’We will look for your star’: Wife’s tribute to beloved chef
The wife of celebrity chef Justin Bull fought back tears as she shared memories of her beloved husband with more than 1000 mourners who packed his memorial service yesterday.
IN the moments when the wife of fireball chef-to-the-stars Justin Bull would endeavour to rein him in, he would quip: “Babe, stop stressing, we’re here for a good time not a long time …”
Justine Kendall fought back tears as she told more than 1000 mourners who packed Bronte Surf Club for his memorial service yesterday how his boundless passion for music and food imbued the lives of those who met him, until the day he took his own at his Huxton restaurant in the Sydney beachside suburb.
Her voice cracking with emotion as mourners including chef Matt Moran, singer Jimmy Barnes, presenters David Campbell and Deborah Hutton and Bondi vet Chris Brown listened, she said: “We had an immediate connection, were so different yet we understood each other from the get go.
“The first time I met him, he strutted in looking like some kind a god, curly long black hair and tight, flared, pinstriped pants and I thought ‘god hello’ I had never met someone like him before, he radiated this exciting, magnetic energy, which he had in spades until the last day.
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“He was so charismatic, prance and prowl on stage in INXS tribute band.
“I’m so heartbroken I’ve lost the love of my life so soon. We used to talk about 20 times a day and I can’t get used to the quiet. He lived life at 1000 miles an hour and I was forever telling him to slow down and relax.
“You were so loved and we will never forget you. Felix and I will forever be looking out for your star.”
Hull, 46, who earned the sobriquet Crash for the pace at which he ran life, was found dead inside his popular Huxton’s eatery last Friday.
The former chef to star Russell Crowe, billionaire James Packer and the NSW Blues State of Origin team was believed to have encountered “a clouded moment”.
At the packed memorial service yesterday afternoon, singer Jimmy Barnes and his presenter son David Campbell, Hull’s best friend, stifled tears as they crooned You’ll Never Walk Alone.
Mourners dressed in his favourite colours purple and blue took turns to pay tribute.
Best friend David Campbell said: “As long as it was me, my wife, Jazza and Just, life was good….”
Close friend chef Matt Moran said Hull had the energy of a “Duracell battery” and always asked “are you all right?”
“He just wanted to make sure everyone was always happy.”
Mr Bull is the latest death of a well-known chef.
Celebrity chefs Jeremy Strode and Darren Simpson both died in 2017, as did Nitai Gordon, a junior chef at Bennelong restaurant, who took his own life, seemingly out of the blue.
Last year one of the world’s most famous names in fine dining, Anthony Bourdain, died in an apparent suicide in his French hotel room while working on his CNN TV series.
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