Conversation with a chef

Once I’d switched off the recorder at Ladyboy, owners, chefs and partners in life Sumalee Sae-tang and Manpreet Singh very kindly brought out some dishes from their Beyond Bangkok menu for me to try. As we talked over...

There’s something very grounded about the way Jeremy Sutphin talks about food. He grew up in the American South around big gardens, smoked meats, family cooking and that wonderful idea of Southern hospitality, where...

Stepping off Nicholson Street into Al Dente Enoteca, I was immediately taken with the exposed brick, the wall of wine and the rare quiet of a restaurant between services. Andrea calls this stretch Melbourne’s “Italian...

I had never been up to Langlands, 25 floors above Melbourne in the Hyatt Centric. Ryan Dunn knows it can be a little too well hidden. With the dining room now opened up to the skyline, we sat looking over the wave of...

When I spoke to Pieter Buissje in 2022, he was appearing on under-30 chef lists and attracting plenty of attention. He’s still only 32, but now he’s a co-owner of a new Chapel Street restaurant, with the keys in his...

It’s been seven years since I last sat down with Josh Rudd, and it was genuinely lovely to catch up with him again. Since then, he’s opened venues, moved into large-scale events and catering, built teams and systems...

I first met Jasmin Lefers almost ten years ago, when she was heading up the kitchen at Wine 1160 and I went along to write about it. Since then, our paths have kept crossing through mutual friends, Melbourne’s food...

It was such a pleasure to meet a fellow Francophile in Sally Hillman. Her new book, Celebrating Champagne, is about Champagne, of course, but it’s also about the things that sit around it: cooking, family, France and...

When Mikey Dalton first walked into San Telmo in Melbourne with a CV in his hand, fresh off the plane from Ireland, he could hardly have imagined where that small decision would lead. Fourteen years later, he is now...

Denmark House feels like a small pocket of Copenhagen tucked above Little Collins Street. Light pours through the large, black-framed windows, Danish drifts across the room, and Raj Shrestha looks completely at home...

Over a fragrant samosa, kofta and garlic naan, with a cup of chai in hand, I sat down with Sunil Tyagi at Indian Star and listened as he traced an extraordinary life in food spanning more than five decades. He began his...

Over a fragrant samosa, kofta and garlic naan, with a cup of chai in hand, I sat down with Sunil Tyagi at Indian Star and listened as he traced an extraordinary life in food spanning more than five decades. He began his...

There is something very easy and generous about the way Reki Reinantha tells his story. He came to Australia from Indonesia as a high school student, began studying architecture, then slowly found himself pulled towards...

Amarjeet Singh is not someone who naturally enjoys being on a microphone or in front of a camera. He was shy when we began talking at Bibi Ji, which is about to celebrate its second birthday, but the more we spoke, the...

As I drove out of Melbourne and left the fog behind, the day opened up into that bright, golden Daylesford light and the whole town seemed to be out walking, eating, browsing and making the most of it. I’d arrived a...