Meet the woman who has been named Queensland’s top chef
It beat off fierce competition to be named the No.1 restaurant in Queensland in this year’s delicious100. And this 32-year-old is the brains behind the kitchen operation.
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AS THE dockets flood into the kitchen at Brisbane City’s ARC Dining — this year’s No.1 restaurant in the delicious. 100 — Alanna Sapwell’s mood is light and upbeat.
She has a smile on her face and makes jokes with her 13-strong brigade, but there is no mistaking she means business.
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In her white chef’s jacket, the 32-year-old keeps her composure under pressure, her temper in check and leads with a confidence that only comes from competence and experience.
But it’s far from easy, she says.
“The amount of time you spend grooming people and putting out fires before they ignite, pre-empting that and reading people and sitting down and kind of tailoring the job to the individual … it’s exhausting,” Sapwell says.
However, she knows this attention to detail and intuition is the key to her success.
Sapwell’s love for food began at age six when she tasted authentic Italian pizza for the first time while on holidays in Melbourne — a far cry from the bastardised ham and pineapple takeaway versions she was used to growing up in the small town of Gympie, north of the Sunshine Coast.
“That was kind of my first epiphany of, ‘OK, this is what it’s supposed to be’,” she says. “I just wanted to know how to do things correctly.”
This passion for precision was underpinned by a remarkable work ethic and a drive to learn everything she could.
As a teenager she juggled three jobs around school — working at the local fruit market and two restaurants.
“Poor Mum … she would pick me up and I would be changing from one work (uniform) to another in the car and I would have to leave five minutes early and I’d always be five minutes late,’’ Sapwell says. “I don’t know how she held down a job, plus took me to three jobs.’’
One of the restaurant jobs was a school-based traineeship, which she turned into an apprenticeship after school, but her savvy grandma soon intervened and convinced her to get a job at the now-defunct The River House in Noosa, run by acclaimed chef David Rayner.
“(Grandma) brought over this pile of (newspaper) clippings and she was like, ‘This David Rayner, he knows what he’s doing, you need to go work for him’,” Sapwell recalls. “So I spent three days driving all the way from Gympie to Noosa and I’d ask for a job and he said no, and the second day I did it again and he said no, and then on the third day, he was like, ‘She’s keen enough, just give her a try’.”
That turned into four years, completing her apprenticeship under Rayner and working as a chef de partie.
But the world soon called and Sapwell and her then boyfriend — a fellow chef she’d met at TAFE on the Sunshine Coast — headed off to Italy.
And it was here her will, stamina and tenacity were really tested, working 110-hour weeks in restaurants in Florence and selling jam drops on the street outside The Duomo on her days off just to keep a roof over her head.
Averaging only around three hours’ sleep a night, she says it was this relentless, physically and emotionally taxing schedule that instilled in her the importance of maintaining a healthy workplace for her staff.
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“At work when people are happy, you know they’ve got that work-life balance, you get so much more out of them,” she says.
“And you can always tell when people are getting a bit tired and it’s not through lack of caring that they’re making mistakes, it’s just people get tired.”
While she always has her staff’s wellbeing front and centre — encouraging them to take time out and pursue new hobbies — she says finding her own time to switch off can be a little tricky. Especially as demand for the kitchen whiz grows following recent accolades including a Best New Talent gong and the delicious. Unearthed Next-Gen Chef title.
“I encourage this but I’m the worst person to actually practise it,” she says with a laugh.
When she does, however, it’s tinkering with her 1971 Volkswagen Type 3 Squareback that brings her most joy. After crashing her car multiple times as a teenager and relying on her father to fix it, he one day refused and insisted she learn how to do it herself. And so a passion for doing up old cars — from the mechanics to panel beating — began with her dad, Colin, by her side. She also does boxing once a week with her brother Paul as a stress release and exercise.
But it’s in the kitchen where Sapwell is truly most comfortable.
Upon returning to Australia from Italy, Sapwell had a series of odd jobs as she travelled the country, before taking on a head chef role in Japan. But deciding she needed an intimate understanding of every section of the kitchen to be a truly great chef, she moved home, taking on a junior role at Brisbane fine diner Urbane. Here she climbed the ladder to head pastry chef, before moving onto Aquitaine at South Bank, Gerard’s Bistro in Fortitude Valley and GOMA in South Brisbane.
The job that put her on the map, however, was at Josh Niland’s award-winning Sydney fish restaurant and butchery Saint Peter. Sapwell’s work as head chef helped the venue to be crowned best in the country, and consequently she was scouted by the team behind ARC Dining. Initially, she turned down the gig, wanting to be respectful to Niland — a chef-owner who had taken a chance on her and invested in her training and education. But three months later, Saint Peter was in “a good place” and she felt ready for the next step. That step has led her to find her own identity, not only as a chef, but as a person.
Working with the business side of the bustling foodie precinct Howard Smith Wharves where ARC resides, as well as managing different personalities in the kitchen and front of house at the restaurant has resulted in the chef growing in ways she didn’t know she could.
Since opening the restaurant in February this year, she says the learning curve has been an incredibly steep but enjoyable and rewarding one.
“I was at the age where I gave myself enough, you know, background knowledge to finally be comfortable in taking the leap and knowing that I’m not going to know all the answers but I’ll have enough to get me started and to find my way through,” she says.
More than find her way through, she’s excelled. But never one to rest on her laurels, Sapwell wants to take the restaurant to the next level.
She is zealous about using sustainable and ethical produce, searching the entire state and country for animals reared only in the best conditions, and wants to work with chef Matt Golinski to encourage schoolchildren to enter the hospitality industry.
“I want to be still sticking to our values of training … using the right farmers and those sorts of things, but most importantly I like making people feel comfortable and giving them that unique experience … time and time again,” she says.
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