From crack cocaine addict to top chef

The Melbourne Food & Wine Festival guest attraction talks as candidly about his years of drug addiction as he does about his restaurant empire.

Michael Solomonov is making his first trip to Australia in March. Chris Loupos

Necia Wilden

Feb 27, 2020 – 10.52am

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It doesn’t take long to find out that Mike Solomonov, a guest of next month’s Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, is a great chef. To get an idea of his place in the culinary firmament, you need only glance at the long list of awards – including six from America’s James Beard Foundation – capped off by “Outstanding Chef”, “Outstanding Restaurant” and “Best International Cookbook” in the past couple of years.

It takes only a little longer to find out that Solomonov is also a great story.