Josh Niland, Scott Pickett and other top chefs reveal their mentors
We asked six Australian chefs to nominate the mentor who made the difference for them, then asked those legends to reflect on their protegés.
We asked six Australian chefs to nominate the mentor who made the difference for them, then asked those legends to reflect on their protegés.
Josh Niland
Chef/owner at Saint Peter, Fish Butchery and Charcoal Fish, Sydney
“I first met Steve Hodges in 2005 when I attended Crab Fest, an annual event where chefs raised money for children with cancer. I was 16 and had won a scholarship from the event organisers, and one of the awards was dinner at Steve’s restaurant, Fish Face.
I still remember the impact of that first visit some 17 years ago. I was enamoured by Steve’s radiating passion for his work. Of course, that same passion would frequently boil over, but to see first-hand a man so possessed by the granular details of how fish should be handled from sea to plate and everything in between was an experience that I’ll never forget. I had to make sure I kept a notebook with me constantly because Steve was so generous with his knowledge, often passing down decades of wisdom in one sitting. He knew that by instilling consistency, discipline and excellence into those around him, Fish Face would last longer than its time in any physical setting.
What Steve Hodges achieved over the course of a decade at Darlinghurst is truly remarkable. Anyone who had the privilege of dining or working there during that time could probably recount to you the drama, the theatre, the passion and the pleasure of Fish Face. What Steve has done and continues to do so proudly and passionately is care about the details. Whether it’s the glass windows that needed to be polished or the oyster shells that needed to be scrubbed, there was no job too big or small that Steve wouldn’t put his hand up for first. He raised the standards of how we cook, eat and see fish here in Australia.”
Steve Hodges
Chef and seafood consultant, Sydney
“‘On A Mission’ would be the first phrase to come to mind. I must admit to being very proud and very humbled by the amazing young man, husband, father and leading restaurateur Josh has become.
So before I had the privilege of Josh first joining the Fish Face team after his apprenticeship, he had frequently dined at Fish Face as a sole diner and later, in time, with [wife] Julie. I remember fondly that he would always order blue eye, potato scales and crème brûlée.
After Josh left his apprenticeship at Est, his words to me were: “I’ve come to learn how to cook fish.”
Josh and I worked together on three separate occasions in the Fish Face era and each time Josh had a little more knowledge and strength to bring.
Josh always pushed for the ‘why’ in cooking and I was able to show him in practice; he’d always listen to criticism of a dish i might not have liked. He was a sponge. I just love watching all that Josh has achieved and has coming in the pipeline.”
Josh Niland’s lateral thinking on seafood usage and cookery is internationally acclaimed. His energy as a businessman, author and chef is prodigious. Steve Hodges’ late, lamented restaurant Fish Face put the chef on a pedestal as the best fish and seafood cook in Australia. Today he works as a retail consultant in seafood with a fish smoking business
in development.
Emma McCaskill
Chef and culinary teacher, Adelaide
“To be honest, initially I didn’t really know what I wanted for a career and I certainly didn’t know I wanted to be a chef. I did, however, enjoy watching The Cook and the Chef. I loved the banter between Maggie Beer and co-star [another mentor] Simon Bryant. I loved how they spoke about produce and how each of them worked so well together, yet with such different types of cooking. Watching Maggie and Simon on this show, along with many other factors including family influence, prompted me to pursue a career in cooking.
Professionally, Maggie has influenced many of our decisions on seasonal ingredients and educating people to make informed food choices. Maggie is the epitome of farm to table. Her books are in almost every single Australian household. For me, she has helped shape many informed professional career decisions and supported me tremendously in the South Australian school space. I admire the way her mind works (it never stops) and her level of detail with everything she does. Maggie’s energy and enthusiasm is infectious.
The work Maggie has done in her lifetime service to the tourism and hospitality industry as a farmer, cook, restaurateur, author and advocate for improving food in aged care is inspirational. She has influenced many chefs, foodies, farmers and hospitality professionals just like me.”
Maggie Beer
Chef, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Adelaide
I met Emma in Melbourne at an amazing day Ben Shewry [Attica] organised in the grounds of Ripponlea. Emma and her then husband were representing South Australia and that meeting sits so strongly in my memory. The beautiful food was one thing, but more was the energy behind her being. Having dined at Magill Estate when Emma was there was everything a great dining experience should be and there have been occasions since, most recently with last year’s Tasting Australia with Emma cooking cockles on a beach in Coffin Bay with great humour. Her cooking background [abroad] is something chefs would dream of yet it’s her work with school-aged cooking apprenticeships now that I am so inspired by. Emma is using her network to link interested school-aged youngsters into well-run restaurants with a good culture to educate and nurture, to show that cooking can be a real career for the right person. It’s something she understands from her own experience. The industry is calling out for people, and her work can give so much to the industry in our need to find young, passionate people and guide them. Go Emma.”
Emma McCaskill is best known in her home town of Adelaide for her time as co-head chef at Penfolds Magill Estate. However her career includes other highlights, including working at the elite Tokyo restaurant Narisawa, Sydney’s Tetsuya’s and as head chef of now-closed The Pot. Today, she’s immersed in forging links between high school students and the hospitality industry. Maggie Beer is a cook, entrepreneur, author and benefactor, and one of the nation’s best known, and best-liked culinary figures.
Karl Firla
Chef and restaurateur at Leo and ELE, Sydney
“In 2001 after finishing my apprenticeship with Cibo restaurant in North Adelaide, I looked to the Hills and the esteemed chef Le Tu Thai at the renowned Bridgewater Mill. It was to be a leap in my career, and one that required me to knock on the back door of the kitchen week after week after week to try to persuade Le to let me trial in his kitchen. Finally the very softly spoken Le agreed, smiling – but I’m sure just to stop me from arriving on a weekly basis.
A kitchen driven by Le was one refining ingredients, dishes and service to levels not seen anywhere. It was consuming. The level of staff was unbelievable. As a food movement that was bringing food cultures together – Vietnamese and French – people moved across the country to be a part of what Le was doing.
As a team we were driven, and at the front of that team, always, was Le. Always first to arrive and last to leave.
Every aspect of the day was mapped and there was never a stone unturned to find a way to gain a different perspective and advantage. What we were doing, others were not, and with that came risk and challenge, but it was something we looked to the always-present Le to for direction.”
Le Thu Thai
Retired chef at Bridgewater Mill and Nediz
“Karl Firla. He was very persistent and just showed up out of the blue. He knocked on the kitchen door and said he would like to come and work with me.
There was no resume or phone call. The way he presented himself. He was respectful and humble and very keen to work. There was no discussion about terms. He was very interested in learning. His demeanour was honest and eager.
He had a great work ethos was easy to get on with. Always reliable and never disappointed.”
Firla is synonymous with his now-closed Sydney restaurant Oscillate Wildly, which established him as a culinary creator with few peers. He’s now a partner in CBD neo-Italian Leo and a new venture at Star, ELE. Le tu Thai broke new ground in Adelaide during the ’80s and ’90s with French cooking that harnessed his Vietnamese background at Neddy’s, Nediz and later, Bridgewater Mill. He’s now retired and lives in Adelaide.
Mark Jensen
Chef and owner at Red Lantern, Sydney
“Throughout life you meet people whose personality or professional capability influences your own development in subtle or more profound ways. If you are lucky, you meet someone with that unique combination of both traits, whose wisdom and guidance stamps an indelible mark on your identity. I got lucky. I met Janni Kyritsis in my mid-20s, time when my career and life could have easily gone off the rails.
I attribute my success and longevity in the industry to time spent with Janni in the Bennelong Restaurant kitchen at Sydney Opera House. Janni presided over a traditional kitchen brigade, one populated with the usual bag of misfits from various ethnicities. The work was taken seriously, but there was a palpable difference from kitchens I’d worked in previously. A difference I believe is intrinsically Janni. An ever-present sense of playfulness, laughter, respect and joy permeated the work environment.
Janni opened my eyes to the classic cuisine of Auguste Escoffier, and the literary works of Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson. His reinterpretation of their work, his methodical approach and application of technique, fuelled my thirst for knowledge. He loved offal. His nose-to-tail, and waste-nothing philosophy had a tremendous impact on me and influences my own kitchen management today. Invaluable lessons learnt, lessons I can only hope will inspire and influence the people I have the pleasure to work with today.”
Janni Kyritsis
Retired chef, Sydney
“I always feel very fond of Mark. He was so loyal, so good at his job. He came to me at Bennelong as an entrees chef; it was past his apprenticeship. And he was very good at his job, he always believed he had a strong future as a chef.
To then go away and join his wife’s family, to learn an entirely different style of cooking (Vietnamese) and to do it so well… I was astonished. I personally wouldn’t have a clue. But Mark always had determination, and I love his food every time I have the chance to eat it.”
Mark Jensen is known as the co-owner and powerhouse behind Sydney’s contemporary Vietnamese restaurant Red Lantern. But his training, which began in his mid-20s, was in European cooking.
Janni Kyritsis is, simply, a legend of the Australian culinary firmament, having escalated all the restaurants he worked at – including Berowra Waters, Bennelong and MG Garage – to the very highest critical acclaim.
Scott Pickett
Chef and director of the Scott Pickett Group of restaurants, Melbourne
“When I first met Philippe Mouchel he was chef at Melbourne’s Paul Bocuse Restaurant, which was regarded as the best in Melbourne. I was only 19, and to meet him was a bit like meeting God. After a few years working at The Windsor Hotel, I had earned my place in Philippe’s kitchen … and from Bocuse we then moved to open Langton’s by PM. As a young chef, they were truly the most formative years of my life. His knowledge, his techniques, his calm manner, the way he ran a kitchen… It was amazing and inspiring; he truly is one of the greatest chefs and cooks to ever work in Australia. Philippe also introduced and encouraged me to compete in the most prestigious cooking competition in the world, the Bocuse D’or, of which I am now Australian coach, giving back to a new generation of chefs.
Working with Philippe sparked my great love affair with classic French cuisine, which most recently I’ve re explored with the launch of Smith St Bistrot.
I’m lucky today to call him my friend, my teacher, my mentor, the man who shaped me into the chef and the person I am today. Merci Chef.”
Philippe Mouchel
Pioneering chef and restaurateur at Philippe, Melbourne.
“Let’s talk about Scott. Working with Scott was never boring, but not in a bad way. Scott was young like most of the brigade (except me ), and like most young chefs he liked to party, which was fine with me as long as you do your job. Scott was always a hard worker and never needed to be pushed in the kitchen; he was obviously talented. But where the problem lay with Scott was that he was not always very respectful with the rest of the brigade, especially the ones who were not behaving the correct way in the kitchen. I tried to talk to him and teach him the way I liked the staff should behave. One day after another, very serious complaints from one of the staff; I had to sit him down in the office (and) we spoke for hours about his behaviours and his future.
Teaching cooking to Scott was never an issue and he was always a pleasure to work with. Now, after all those years, I like to think that if Scott is so successful it is a little bit because of me and my mentoring.”
It’s difficult to keep track of the restaurants within chef Scott Pickett’s group; the latest is The Continental Sorrento, a multi restaurant/bar redevelopment of a classic Mornington Peninsula pub. Philippe Mouchel came to Melbourne in 1991 as Paul Bocuse’s man down under, and stayed.
He has mentored legions of great Australian chefs. Today he runs his
own CBD Melbourne bistrot, Philippe.
Karena Armstrong
Head chef and co-owner, Salopian Inn, McLaren Vale
“You can do better. Those words still ring in my ears, every day. They don’t say you’re not doing a good job, just that you can always do better, you can always push harder. Alla was the confidence I needed in my ability to cook, but also to cook with passion, thought and energy, and most importantly, discipline. Teachings in cooking techniques that have stayed with me to this day; routine, and ritual, that I value and pass on. Respect for ingredients to absorb the beauty and capture the flavours of nature in each dish. Celebrate the earthiness of mushrooms, smell the fresh damp earth, connect to the ingredient. That I have a seasonal regional restaurant and champion producers is no accident. Alla planted the seed years ago and I am eternally grateful. Shr never pretended it was easy or that it would come easily to me, just that if I was willing to work, commit and be bloody-minded in my approach, anything was possible.
Alla is a fearless leader with thought and consideration for those around her. My eyes were wide open watching her, always so present in the restaurant, and to this day I find myself in certain moments feeling as if she is just beside me, whispering: “you can do better”.
Finishing at Lake House, Alla said to me: “we will work together again someday”. The funny thing about that is I feel she has been on the journey with me the whole way.
Alla Wolf-Tasker
Executive chef and co-owner, Lake House, Daylesford, Victoria
“I remember Karena as a determined young woman of talent and quiet confidence. I watched her progress carefully, mindful of the considerable potential for ‘slings and arrows’ that I had experienced as a very rare female cook in French kitchens in my formative years. But Karena gave as good as she got – mostly with a broad grin and an easy, slightly ‘ocker’ drawl.
Her work was refined and caring. She was strong-willed and ambitious.
In 1998 she was our winning entrant into the National Bonlac Apprentice of the Year Awards. It’s telling that Karena chose as her prize to attend the San Francisco Baking Institute for two solid weeks of hands on sourdough classes instead of restaurant stages abroad. I think the direction her food was going was already sealed .
She’s developed into a wonderfully strong role model, a successful business owner and a brilliant cook. It would seem that she’s also negotiated the perils of work-life balance. That grin is still there and the slightly ocker drawl is pure joy. Most importantly, she always looks like she’s enjoying herself .”
Armstrong’s Salopian Inn, in the heart of McLaren Vale wine country, is an award-winning regional restaurant and wine bar with a reputation for produce-first classic, unpretentious food. Wolf-Tasker is a pillar of the Victorian hospitality industry, having led the way with her award-winning, restaurant-driven boutique hotel Lake House for more than 30 years.
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