lot of different countries love having good bread to mop up sauces. Just getting in there. Some people are a bit too polite. They get their knife and they’re cutting it and they’re getting their butter. When I go out to eat, I just pick it up and I tear it and mop things up. It’s always really interesting to see how different people eat. And it’s actually nice because I think most of the people that come here immediately feel quite comfortable because it is more of a casual, fine dining experience and that’s what we want. People are instantly relaxed and they feel that they can do stuff like that. They can use their hands, they don’t have to use the cutlery.

I was saying to you that I heard your name when I was writing about the Courthouse Hotel in North Melbourne, it had been renovated and when I was talking to the new owners, they mentioned that they wanted to get it back to the heyday when Zoe Birch was cooking in the kitchen. Then for me to hear that you started this 9 years ago and you were 28, you must have been really young when you were at the Courthouse.

I was head chef at the Courthouse, and I would have been 24. Isn’t that crazy? It’s ridiculous. It must have been the way I grew up. Especially as a female. It was perhaps feeling the need to prove myself. I was just always that personality where I really liked what I was doing and I was very determined. I felt really comfortable in the Courthouse. I got along really well with the owners and I’ve always loved pubs. It’s a beautiful pub. The potential was always there that it would do well, but those people did such good renovation. We went a couple weeks after they opened it. It’s funny. I went in there maybe a couple months ago and saw a concert at Festival Hall and went there for a beer. I think it was the head chef. I’m not sure, he came up to me. I was at the bar and he said, oh, you’re Zoe. You used to work here. No one’s ever recognised me.

They have your picture on the wall.

That’s probably framed in the toilet or something.

That’s the motto: What would Zoe do? But speaking of those kinds of things, you have had many accolades and chef hats, and I’ve read articles where you’re described as one of the most exciting young chefs in Australia. Is it important for you to get that feedback and to get those accolades?

I’m not that young anymore! It’s nice, but I think if that’s the reason you’re doing it, it’s probably not going to last or it’s probably not a good thing. I was chatting to someone about this recently, but honestly, I wake up every day and I get really excited to come to work.  It’s hard because I’ve got two little kids and so I work nights, so there’s an element of it which is almost feels a bit selfish. But especially at the moment on the menu, we have so much interesting, exciting produce. When I was doing service last night, I was literally thinking about how lucky I am to have all this crazy stuff; all these beautiful figs, I’ve got cherry guavas, I’ve got rock melon that a local farm grew. All these really amazing things, like salt bush and one of our farmers has macadamias that they’re growing. It’s just ridiculous. I was just looking through my fridge last night, as I was serving it, thinking, I am actually incredibly lucky and I feel particularly inspired. I just really enjoy doing it. I honestly don’t think you could do this particular restaurant if you didn’t enjoy it. Because even though we’re only catering to eight people a night, 32 people a week, it’s still a huge amount of commitment and time. I think you would probably go crazy if you didn’t have an actual love for it. I really enjoy like having little ideas and rolling with them.

What’s the arc of your week? You’ve got three days where you’re on here, but I imagine there is a lot of things going on behind the scenes. What does your week look like?

There’s usually my favourite day where I sit down and do all the paperwork. That’s definitely my favourite day. Pay the bills and do emails and all that sort of stuff. And then either a Tuesday or a Wednesday, I do a cleaning and a prep day. Any chefs listening to this will know that 60% of the job is cleaning. So, there’s a big cleaning day and there’s a big prep day and there’s a day to go out to the farm and pick up the produce and we have compost, green waste that we take out and they compost it. So that’s a whole day and it’s usually a Tuesday or a Wednesday, depending on our kids’ school. They go to quite an alternative school, so we’re actually very involved in it. I do a bit of cooking there. I teach a bit of cooking with the kids. And then we operate Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We do Thursday night, Friday night, and then Saturday we do a late lunch and an evening, so 4 services. Thursday I’m here from 9 o’clock until whenever we close. And then Friday is a little bit more casual. I usually get here maybe 11 o’clock, and then that’s the rest of the day. And then Saturday it’s a double, so I’m here early in the morning for the whole day. Sunday should be a relaxed day, but it’s more of a family day. It’s actually not too bad.

Where did it all start for you?

I was born in Perth, but grew up in Seymour, which is the Mitchell Shire. The Goulburn River runs through there. My mum was a big permaculture lady. We lived in suburbia, but we had this random 1.2 acre property. She converted most of it to garden and orchard. We had this massive vegetable garden and orchard. We would grow everything and cook it. We never bought tomato sauce. Mum would be making tomato sauce. You’d walk into the kitchen during whatever season, a hot day, and she’d be boiling away the tomatoes to make sauce. We never bought bread. She always made bread. That’s what my sister and I grew up with. It was probably a natural thing because I really enjoyed it. My sister likes food and she enjoyed it too, but she was just not as keen, whereas I was just always in the kitchen, soaking it up and being involved and really enjoying it. It definitely stemmed from that.

Was there a time when you thought, yep, this is what I’m going to do?

I think the whole time in all honesty. I reflect on it often. I remember do that thing in primary school: what do you want to be when you grow up? It was just always chef. I didn’t know what that meant. Later when I was in high school and, you start to see careers advisors and stuff like that in high school. And then you start to go through, oh, you’re doing an apprenticeship and you get a job doing this or whatever, and it starts to take form. I’m not sure if someone said it to me as a young person: maybe you should be a chef. But it was just always that thing. It was, oh, yeah, I’ll be a chef. Everyone around was like, oh, yeah, Zoe will cook.

When you were doing your apprenticeship or stepped into those first kitchens, did it meet your expectations?

The first job I got was at this place called Trawool Resort, which is in Trawool, which is really close to Seymour. It was this massive resort, which had a bistro and a fancy restaurant and function room. Someone came to the high school that I went to and said they were looking for a kitchen hand. And my mum said, oh, you should do that. When I went there, I thought, okay, kitchen hand, I’ll be washing dishes and peeling potatoes,  peeling onions, that’s fine. But they actually got me to do a bunch of more interesting technical prep, like peeling prawns and things like that. I could very easily do it because I did stuff like that at home with my mum. It was female crew, which was really cool. It was really interesting, which is not very usual, especially at basically a big pub. There were these two women in charge, and then a couple of younger chefs that were all female. They were watching me peel the prawns and do all these things and they said, you can do service with us. We’ll hire someone else to wash the dishes. SI was actually pretty lucky immediately. I didn’t have to do too much of the starting from the bottom and getting to the top. I did start from the bottom, but I got to cook food immediately, which was very lucky, I think.

Well, and also, obviously, you had the skill. Maybe lucky in the context of having all women, but I think you knew what you were doing.

From there, I was there for a little while. I started that when I was 15. I was doing my VCE at the same time. I was doing a school-based apprenticeship at the same time as I did my VCE, because I like putting a lot of pressure on myself. I like to be incredibly busy. It is strange to think about now, it makes me exhausted. I did two years there and then I worked at the Middle Brighton Baths with John Lepp, who was a pretty well-known chef at the time. He was the head chef at Jacques Reymond, and he worked at Two Faces with a really well-known German chef. I ended up working with John in three or four restaurants because he’s such a lovely person with a really lovely temperament. Always a very calm, very skilful chef. I’m really happy that I did that because he was really positive and kind, and there wasn’t a lot of ego, and it wasn’t like people screaming and throwing things. It was really respectful and there were a lot of women in the kitchen, which was nice. I think I did that on purpose. I think I wanted to enjoy my job. I didn’t want to wake up going to a really nice restaurant, but hating it. I followed him around and we had a really great working relationship, he and I.

The reason I started Conversation with a chef is because a friend of mine in Christchurch, in New Zealand, was a head chef, and she had worked in London, and Brisbane, and Christchurch in the nineties and early 2000s. She said that, as a woman, head chef, she had to do a lot to earn the respect of her crew, whereas a man could go in and he had to do quite a lot to lose it. I was a bit fascinated by that, but she also talked with such passion about food and the industry and I loved having conversations with her. But people like Annie Smithers and someone that worked for her, said that before working in Annie Smithers’ kitchen, she had always been put on salad or pastry. Then when she went to work for Annie, that was when she really stepped up in her cooking because Annie gave her that power. I hope things have improved.

I think so. I think there’s a lot more female chefs now. I think that people know their rights, and I think that women have always been strong, but women also don’t like to rock the boat. I think that that’s changed. I have so many examples of that very thing where I started in kitchens and they would say, we’ll get you on larder. I would be, no I’ll do the meat section. I remember clearly doing a trial at a particular restaurant in the city centre, which I worked at for a little while and actually enjoyed. But the chef or the owner was well known. I remember he was like, okay, cool, we’ll get you on larder. I said, actually, can I just do the meat section? He said, can you handle it? I remember just killing it. He said, you can do this from now on. There’s nothing wrong with the larder section and it’s very important to learn it. If you want to be a well-rounded chef, you should learn every section. And I love doing the pastry section. I love doing the desserts at Greasey Zoes. I do lots of things like croissants and I put a lot of effort into my pastries and bread. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those sections, but I think it’s incredibly sexist to assume a woman’s only going to want to do that. I kind of feel like I’m not in the industry anymore because I hang out here on my own, but I am hoping that it’s not like that.

Coming back to Greasy Zoes, I understand that you’ve got some changes happening here. You and Lachlan have been running this together. How did you meet?

In the kitchen. At the Courthouse, actually. Lachlan is front of house. That’s where he started in the Yarra Valley. But he really loves cooking. He ended up doing an apprenticeship when he was in his twenties. He was working out the front at the Courthouse, and then he went into the kitchen, so that’s how I met him. Lachlan and I have known each other for 15 years and we’ve literally worked together almost the whole time. We’re best mates and we have a mutual respect for each other and each other’s opinions. We’ve been running Greasey Zoe’s for nine years and next year we’ll be our tenth year. But we’ve got small children, and we’ve had those kids over the course of having the restaurant, which has been amazing, that the restaurant has provided us the opportunity to actually do that, especially as a two-person team. It’s a bit ridiculous, really. Lachlan and I have always discussed that the fact that having small children, it’s very complicated.  We both work in the restaurant in the evening, so we have friends and family that look after our kids when we’re at work. And it has worked really well. Obviously, sometimes it doesn’t, maybe we get sick, we have to cancel. It hasn’t happened a lot, but it’s definitely happened. But we have discussed for years that there will be the potential one day when it will probably have to change. Both of our kids are in primary school now, our youngest just started this year. They just need a little bit more support. Lachlan’s actually going to be stepping back from the service of Greasy Zoes and he’s going to spend a bit more time supporting our kids at school, which is very exciting for him, and I’m a little bit jealous, to be honest. Someone else is going to come in and do service in the restaurant instead of Lachlan, which is really huge because I’ve been working with Lachlan in this building for nine years. It’s going to be really weird having someone else here. But Lachlan is still going to be very involved, it’s his restaurant still, so he’ll still be doing the wine list and he’ll be going out to the farms and I’ll be ringing him and saying, oh, I forgot to bring this, can you go get it? But he’s just not going to be doing service. He’ll probably do it every now and then because he’s known it for nine years and he loves this job, but then also, he loves our kids. And they need a little bit more help at the moment. Our friend James, who is a dear friend of ours who we’ve known since we opened the restaurant, his name’s James Lance, and he owned a winery called Punch Winery in St. Andrews, which is actually a really well-known winery, and James has had a lot of accolades for his wine. He sold his winery last year, and for the last year, he’s been pottering around, trying to figure out what he’s going to do, and wants a bit of a break from winemaking. He’s going to come and he’s going to be my second at GZ’s. It’s actually a really perfect. The timing is perfect and it’s a perfect fit because James and Lachlan are actually very similar people. They’re very personable, and James loves food and he loves wine and he loves music. A big part of the restaurant is the record player. He actually builds amplifiers and pickups for guitars. He loves music. He’s so friendly. I think that a lot of people talk about Lachlan’s service style as being genuine hospitality, which I really love. Because it is supposed to be like you’re coming here for dinner. I don’t want it to be too cold or over the top. And James is very similar to that. He loves having a chat. He loves talking about food and wine. It’s going to be different. But I think it’s going to be great. I think it’s going to be really nice to have someone else in the building after nine years with different eyes who can see things and suggest things and someone who’s a really good friend. I think we’ll still have lots of fun. James is a local as well. He lives in Eltham. His winery was at St. Andrews, which is about 10 minutes up the road. He actually knows a lot of the people around here too. I’m a little bit jealous that Lachlan’s going to have the weekends and the nights off. But I’m excited that we don’t have to close the restaurant.  We have built such a strong bond with our community and it’s almost a new season for Greasy Zoes and I’m very excited about it.

Well, I guess with all that in mind, usually my final question is, considering the span of your career and the different places you’ve worked, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?

I was talking about this the other day, actually, because I’m not good at stuff like that. I feel like everyone’s brains are so different. But honestly, starting out, I think you should write a list of what you actually want out of it. If you want to be a world-famous chef, then I can’t offer you any advice. But if you’re really passionate and you really like cooking or service or you’re into wine, I think you need to map out a plan, almost similar to what I did, where you can gather information from people you respect. But be respected and enjoy it. I think if you’re not enjoying it, then you need to reflect on if it’s right for you. Not everyone has that personality. People can just kind of push through even if they’re not enjoying it. But for me, I think actually enjoying the learning process was very important. I think it’s also okay if you’re having a tough time to have a break. Because if you’re having a really tough time and things aren’t working out, you can’t actually gain any perspective if you’re still in it. I think it’s okay to step back and reflect and then map out moving forward.

Greasy Zoes, 3A 850 Heidelberg-Kinglake Road, Hurstbridge