Gun chef goes west to feed Andrew Forrest dream

Enthusiastic restaurant-goer and wine collector Andrew Forrest really wouldn’t mind being a successful restaurateur.

Former Britpacker now Sydney chef Tom Haynes is moving west to spearhead the restaurant business of Andrew Forrest. Picture: John Feder

Miner, pastoralist, philanthropist, bootmaker … what Andrew Forrest wants, he tends to get and the enthusiastic restaurant-goer and wine collector really wouldn’t mind being a successful restaurateur either.

Enter gun chef Tom Haynes, an ambitious Britpacker quitting the bright lights of Sydney after 10 successful years at some of the city’s finest restaurants, including Aria, to spearhead the Forrest dream out west.

Haynes has just quit as executive chef at Barangaroo House, one of the major outposts of the Matt Moran/Solotel empire in Sydney, for the promise of a new career steering the culinary direction of Forrest’s burgeoning Perth-based hospitality business Z1Z, part of the Forrest family’s Tattarang Group.

After more than 10 years working for Moran, Haynes, 33, has the credentials, having moved from sous chef at Aria to head chef at Woollahra’s Chiswick and then to the executive chef’s role – a kind of culinary manager – at the three-tier Barangaroo House with its pub, restaurant Bea, and cocktail bar … a demanding role with three different kitchens to run.

He was recruited by Tattarang and Minderoo chief Andrew Hagger, Forrest’s right-hand-man and another dedicated lover of the culinary arts.

In a former life, as a high-flying eastern states NAB executive, Hagger contributed the ­occasional review to the Nine Network’s Good Food Guide. “He was hungry for an opportunity,” Hagger said. “Tom’s come from big stables under the umbrella of others. We liked his technical training, pedigree and style.”

Having “reviewed” Haynes’s work with a meal at Bea during a recent visit to Sydney for The Australian’s Global Food Forum, “watching him work behind the pass as much as enjoying what was on the plate”, Hagger signed off on the appointment. He even called the chef’s boss Moran to ask for his blessing.

First job for the Southhampton native: reboot Cooee, Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s restaurant at the Old Swan Brewery site where Tattarang and its philanthropic sibling Minderoo are headquartered. The restaurant launched late in 2020 to more of a whimper than a bang. That must change.

“Cooee will be my first base in Perth, being part of the evolution of a young restaurant,” Haynes said. “It’s going to be a nice starting platform.”

Then there’s the redevelopment of Cottesloe’s iconic Indiana Tea House to steer, with plans before council that include several tiers of food, as well as a restaurant at the proposed Ningaloo Lighthouse Resort in Exmouth.

It’s all part of a matrix of Forrest-held food businesses embracing beef cattle, horticulture and aquaculture that will, literally, feed each other.

“I don’t like the term ‘leaving the rat-race’, but I’m looking forward to a little less bullshit,” said Haynes, who arrived in Australia in 2009 for “a look around” after finishing up a restaurant job in London. It’s fair to say he hopes Forrest will prove a less polarising employer than his last boss in the UK, renowned hard man of the kitchen Gordon Ramsay.

Haynes worked on farms and vineyards around the country before settling back into cooking in Sydney, and made Australia his home. He thinks the WA lifestyle will suit; he just needs the border to open.