Stark portraits reveals a rarely seen side of Sydney’s top chefs
In their industry, they are the measure of success. But when the pandemic hit, Sydney’s best-known chefs watched decades of work unravel. Photographer Rob Palmer gained rare access to the best in the business during their toughest time.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Slouched in an apron, surrounded by paper bags, Saint Peter head chef Josh Niland has spent much of 2020 packing takeaway meals at his award-winning restaurant.
Like many of Sydney’s top chefs, his trailblazing career shrank to survival mode when the pandemic hit, and photographer Rob Palmer was there to document it.
Palmer, 42, who won the prestigious Canon National Photographic Portrait Prize this year, has spent months photographing Sydney’s culinary heroes as their industry was brought to its knees.
His moving portrait series Industry SOS: The COVID-19 Time Capsule reveals a side of well-known chefs most Australians aren’t used to seeing: Neil Perry downcast among the plastic-covered furnishings of Rockpool Bar and Grill; Colin Fassnidge peeling spuds in his backyard for charity meals; Jacqui Challinor head in hands in her beloved Nomad.
“For most of them, their worlds just kind of imploded,” said Palmer of his subjects. “They were literally locked out of the world they were used to spending up to 18 hours a day in.”
The Bondi-based commercial food and lifestyle photographer embarked on the project to capture a unique moment in an industry that had given him so much.
“The initial concept was not about celebrity,” he said. “It was about letting people realise that there are your local cafes and diners that have been hit really hard, but the guys who we all know, who are up running the big restaurants or (have) celebrity status are suffering pretty much in the exact same way.
“A lot of people were seeing decades of work being unravelled literally in weeks.”
At first it was tough to get people on board, Palmer said. Aside from limitations of social distancing and lockdown, access to the best in the business at their worst time was a big ask.
“A lot of them were on the verge of hitting rock bottom. But once I’d made it clear what the vision was, that we did need to document this, this was hopefully a once-in-a-life-time experience they were going through. people made time.”
Chefs were open and honest about their struggles, although the impact of the pandemic varied. For some it took a heavy financial and personal toll, for others there were silver linings.
“Neil (Perry), obviously to sit there and see his baby that he’d worked so hard at locked up and mothballed was devastating.
“But Neil does a lot of charity work and all his kitchens were still going full speed ahead as he put all his energy into his charity work during this time.
“So seeing things like that really restored your faith in humanity.”
For others, like Jacqui Challinor from Nomad, it was painfully challenging.
“Nomad had had a fire the year before, they’d just moved the restaurant to a temporary location and a few weeks after opening, COVID hit so they shut for a second time in six months. She’d just lost everything”.
Josh Niland of Saint Peter transitioned quickly to take-home meals and his business was “super busy”, Palmer said. But he was at odds with how to feel about it.
“He was saying three or four weeks ago, you would never have seen a takeaway container in my restaurant … this is not the dream I had, and was all the previous effort to have a high profile restaurant with fine cuisine worth it for such tight margins when I could just be doing takeaway? He was really struggling with what the vision would be after COVID.”
Working with writer Tristan Lutz, Industry SOS: The COVID-19 Time Capsule is an ongoing project. It will become part of the Powerhouse Museum’s Culinary Archive.
A future exhibition is in the works.