Simon Bryant’s long journey from apprentice mechanic to TV star, chef, author and SA food legend

TV star, author, chef, businessman, festival director and animal advocate. Simon Bryant has always had a lot on his plate. Simon Wilkinson tracked his journey to food legend status.

In a repurposed workshop, along a road full of car wreckers and repairers, Simon Bryant is going about his trade.

Dressed in T-shirt, shorts and sneakers, skinny as a stick bean, he looks as if food is the furthest thing from his mind.

But there he is – reducing a stock to pour over small jars of potted beef, shaving transparent slices from a goose “prosciutto”, fetching a loaf of the sourdough that he says is still a work in progress after 20 years.

Bryant might be among the state’s most admired food figures, a face recognised around the country through his TV appearances, but he is adamant that having his kitchen and occasional “restaurant” in this blue-collar setting in the inner-west suburb of Brompton suits him just fine.

After all, way before he became a chef, he started an apprenticeship as a mechanic and he still tinkers regularly with his collection of “too many old cars that have things to fix”.

He sees many similarities in two endeavours that require endless diagnostics and refinement. In both cases, he says, “the journey is more important than the destination”.

And what a journey it has been for the man who has cooked alongside kitchen royalty, run the state’s biggest food/wine/tourism showcase, written books, fed the masses, established successful businesses, been declared an Adelaide Food Legend, and acted as a powerful voice for both farmers and animals.

Chef Simon Bryant in his Brompton Kitchen. Picture: Tom Huntley

Even then, he is perhaps best known as Maggie Beer’s cheeky offsider on a low-budget TV cooking show that still screens regularly late in the evening.

As Bryant pings around his kitchen, multi-tasking with the kind of frenetic energy that allows him to squeeze seemingly impossible workloads into each day, he talks about his life, issues facing agriculture and the hospitality industry, and the singular set of beliefs that shape how he cooks and eats to this day. Beliefs such as being a vegetarian who regularly prepares and samples meat as part of his job, a contradiction that some find hard to reconcile.

Bryant grew up on his parents’ hobby farm in the Mount Lofty Ranges where he witnessed the realities of the food chain.

“A little seed plants in you when things are killed,” he says simply of his subsequent decision to avoid eating meat and fish.

“I feel better when I eat vegetables and I love the flavours. But I’d never decline a meal if someone gives me one. You must be a good host but you must be a good guest as well. If someone invites you to their place then being a good guest is accepting their offering whatever that is.”

Simon Bryant with lentils and chickpeas at his home. Picture: Matt Turner.

After leaving school to take up an apprenticeship as a motorcycle mechanic, Bryant’s interest in the wider world led him to university where he studied economics, a subject that still fascinates him today.

When he found a job in the university’s kitchen to earn a few dollars, he enjoyed it more than the lectures and began working in Thai and Indian restaurants around Melbourne.

As his interest in cooking grew, he flew over to eat Cheong Liew’s food at The Grange Restaurant in the Hilton Adelaide, then ranked among the nation’s finest dining experiences.

He applied for a position at the hotel and moved to Adelaide, earning his stripes in various roles before finally making his way to The Grange kitchen, where he ran the butchery of all things.

Working beside Liew was everything he had hoped for. “What he showed me were things that go beyond being cooking related,” Bryant says. “His endless curiosity … and inquiring mind. He has a childlike awe about things, about product, flavour, life in general.

“You would rarely get a recipe. He would tell you a story … paint a picture for you and give you context. He reminds me of a five-year-old when he gets out of bed … full of optimism.”

While at the Hilton, he was asked to try out for a new locally produced series, The Cook and the Chef.

The great partnership - Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant at East End Cellars in Adelaide. Picture: Matt Loxton

He would be the chef. The cook, of course, was Maggie Beer. The pair ended up making almost 150 episodes together and, while the production now might look a little dated, it is clear they had a hoot.

The start wasn’t auspicious, Beer says. “On the first day they tried us together, we were in the kitchen and it just wasn’t working,” she recalls. “But afterwards we sat on the steps and we just talked.

“We couldn’t have been more different. In our cooking styles, in our statures … everything was different except we came together in our philosophy on food and life. And I love his irascible humour. You never know what is going to come out of his mouth.”

The recognition from Bryant’s television appearances opened new doors. He left the Hilton and started his own catering business, growing from random pop-ups and home dinners to working on major events where his team could be feeding hundreds.

This brought him to the attention of Tasting Australia, a festival that, despite being a celebration of this state, was initially run by a team based in Western Australia.

After working with visiting chefs on many of the high-profile dinners and helping to curate the food content, he was appointed co-creative director in 2014 and director in 2018.

He describes the eight festivals he has run as “tours of duty”.

“It’s a big machine,” he says with typical humility. “It’s a privilege to put them on and you have to live up to that.”

While in charge, Bryant has overseen the evolution of Tasting Australia to better reflect our homegrown food and drink culture, particularly regional SA and the critical role played by farmers, fishers and other producers.

Beer, a past patron of the event, is full of admiration. “He brought it back to the grassroots with his vision, his thinking, his idea of what is important,” she says. “I am so proud of what he did. He never stops thinking. He has incredible depth and an ability to bring people together and make things happen.”

This year Bryant has stepped back, to a point. He has taken over the role of patron, is providing back-up for some of the big-name chefs, and also is cooking the big-ticket dinner for a bunch of lucky travellers on a sold-out trip to the Flinders Ranges.

Simon Bryant has been one of the driving forces behind Tasting Australia. He is now taking a slight backseat as patron with Emma McCaskill, above, stepping up as food curator. Picture: Mike Burton

Bryant’s passion for promoting our best producers works on many levels. For a start, he has long believed the best food is a reflection of its key ingredients, rather than what happens in the kitchen. He thinks producers should be revered in the same way as megastar chefs.

While a vegetarian himself, he is pragmatic and knows other people want to eat meat, so has become a powerful advocate for the best possible practice in the raising, transport and slaughter for human consumption of everything from cattle to chickens. Besides, an animal that has led a good life will taste better, he says. And, as a chef, assessing the quality of different meats and the best way to prepare them is part of his job. It all comes down to the trust a diner will place in him.

Bryant acknowledges that not everyone can afford to buy ethically farmed produce but believes, in general, we should be eating less and eating better, particularly when it comes to the serving sizes of meat and fish.

“When you are in a position to have the economic power to make better choices you can cause so much less suffering,” he says. “We are big consumers of chicken and eggs and just by saying no to caged eggs and to non-free-range meat birds you can make a huge difference.”

Chef Simon Bryant with fresh produce in his Brompton Kitchen. He says producers should have the same high profiles as chefs. Picture: Tom Huntley

Bryant’s concern for the treatment of animals goes beyond the farmyard. He is an ambassador for the Animal Welfare League, RSPCA, and Animals Asia Foundation. He is proud of the work done by the foundation to rescue bears that are kept for their bile.

“I don’t think anyone gets out of bed and wants to inflict pain on another living creature,” he says. “It happens for economic reasons but they are disappearing. We don’t need to exploit animals for our own profit or pleasure.”

At the same time, he has played a key role in popularising alternative diets. When his first cookbook, Simon Bryant’s Vegies, was released in 2012, it was one of few publications from Australia to show that vegetable dishes could be every bit as varied and delicious as meat dishes.

He set up an enterprise to work with local farmers growing high-grade lentils, chickpeas and other legumes so they could be packaged and promoted to attract the profile and prices they deserve. This has now split into two brands, dirt(y) for restaurant kitchens and Essentials for the home cook. He is also part of a joint venture that makes and distributes Nice Pickles, popular in pubs and bars around the country.

Bryant lives just a few blocks from his commercial kitchen in a home he shares with Rudie, the fourth Doberman he has owned.

“I love my dogs, they have so much joy in the simple things in life,” he says. “They are so excited to go to the river after it rains … or to have a meal. It’s a constant reminder to be humble and thankful for what we have.”

He tends to a large vegetable patch and reads voraciously: “Philosophy, history, fiction. I’ll read a sci-fi space opera … as long as it is well written.”

Bryant doesn’t dine out much and, if he does, likes to keep it simple. “I’ve got the attention span of a weasel,” he says. “I get more fun out of cooking dinner than sitting down to eat it. I’m happy to watch people being happy.

“When you finish cooking all the fancy stuff it’s nice to come home and do a bit of brown rice with steamed broccoli and tahini. When you are around all these overwhelming flavours all day, it’s difficult to eat them at the end of the night. It’s like mechanics and their cars.” ■

Simon Bryant is patron of the Tasting Australia festival, which runs April 29-May 8. For more details go to tastingaustralia.com.au