Brian & Jo Lizotte
Cooking up a Storm
AT HOME & ON THE STAGE WORDS MICHELLE MEEHAN
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Brian Lizotte’s life has always been filled with good food and great music. For almost two decades, Brian has been the name and face behind Live @Lizotte’s, a dinner show concept that began in a restaurant at the Ettalong Beach War Memorial Club. He expanded his offering north to Newcastle in 2009, creating an intimate, atmospheric and genuinely unique fusion of delicious food and outstanding musical acts at the former King’s Theatre in Lambton.
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But long before he became known by Novocastrians as a purveyor of “fine food with a musical mood,” Brian had already forged an impressive career as one of the most highly regarded caterers in the Australian music industry, dishing up delicacies to some of the biggest local and international acts. His passion for food and music began during his childhood, fostered by his father Hank, a saxophonist, and his mother Theresa, a fantastic home cook. “I always loved cooking. My mother was a fabulous home cook, and later on in life, as I became a teenager, we had some amazing Burmese friends that taught my mum how to cook. All of a sudden we were eating Burmese food and Malaysian, and so we were always tempted by great cuisine,” Brian said. “I was always into food as a young boy, and music obviously because dad was a musician and we all learned to play. All of my brothers and sisters kept us busy for all my life with food and music, so it kind of was no surprise in the end (what I choose as my career), it was either healthcare, music or food, they were three things that my family was into.”
The music clearly won out for his younger brother Mark, who went on to become a household name with his rock band Johnny Diesel & the Injectors, before building a hugely successful, and ongoing, solo career under the shortened moniker, Diesel. But while food became the vehicle through which Brian forged his own career, it was also heavily rooted in both music and family. After completing a diploma in hotel and catering management, Brian travelled overseas to the US (where he was originally born, and his older sister lived) and then throughout Europe, tending bars and working as a waiter. He eventually met up with his younger brother in London while Mark was on tour supporting Jimmy Barnes (his future brother-in-law). It was an encounter that would flavour the course of Brian’s career for the next decade. Brian began chatting with Mark’s girlfriend at the time, Jep, who was also the sister of Barnes’ wife Jane, and discovered that she had been doing some catering at a recording studio in Sydney.
