Hospitality no.733 - April 2017

NO.733 APRIL 2017

Featuring: 50 GAME CHANGERS LIST | MILESTONES | REFLECTIONS | PREDICTIONS AND MORE

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Editorial

I

’m really proud of this special 50th anniversary edition – but wow, what an undertaking!

Summarising some of the ways in which the hospitality sector has grown and evolved since 1967 – the year this magazine was founded – has been a huge challenge, but a really insightful one too. I’d like to thank those who shared some of their fondest memories and reflected on the transformations they’ve witnessed – it was a pleasure speaking with you all.

In these pages you’ll find profiles of restaurants and cafes that have survived for at least 50 years – an incredible feat in a sector where now a five year stint is seen as impressive.

We’ve documented how certain areas of the industry have changed – from chef uniforms to wine lists and the role of women – and we’ve compiled the epic 50 Game Changers list. It’s a nod to the forces that have moulded foodservice over the past half century: people, policies, technologies and trends. It’s by no means exhaustive; there are so many incredible individuals and businesses that have played an enormous role in making hospitality the dynamic and exciting industry that it is today. We wish we could make mention of you all.

On behalf of the Hospitality team (today’s and that of years gone by) we hope you enjoy this special read.

We’re really excited to have reached this milestone and we can’t wait to see what the next 50 years will bring.

April Contents 4 Timeline

6 Pellegrini’s 10 Peter Rowland’s

4

fondest memories 12 Beppi’s 16 Women in hospitality 20 Leanne de Bortoli’s reflections 22 The Taco Bill story 24 50 Game Changers 46 The evolution of the

10

Golden Chef’s Hat 48 Chefs’ uniforms 50 The next 50 years…

12 16

PUBLISHER Paul Wootton pwootton@intermedia.com.au

PRODUCTION MANAGER Jacqui Cooper jacqui@intermedia.com.au

EDITOR Danielle Bowling T: 02 8586 6226 dbowling@intermedia.com.au

HEAD OF CIRCULATION Chris Blacklock cblacklock@intermedia.com.au To subscribe please call 1800 651 422.

JOURNALIST Madeline Woolway T: 02 8586 6194 mwoolway@intermedia.com.au ADVERTISING NATIONAL Dan Shipley T: 02 8586 6163 F: 02 9660 4419 dshipley@intermedia.com.au DESIGN Kea Thorburn kthorburn@intermedia.com.au

Danielle Bowling dbowling@intermedia.com.au

50

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DISCLAIMER This publication is published by Food and Beverage Media, a division of The Intermedia Group Pty Ltd (the “Publisher”). Materials in this publication have been created by a variety of different entities and, to the extent permitted by law, the Publisher accepts no liability for materials created by others. All materials should be considered protected by Australian and international intellectual property laws. Unless you are authorised by law or the copyright owner to do so, you may not copy any of the materials. The mention of a product or service, person or company in this publication does not indicate the Publisher’s endorsement. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Publisher, its agents, company officers or employees. Any use of the information contained in this publication is at the sole risk of the person using that information. The user should make independent enquiries as to the accuracy of the information before relying on that information. All express or implied terms, conditions, warranties, statements, assurances and representations in relation to the Publisher, its publications and its services are expressly excluded save for those conditions and warranties which must be implied under the laws of any State of Australia or the provisions of Division 2 of Part V of the Trade Practices Act 1974 and any statutory modification or re-enactment thereof. To the extent permitted by law, the Publisher will not be liable for any damages including special, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages (including but not limited to economic loss or loss of profit or revenue or loss of opportunity) or indirect loss or damage of any kind arising in contract, tort or otherwise, even if advised of the possibility of such loss of profits or damages. While we use our best endeavours to ensure accuracy of the materials we create, to the extent permitted by law, the Publisher excludes all liability for loss resulting from any inaccuracies or false or misleading statements that may appear in this publication.

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April 2017 Hospitality 3

In 1967...

Jimi Hendrix burnt his guitar for the first time

The first Boeing 737 made its maiden flight

Rolling Stone Magazine made its debut

DNA was created in a test tube

Morgan Gallup Poll found 62% of Australians in favour of continuing the war in Vietnam Aretha Franklin recorded 'Respect'

4 Hospitality  April 2017

Muhammad Ali refused induction into the army and was stripped of his heavyweight title

The world’s first ATM was installed in Enfield, London

The first human heart transplant was performed

Prime Minister of Australia, Harold Holt was officially presumed dead The Beatles sign a petition in The Times to legalise marijuana

Hospitality magazine was founded

A referendum enabled the government to consider Aboriginal people in the population of Australia

April 2017  Hospitality 5

Pellegrini's, Melbourne

Coffee custodians F

One of the founding members of Melbourne’s coffee scene, Pellegrini’s has witnessed a lot of change over its 60-odd years – but has embraced very little of it. Co-owner Sisto Malaspina told Danielle Bowling that he wouldn't have it any other way.

6 Hospitality April 2017

oodservice operators are always being told they need to keep up with the times, to stay abreast of the latest dining trends and shun technological advancements at their peril.

Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar on Melbourne’s Bourke Street is living proof that if you’re onto a good thing, don’t mess with it. Since 1954, the humble little coffee shop has resided in what is now arguably the nation’s coffee capital, offering espresso coffee, authentic Italian food and genuine hospitality.

It claims to have been the first café in Melbourne with an espresso machine, it has a loyal, if not cultlike following, it's has never changed the décor and has made only the slightest of tweaks to its menu.

Nino Pangrazio and Sisto Malaspina bought the café from its founders in 1974 after travelling to Australia from Italy and have worked in it almost every day since.

“Pellegrini’s was the number one in the way it did things, the way things should be done – fresh ingredients, taken from the growers to the market to the shop. Everything done by hand. No mechanisation, no additives. Everything was simple, fresh and beautifully put together,” Malaspina told Hospitality.

“And it hasn’t changed at all. It’s still the same menu, prepared in the same way. Slow cooking, no machinery, done by hand … This is the way food should be done. It’s not contemporary food. It’s secular, traditional, home cooking.”

The Pellegrini’s offering might not have changed much over the past 60-odd years, but the Melbourne coffee scene certainly has. Cafes have gone from being few and far between to almost countless, but that doesn’t phase Malaspina. The café is as busy as

ever, its reputation as strong as ever and its clientele as loyal as ever. Even Gough Whitlam frequented the cafe in his heyday.

“Don’t ask me what he had because I wont tell you. People often ring up and ask, but that’s nothing that really concerns anybody. There are some things that we leave in the house,” Malaspina said.

Pellegrini’s has had the same coffee supplier – Vittoria – since its inception. In fact, Malaspina said the café has hardly ever had to seek new suppliers, for any of its produce.

“The bulk of our suppliers are still the same,” he said. “The relationships have lasted this long because we acknowledge the people that look after us. If you don’t have a relationship and you don’t look after your suppliers, there’s no way they can look after you. So speaking on my behalf – or on Pellegrini’s behalf – if you do not have the best to work with, you cannot deliver the best. You might think you can, but you can’t. Look after your suppliers and they’ll look after you. It makes life much easier for us.”

And it’s not just the suppliers who have stuck around. Pellegrini’s has a number of staff who have clocked up more than 40 years of service. In fact, it was only two or so years ago that a couple of staff members from the café’s original team in 1954 finally decided to hang up their aprons.

Malaspina admits, however, that finding staff willing to go the distance is becoming more and more difficult.

“Back in the day, people were arriving by boat on a weekly basis and we could say to a friend ‘If you know anybody who needs a job and has a bit of experience from the old country…’ We might have

needed a waiter or bartender, for example. It was easy to find staff with experience,” he said. “They arrived young, fresh from the old country. They got a job here, learned the trade and stayed until they were ready to retire.

“Now, it’s totally different. It’s hard to find staff – staff who have the old fashioned values. Now they’ve got long hair, earrings, nose rings, tattoos.

We don’t go for those sorts of things.”

Old fashioned values means a commitment to service, a love for what you do and a deep respect for both your colleagues and your customers.

“The thing is, young people today say ‘Oh, how’s it going, guys?’ Are you kidding? At Pellegrini’s? ‘Oh, thank you, guys’. I mean, this is terrible.

This is not a form of greeting, it’s something you might say in a garage. At Pellegrini’s you say ‘Good afternoon.’ If it’s ladies, you say ‘Ladies, good afternoon.' ... Not ‘See you, guys’. I will not tolerate that.”

The staff that do fit the brief are respected and treated as family. They just need to understand, Malaspina said, that working at Pellegrini’s isn’t a job: it’s a lifestyle and he expects commitment.

“First and foremost, staff are employed by me on behalf of the customers. That’s what they have to understand. They are sort of self-employed. There is a job to do; they’ve got to do it and they’ve got to enjoy it. If they enjoy doing the job they should stay, or else they should go before they even start.

“If you’re not cut out to be serving people, then you shouldn’t be here. You should go push wheelbarrows, maybe,” he said.

“They arrived young, fresh from the old country. They got a job here, learned the trade and stayed until they were ready to retire.”

So what does the next 50 years look like for this Melbourne institution, which sees no need for a website or email and up until 2016 had a pay phone as its landline?

“Had you asked me the same question 20 years ago I would have answered differently because I thought I was invincible, but as I grow older I realise that I’m not immortal and I’m not invincible. So it will be over to the next Pellegrini’s managers – the next custodians. We’re not really the owners, we’re custodians of this beautiful place.”

Simplicity, freshness and quality. Old fashioned values and true hospitality. It’s been the formula for success that has seen Pellegrini’s rack up a tenure that is almost unheard of today.

Whoever Malaspina and Pangrazio’s successors are, they absolutely must buy into this philosophy. It’s non-negotiable, Malaspina said.

“That’s the only way it can happen. It will not happen any other way, you can be sure of that. This isn’t a place where I come to work. This place is my life. I live at this place. Look, it’s very hard to put my emotions into words, but this isn’t work for me. This is joy, and we’re very fortunate to be where we are.” n

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ynonymous with class, creativity and quality, Melbourne-based Peter Rowland Catering is a leader in Australia’s foodservice industry. The man himself has developed a formidable reputation amongst the country’s most powerful businessmen and women, and the company today oversees the catering for high profile events including the Melbourne Cup carnival, the Grand Prix and the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

In a recent chat with Hospitality, Peter Rowland took us on a stroll down memory lane, sharing some of the mishaps and madness that have made his career so colourful.

THAT TIME AT CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

Murdoch, Bond, Packer & me Peter Rowland remembers

A friend called Rupert Murdoch rang and said ‘I want to host a function in East Berlin for Brisbane’s bid for the 1992 Olympic Games.’ Now, between East Berlin and West Berlin was a wall, and the only way to get across was through Checkpoint Charlie.

So Rupert Murdoch wanted to host a lunch. I said ‘Why don’t we do a barbie in the backyard?’

He said, ‘Perfect, fix it.’ And that was the only conversation I had with him.

So we got it going. We took all the barbecues, the lambs, all the food, and … we had all these Fowlers Vacola jars of fruits. There were peaches, nectarines, grapes, cherries, everything. We took everything – plates, knives, forks, linen, the whole lot – into East Berlin.

So I was with a beautiful bloke called Kevin O’Neil who was a florist in South Yarra. We got to Checkpoint Charlie, and we were wetting our pants. The border guards on the American side were OK, but when we got to the other side where the Russian guards were, they had their fully loaded AK47s with the safety switch off.

This was pretty scary for some people from Australia.

They knew we were coming and they searched everything in the vehicles. Then Kevin pulled out a couple of little koala bear and kangaroo toys and looked at the guard, and the guard said ‘Aussie!’

The diplomacy was just amazing. He called all the guards over and said ‘Aussie, Aussie!’ and Kevin – smart – he had a bag of them and we gave them out.

We went straight through.

The day of the barbecue, after the lunch, Rupert Murdoch said ‘Where are you going?’

I said ‘I’m going to go to New York on the Concorde.’

He said ‘I am too. How are you getting to London?’

I said ‘Oh, I’ll catch a plane in West Berlin.’

He said ‘No you won’t; you’ll come with me.’

So we go in his chauffeur driven car and we get to the border.

‘Aussie, come through!’ The guards didn’t recognise Rupert Murdoch!

THAT TIME I WAS BANNED FROM AN ICONIC MELBOURNE RESTAURANT

An iconic figure in Australia’s catering scene, Peter Rowland has more than five decades’ experience wining and dining the country’s most celebrated identities, and he’s gathered some pretty incredible stories along the way.

10 Hospitality April 2017

I can remember in the old days, I’d often go out for dinner and wear a dinner suit and my wife would wear a good dress. We’d go to The Florentino, upstairs – where now even the owner, Guy (Grossi), is casual. There’s no dress code.

So going back, Nigel Dempster, a Fleet Street journalist, was out for the races, the Melbourne Cup carnival. There used to be a traditional lunch at The Florentino on the Monday before the Melbourne Cup. I was there with my wife and it was so hot. Nigel said ‘Guys, this is ridiculous, take

A CULINARY TRIP TO VIETNAM

your coats and ties off’.

The owner, Branco Tocigl said me the next day, ‘you can’t come in again; we must bar you.’

I said ‘Branco, you idiot, everyone took their coat and tie off.’

‘You’re the only one I knew,’ he said.

THAT TIME WITH ALAN BOND Have you heard of a fellow named Alan Bond? We did the wedding for his daughter, Suzanne, in Perth. I can remember, Eileen Bond rang and said ‘we want you to come over and do the wedding. When would you like to come?’

So I get on the bloody aeroplane and there’s nobody on it. Just me, straight to Perth. We go to Dalkeith where the wedding was going to be, and Eileen and I are looking around and there’s a beach down there. I said ‘we’ll have the wedding down there. It’s wonderful, look at the view.’

She said ‘Bloody terrific!’

So we went down to the beach. We built a deck from the sand out into the water and we said we’d have a band – Men at Work.

The idea was that they’d be out on a barge in the dark and no one would even know they were there. And so we did it.

The band had arrived to do their sound check. Where’s the power for the barge?

‘Oh, fuck,’ I said. ‘I’ll fix it.’

I’d noticed an electrical wholesaler on the way in Perth. I jumped in the car and I got 300m of industrial waterproof cable; it was $11,000. That fixed the band, no problem.

Now, timing is very important in life. I had to work out the right time to tell Alan Bond that I’d incurred another $11,000, which in those days was significant. So I move through the crowd at the party and Alan is chatting to an extremely attractive lady. I sort of nudged him and he said ‘Oh Peter, this is wonderful.’

And I said, ‘look I had to spend an extra $11,000 on the cabling for the band.’

He said ‘I don’t care, just put it on the bill.’

So everything was alright.

THAT TIME JAMES PACKER’S PARTY WAS GOING DRY One of my favourite Packer stories is the very first party we did. It was James Packer’s 21st.

Kerry had rung and said ‘do a party for Jamie.’ And just hung up. So I rang Pat Wheatley, his secretary, and she said ‘yes, it’s three days before Christmas and it’s at Palm Beach. Do it.’ So we did.

It was a Monday night or something like that. The kids arrived from Sydney and it’s all Bollinger, that’s all Kerry drank. I don’t know what the kids were doing because they couldn’t have drunk that much in that short amount of time, but the head steward came to me and said ‘we’re going to run out of booze in an hour, the way they’re drinking.’

I thought ‘oh, this is good. First job for Packer and I’ll end up with concrete boots.’ So I’ve driven back down Palm Beach. The pub’s not open, the surf club’s not open, and the RSL’s not open. It’s 11pm and I could see the lights of Sydney, and I just thought ‘oh God.’ I start to drive out of Palm Beach, not knowing what to do. And the next little town was Barrenjoey. Down a side road, there was a group of shops. I went down and there’s a licensed grocer. The bloke was inside doing his Christmas stocktake.

I thought ‘you beauty.’ I knocked on the door and he didn’t even turn around.

I said ‘open the door or I’ll drive my car through it.’

He said ‘what do you want?’ and he’s speaking with a French accent. I’m thinking ‘God, French. They’ve got no humour.'

So I told him who I was and what I was doing. I said ‘do you know Kerry Packer?’ and he said ‘yes, we deliver booze to him.’ I said ‘do you know that he drinks Bollinger?’ He said yes. I said ‘I need at least 10–15 dozen bottles, now. And I can’t pay you. I can’t cover that on my credit card and I don’t have cash.’

He said ‘we’d better hurry.’ We loaded the car, he came with me and he helped me unload it at Packer’s place. He still sends me a Christmas card.’ n

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DON’T DELAY! ENTRIES CLOSE 12TH MAY 2017 *Important Information: Entry is for teams of two who are AU residents working in the culinary industry & aged between 16 & under 25 on 30.9.17. Regional & Metro cook-offs occur in Jun & Jul 17’. National cook-off held in Sydney in Sept 17’. See full T&C’s including entry details at nestle-goldenchefs.com.au

April 2017 Hospitality 11 GCH021 HOSPITALITY PRINT AD_FA.indd 1

15/3/17 1:47 pm

Like father, like son

After losing his father in 2016, Marc Polese took the reins of Italian diner, Beppi’s. Here, he talks about how the Sydney institution came to be, and the role tradition and culture have played in the business’ continued success.

W

hen my Dad, Beppi Polese, opened the doors to Beppi’s in Sydney’s city, I think he knew that the restaurant would still be going 60 years later. He meant to make something that would last. A family place, run by our family, serving the traditional Italian food from his home region.

Over the last 30 years, he and I worked hard to maintain what Beppi’s is famous for – a warm welcome, and a loving level of care taken over every dish. We greatly value that our customers have chosen Beppi’s. We want them to feel like we are welcoming them into our home. The fact is, the restaurant scene has changed vastly over the last 60 years but we have always worked hard to ensure that Beppi’s maintains its core values.

60 YEARS IS A LONG TIME IN OUR INDUSTRY Much was written about Beppi, the man, and Beppi’s, the restaurant, on both the occasion of his passing in 2016, aged 90, and the 60th anniversary of our restaurant in the same year.

It is a beautiful story. The story of an Italian migrant – the youngest of five children born to 12 Hospitality April 2017

a labourer in 1925 at the base of the Dolomite mountain range, north east of Venice. Our family was poor, food was scarce, and Dad worked as a dishwasher from the age of 15 when he was sent away from his village to Milan.

Working in kitchens guaranteed he would have enough to eat when most people had little.

In 1940, he watched as the Allies bombed Milan. Dad took every opportunity to work his way out of the kitchen into the dining room and eventually to the famous Gritti Palace Hotel in Venice. He was keen to escape fascist Italy and possible conscription. Yet, while attempting to go to Austria for work, he was caught and thrown into a concentration camp in Vienna.

He was later sent to dig tank trenches at the Austro-Hungary border, where he suffered further hunger and deprivation. These experiences steeled his resolve to never be in such a situation again and fuelled his drive through life.

Once escaping the camp he joined the underground in Vienna, selling contraband and living off his wits. One day, when seeing a friend off at the train station he noticed there were no guards around so he made a courageous move, diving under the train and he rode it back to Italy. Upon arriving in his village

he found it occupied by Germans.

He fled to the hills around his village and saw the war out, fighting for the partisans.

He recommenced his work in the dining rooms of grand hotels in Italy after the war.

It is the stuff movies are made of, and a story that my family never tires from telling.

In 1952, he made the bold decision to leave his family in Italy and head to Australia to find his fortune. He found work at Sydney’s fanciest restaurant, Romano’s. He waited tables, drove taxis, worked hard to get ahead. He met mum, Norma, and together they saved to buy the St James’s Café in Yurong Street. They built a clientele of sitting Prime Ministers, scions of the industry, international pop stars and neighbourhood locals. Always sharing a warm welcome and exceptional service in a place that for many, became a home away from home.

THE THINGS WE NEVER CHANGE 1. Never, ever waste food; food is to be cherished Money was tight for our family and so Beppi began a lifelong commitment to never waste food – everything that could be used was.

Food was to be cherished, savoured and

enjoyed. So, while most restaurants served only chicken breast, he used the whole chicken. He picked herbs like dandelions for salad from the golf course or the side of the road. Today, we continue this tradition; waste is kept to a minimum in the kitchen.

2. Stick to your knitting From day one, Beppi did what he knew.

He never tried to be anything that he was not and neither does our restaurant. Beppi introduced Australians to eating mussels. As they could not be bought, Beppi and Norma had to collect the mussels growing on the wooden pylons of the Spit Bridge in Sydney in an inflatable dinghy. Dad would coax his patrons to try them, confident that he could convince them in the end. And convince them he did. He had to give them away to

clients at first as they all said “you don’t eat mussels, you use them for bait!”

Word soon got around that there was a restaurant in Sydney serving food like no other – calamari, mussels, parmigiana, bolognaise ragu, chicken liver pate and a strange fried dish called Fritto Misto. Many of those first dishes are still served today – alongside our iconic Minestrone.

3. Put your heart into everything you do Beppi infused his personality into every fibre of the place. The lamps in the cellar? He made them. The leather bound menus? He cut and branded them by hand. He put in archways and wooden beams to make the place his home. The décor is not designed; it has evolved and grown over the decades. It has our soul. He hired handsome Italian waiters,

A CULINARY TRIP TO VIETNAM

“John Howard and Bob Hawke dined at Beppi’s on the same night, though at different tables. We are quiet and discreet, and we are fiercely protective of our customers.”

Think you’ve got what it takes?

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DON’T DELAY! ENTRIES CLOSE 12TH MAY 2017 *Important Information: Entry is for teams of two who are AU residents working in the culinary industry & aged between 16 & under 25 on 30.9.17. Regional & Metro cook-offs occur in Jun & Jul 17’. National cook-off held in Sydney in Sept 17’. See full T&C’s including entry details at nestle-goldenchefs.com.au

April 2017 Hospitality 13 GCH021 HOSPITALITY PRINT AD_FA.indd 2

15/3/17 1:47 pm

Beppi’s iconic Minestrone Friulano Ingredients: 100g lima beans 100g split dried peas 100g borlotti beans 4 garlic cloves, diced I head of garlic 4 bay leaves 4 large roma tomatoes, diced 2 potatoes, diced 4 medium sized carrots, diced 4 onions, diced 2 celery stalks, diced 1 bunch of English spinach, roughly chopped 4 litres of chicken stock 100g dittalini pasta 100ml olive oil Instructions: Chicken stock: Boil together for three hours 4kg of chicken bones, two diced onions, two diced carrots, one diced celery stalk, 4 bay leaves, one head of garlic. After three hours strain broth and set aside.

Soup: Take all the dried beans and place in a pot covered with water – leave overnight to soften then bring to boil and allow to cook until soft, approximately one hour. Set aside. In a second pot heat olive oil and add carrots, garlic onions, tomatoes and celery and cook until soft and slightly brown. Add four litres of chicken stock to the pot along with the dittalini pasta, diced potato, spinach and bay leaves. Bring to the boil. Once boiling, add the beans and then turn down the heat and simmer for a further 30 minutes.

Serve in bowls with grated parmesan cheese.

14 Hospitality April 2017

who became part of the Beppi’s family. Still today there are waiters who have worked with Beppi’s for 20 years. It became not just his and Mum’s home but a home for the people who eat here and the people who work here – warm, comforting and familiar. We have a culture that I like to describe as family. We look out for each other as workers and look out for our customers.

4. Great wine matters It would be impossible to talk about Beppi’s without talking about our famous wine cellar. Our private rooms are a collection of intimate spaces, developed over time, cocooned by some of the rarest and most priceless wines in the country. Beppi’s was the first restaurant in Australia to put Grange on its wine list. We still have one of the original wine lists from the early 1960s. The Grange is priced at 30 shillings! It is like no other dining space.

My father and I have built our collection over 60 years.

5. Tradition still matters Frank Packer used to wait in his Rolls Royce out the front of the restaurant when a table was not available; his children and grandchildren still dine at Beppi’s today. The Buttrose family have a four generational history of eating at Beppi’s, starting with Ita’s father. Many families have celebrated important occasions through the generations. We are honoured to be able to contribute to our customers’ memories and good times.

Many celebrities have dined at Beppi’s. Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Neil Armstrong, Mick Jagger, Bono, Sir Edmund Hillary, Rihanna, Ben Stiller – the list goes on and on. Recently, Prime Ministers John Howard and Bob Hawke dined at Beppi’s on the same night, though at different tables. We are quiet and discreet, and we are fiercely protective of our customers.

6. A warm welcome and delicious food are always in fashion Our patrons don’t come to be seen. They come for the delicious food and special service. From the bread basket with home made crostini and complimentary sundried tomatoes, olive paste and chilli, to the tiramisu – thought, love and care go into every meal. When you walk into Beppi’s, you leave your day behind. It's old-school fine dining, where the experience matters as much as the food. There's something inherently genuine about the experience. We do not follow fads or trends. We believe food should taste good, not just look good. It is not, even after all these years, trying to be anything other than what it is.

Since I took over, little has changed. We strive to improve and learn, to move forward. We never stop learning from our experiences. I am improving the communication tools for staff, increasing our social media presence and looking at how we can maintain our tradition without being seen as old fashioned. Last year, for instance, we collaborated with Campari to create a celebratory cocktail – the Sessanta. We evolve our food menu, wine list and cocktail menu to not only reflect current trends but we also revive old favourites that have stood the test of time. In a world that emphasises the new, we feel tradition is important; it honours our past and the good things we have learnt from our forebears. We stay true to who we are. Beppi’s. n

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April 2017 Hospitality 15

Getting the balance right How has women's role in hospitality evolved over the years? Is there more work to be done? Influential women from all walks of the hospitality world share their thoughts.

LAUREN ELDRIDGE, PASTRY CHEF, PEI MODERN, SYDNEY

STEPHANIE ALEXANDER, CHEF AND CELEBRATED HOSPITALITY IDENTITY

Do you feel women are still under-represented?

I think women are still under-represented.

On a micro level, the ratio of male to female employees is still heavily skewed towards men, from apprentices to head chefs. On a macro level, there are events held all over the world – talks, dinners, charity events – that are all male.

Organisers either don’t even consider including women, or they will include one or two almost as a token of diversity.

Do you feel women are still under-represented?

I don’t know. It’s mostly men who get the accolades and head up long-standing operations. But all of these men would have female staff. There’s no avoiding the issue that top level positions in the restaurant industry not only require personal stamina, but they are incompatible with family life. Many women seem to be employed in linked industries, such as hospitality management, consultancy, small businesses that are food-related.

In the years that I operated Stephanie’s Restaurant (1976-1997), I saw the rise of the food media and the development of a much greater interest in food, especially French food after the advent of nouvelle cuisine in 1985. I employed a female apprentice and no doubt many more females started apprenticeships. Other female members of my staff were enthusiastic and intelligent home cooks, rather than having any qualifications (myself included).

In what ways have women progressed in the sector?

In the last few years I have noticed more women’s hospitality groups forming and making themselves heard. In Australia, there is Fully Booked – Women in Food & Drink, Coleman’s Academy, Females in Food and Women in Hospitality. Internationally Parabere Forum is a huge database of people in the sector who support each other while raising awareness of the inequalities faced in such a male dominated industry. These groups are a strong way to show that we will not let the industry continue the way it has been, with women being dismissed or ignored.

Which young women do you consider to be particularly promising?

Women like Nicky Riemer, Annie Smithers and Karen Martini have shown that a female can achieve at the highest level – and Sharlee Gibb, who’s in a related industry. These are women who have done it their way.

FIONA MCLEAN, HEAD TEACHER, HOSPITALITY AND COMMERCIAL COOKERY, SYDNEY TAFE In 1981 I completed a pre-apprenticeship course at East Sydney TAFE, and my class comprised 50 percent women, which was very unusual. All other classes were mostly 100 percent men. In 1982 I landed an apprenticeship at Summit Restaurant at Australian Square; 30 percent of the apprentices were female and about half left the industry before the end of their training – mostly because of the intensity of the work and its physical nature. We were carrying around 30kg of flour and it could be very tough! Life as a female apprentice was hard. You had to be better than any male apprentice to be given opportunities, otherwise you weren’t noticed.

Thankfully, over the years more females have joined the industry. There is a greater female presence in kitchens today, however, there are still few high profile female chefs. There has been a significant shift now with 50 to 60 percent of TAFE classes consisting of women. Whilst the industry enjoys the skills that women bring to the job, generally speaking, women don’t stay in the industry – whether it be due to the physical demands, or the need to look after a young family.

Cask wine - the brainchild of winemaker Tom Angove - was patented 16 Hospitality April 2017

JULIA CAMPBELL, FOUNDER, WOMEN IN HOSPITALITY, AND FINANCIAL ACCOUNTANT, THE THREE BLUE DUCKS GROUP

SHARLEE GIBBS, EVENT PRODUCER, FOUNDER, FULLY BOOKED WOMEN Do you feel women are still under-represented?

I don't think women are under-represented in kitchens; there are lots of amazing female chefs (we call them ‘cheffes’ these days) not just the two or three that get rattled off when someone says ‘we need a female chef, who should we use?’ I feel they are under-represented by media, festival curators and event makers.

Moving forward, what would you like to see?

I would like to see more women in head chef roles; they can be great leaders and nurturers as well as brilliant cooks. Events and festivals need to start putting more women in the talent line-up. I recently approached a food festival and gave them a list of 10 cheffes they could look at adding to their program.

All were awesome women cooking amazing food.

Needless to say the line-up was released and there were four women of 51 chefs.

In what ways have women progressed in the sector?

There are more successful females across all areas of the industry inspiring future female industry leaders. In Australia, from Annette Lacey and Sarah Doyle to Claire Van Vuuren and internationally, the best bartender in Diageo's World's Best competition was a female this year. Putting a spotlight on these women shows a career path that females can aspire to take.

What else needs to be done?

Australia has arguably one of the most exciting food scenes in the world at the moment. We are in a position to continue to shine a spotlight equally on the talented females in the industry alongside the males at the outset and on the world stage.

Aside from inspiration, we need the infrastructure to support the next generation of women who face very different issues to men in the workplace. We need to give them the ability to find support to tackle these issues head on, back themselves and enjoy longevity in the industry.

LYNDEY MILAN, CO-FOUNDER AND PATRON OF TASTING SUCCESS In 2016 Tasting Success celebrated 10 years. It was launched as a program designed to develop the skills and confidence of female apprentice chefs and commercial cookery students at TAFE NSW – Ultimo. It consists of a series of masterclasses, media and confidence training workshops and 35 hours of workplace mentoring with high profile chefs such as Alex Herbert, Chris Manfield, Kylie Kwong, Jane Strode, Peter Gilmore, Martin Benn, Mark Best and many others. Obviously there’s a need for male mentors as there simply aren’t enough females!

The program has been expanded to include both men and women, in recognition that retention is critical for both sexes. The new program provides students with the professional and life skills to sustain balance and achieve success in all aspects of their life. However, there are still some gender specific sessions as there are still a number of indutry issues that affect only women. Even now a flip through the Good Food Guide does not throw up many female executive chefs. By and large, there are only male judges on the popular shows like MasterChef.

Thank heavens for Maggie on the Great Australian Bake-off and Karen on My Kitchen Rules!

While I would love to see a true meritocracy, it just doesn’t exist. My dream is for everyone to have an equal opportunity to become unequal – access to great education and support for all, and then with hard work, dedication, commitment, talent and a desire to succeed let the cream come to the top.

ANNETTE LACEY, DIRECTOR OF WINE AND BEVERAGE, LOTUS DINING Do you feel women are still under-represented?

Most definitely in wine. I often will go to tastings or masterclasses and there is a ratio of 2:15 female to male in these classes. It is never a problem, as the men in the wine industry in Sydney are great – it’s more an observation.

In what ways have women progressed in the sector?

We have a lot of high profile female sommeliers, chefs and restaurant managers who have received accolades from their peers. This has a flow-on effect to those coming up through the ranks. The one positive point to note is there doesn’t seem to be that ‘glass ceiling’ that is often present in other industries. It’s also more accepted in the wine industry that women hold prominent positions and do it well.

Moving forward, what would you like to see?

I don't like to look at it as a women only problem.

I think for everyone it is a challenge to rise to the top of your chosen field, it requires motivation, dedication and the desire to succeed. I would like to see those people, irrelevant of sex, be successful. I am a big believer in education to support your career – I think it adds an extra dimension to what you can offer customers and your employer.

April 2017 Hospitality 17

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“Winemakers were also trying to keep up with the insatiable thirst for Chardonnay. Sales grew but somehow along the way, we lost it.”

In vine

form

Leanne de Bortoli, co-owner of one of Australia’s most recognisable brands, reflects on just how far wine loving Australians have come.

G

rowing up on our family vineyard in the 1960s and 70s exposed me to a wonderful life with a winery as my backyard.

Back then, wine was simply labelled: Moselle, Riesling, Chablis, Hock, Burgundy and Claret. It was about the ‘style' of wine (not varietal) that actually bore no resemblance to the French origin of those names. At that time, Australian fortified wine was king; sherries, ports and muscats were far more popular than table wines.

However, change was on the way. As winemaking practices improved, so did the selection of table wines. As tastes became more sophisticated, there was growing interest in wine as a social drink.

Coffee drinking became an alternative to the traditional cup of tea and – in general – Australians were developing a broader palate for both food and wine.

Coinciding with this time was the resurgence of winemaking in some regions, including the Yarra Valley, as well as the emergence of newer wine regions around Australia, like Margaret River.

It was in the early 1970s that sales of table wines finally took over from these sweeter, stronger, fortified styles. The change from style to variety started to appear on wine labels and in the decades that followed, popularity for certain varieties like Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz grew, resulting in a mad rush to plant more of these grapes and pull out the less popular ones like Grenache and Mourvedre.

This was also the time of wine casks. They provided consumers with inexpensive wine to enjoy with their meals at a time when TV advertising was glamourising the appeal of wine as a social drink.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, interest in Australian wine grew overseas and so did the availability of big ballsy Shiraz. The world fell in love with these wines courtesy of influential American wine writer, Robert Parker, and Australia delivered.

Winemakers were also trying to keep up with the insatiable thirst for Chardonnay. Sales grew but somehow along the way, we lost it.

Chardonnay became too full on, too oaky and too alcoholic. Australian consumers backed away from these monsters and started to drink this lesser known variety called Sauvignon Blanc – particularly if it was from New Zealand. And like in overseas markets, Shiraz was on the up and up domestically.

Into the turn of the new century and winemakers have taken the process back to grass roots, literally. They have gone back to the vineyard in the quest to capture site expression, soil and season, doing things a little differently and trialling new varieties. They’re challenging the norm.

And we’re no exception here in the Yarra Valley. After buying a vineyard here in 1987, we still grow Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz but over the last 30 years have added Pinot Gris (which not all that long ago was considered an alternative variety) and in more recent times we’ve grown Pinot Blanc, Nebbiolo and Gamay.

In the King Valley, which has become renowned for Italian varieties, you can find Pinot Grigio, Prosecco, Sangiovese and Nebbiolo amongst others. In places like Heathcote and McLaren Vale, largely the home of Shiraz, Grenache is making a comeback. Yes, that very same variety planted by our forefathers and used to make Port is back in vogue.

Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Shiraz may still be the popular kids on the block, but Australian consumers are becoming more adventurous. As a nation we have exposure to so many different cuisines with a mountain of different wine styles to enjoy with them. A few years ago, our company championed the cause for pale, dry Rosé and it’s heartening to see how well it is now accepted; a wine that suits the Australian lifestyle perfectly.

With the advent of wine bars popping up all over the place, customers have the opportunity to try new and interesting wines by the glass, rather than the ubiquitous house white and house red. Single vineyard wines sit alongside artisan gins and craft beer.

Try getting your tongue around names like Assyrtiko and Sangiovese – it’ll be worth it, because they’re a revelation and they may be coming to a neighbourhood near you soon. n

Australia’s first restaurant guide, Graham Kerr’s Guide to Good Eating in Sydney, is published 20 Hospitality April 2017

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From nada to nachos The story behind Australia’s oldest family of Mexican restaurants is a humble and heartwarming one. Tom Kartel, director of Taco Bill, takes us on a walk down memory lane.

T

aco Bill’s beginnings were simple, with its American founder ‘Taco Bill’ Chilcote coming to Australia in 1966 from the border of Mexico and California with just a corn grinder and a tortilla machine. Straight away, he started making traditional dishes using his Mexican wife’s family recipes.

Chilcote’s journey began in Queensland when he opened the first Taco Bill Mexican restaurant on the Gold Coast in 1967; he then proceeded south and, shortly after, opened in Bondi, Sydney.

In the early 70s he moved to Melbourne and opened a restaurant in the suburb of Armadale, and within a few years he opened a number of others around Melbourne, with the help of a passionate group of people he met along the way – including Stan and Vicki Teschke, who soon after became partners in the company.

Initially, Chilcote wanted to share the opportunity to be part of this new cuisine in Australia,

generously giving franchises away. With the help of the Teschkes, the Taco Bill franchise group was able to expand throughout Victoria.

Up to this point, the biggest challenge that the group faced was educating the Australian public on Mexican food; the cuisine had been non-existent in the country. However, as Melbourne’s Russell Street restaurant opened in the CBD, Victoria was experiencing a shortage of teachers and the education department decided to import thousands of young teaching graduates from the US. These graduates fast became regular Taco Bill diners and started to bring along fellow locals. This is when the business really started to grow.

In the 70s the company was very limited with the products it could source and therefore sell, so the menu was a lot simpler than what you see today.

The Teschkes developed a passion for Mexico and started travelling to many different areas within the country – Guadalajara, Puerto Vallar-

ta, Oaxaca, Mexico City and the Taxco region.

While there, they explored and sampled many aspects of the Mexican culture and its cuisine.

This allowed them to incorporate new ideas and menu items into the Taco Bill business, a lot of which is still served today, including fajitas, quesadillas and soft flour tortilla tacos.

Up until the late 70s all of the restaurants offered BYO only, then Chilcote and Stan Teschke came up with the idea of serving Australia’s first frozen margarita and opened their first licensed venue in St Kilda. This changed the way Taco Bill operated. The opportunity to serve alcohol increased income and the number of staff employed to service the customers. From initially serving only a traditional lemon margarita, Taco Bill now has 23 flavours of frozen margaritas as well as margaritas ‘on the rocks’. All Taco Bill restaurants opened since 1980 have been licensed.

In the late 80s Chilcote decided to retire, and the Teschkes became the sole operators of the Taco Bill group.

THEN AND NOW

Like Hospitality magazine, Taco Bill was founded in 1967

22 Hospitality April 2017

The beauty of running a business like Taco Bill in decades gone by was the quality of the relationships formed with team members and franchisees. A lot of uni students worked for the company and technology was yet to affect personal connections – it felt more like a family business than a franchise group.

Over the years, the Taco Bill group has expanded into multiple states across Australia, but remains primarily based in Victoria.

In the late 80s I joined the Taco Bill team, working in the kitchen at the South Melbourne restaurant, and it didn’t take long for me to develop a passion for the food and the business.

After some time perfecting my skills within the restaurant, an opportunity arose for me to own my first restaurant. Over the next couple of years I became more involved and opened

other locations before becoming a co-franchisor in the early 2000s.

The industry has seen many changes in the last 50 years. The cost of setting up a restaurant has escalated substantially; customers have higher expectations when dining out and they’re very quick to share their experience on social media. This can sometimes help build a reputation, but it can also be quite detrimental to a restaurateur’s business.

Customers have lots of choice, are more food aware, more price sensitive, more demanding and less loyal.

Competition has increased, both within the Mexican space, and with non-Mexican competitors incorporating Mexican items on their menus. Regardless of cuisine, there are just so many restaurants and cafes out there today, all competing for the same dollar.

In the early days, diners spent a lot more time enjoying a leisurely lunch but today – with the exception of special occasions – productivity is key, people are time poor and need to get back to work promptly. Obviously, this has affected the average spend per head.

Then there's compliance. So many regulations! Weekly bookwork used to be taken care of on a Sunday afternoon, now it requires a much larger commitment. Our menu today comprises more ingredients and requires us to have more suppliers on the books than ever. In the early years, invoices were filed away, awaiting weekly or monthly payment. The next step was to write a cheque, enter the payment into a cash journal and then send said cheque. Now, every individual invoice is entered into an accounting package with a breakdown of individual items to provide the operator with a more detailed overview of expenditure for analysis.

Unlike today when cash is seldom seen,

“Customers have lots of choice, are more food aware, more price sensitive, more demanding and less loyal.”

The first dollar made at the Russell Street store Taco Bill founder, Bill Chilcote

almost all customers used to pay in cash.

Someone now needs to reconcile the debit and credit card purchases daily and against monthly statements from the service provider, and the business needs to absorb the fees for doing business via debit and credit cards. Wage percentages have increased and the introduction of compulsory superannuation brought an added cost that didn’t exist in the early years, resulting in more pressure on already tight margins.

Finally, the ‘team’ demographic has changed. The 70s and 80s team at Russell Street Taco Bill was made up predominantly of young local high school or university students who stayed with us right through their studies until graduation. These days, young Australians explore other work opportunities and our kitchens and restaurants give opportunities to international students whilst they study in Australia as well as visiting travellers. Overall, the workforce is a lot more transient. English is often a second language for today’s employees; travellers don’t stay longer than a few months and restaurant owners are continually training new team members.

Taco Bill has always been a fun place to visit – the home of the Pancho Villa ‘Fish Bowl’ Margarita and the ‘Taco Bill’ sombrero.

We give away and sell about 30,000 branded sombreros each year.

We are extremely proud that our restaurants make everything daily on the premises, and that we have maintained the same commitment to quality for 50 years. n

Taco Bill staff, 1992

Mastering the Art of French Cooking (volume one), Julia Child’s most famous book, was published April 2017 Hospitality 23

Game Changers The transformation experienced by the hospitality industry over the past half century has been astounding. Today’s restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs have been shaped by countless influences – people, policies, trends and technologies that have changed the way business is done. Here (and in no particular order), we list a mere 50.

24 Hospitality April 2017

Tony Bilson Tony Bilson has been one of Australia’s leading chefs for over 40 years and is often referred to as the Godfather of Australian cuisine. Throughout his career he’s led the team at noteworthy restaurants including Tony’s Bon Gout, Berowra Waters Inn, Kinselas, Bilson’s at Circular Quay, Fine Bouche, Treasury at Sydney’s Intercontinental Hotel, Ampersand, Canard, Number One Wine Bar & Bistro and Bilson’s Restaurant at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, which was awarded three hat status in 2007–2011 and again in 2012. In 2006 Bilson was inducted into the Restaurant & Catering Hall of Fame. Throughout his career, he’s mentored a number of chefs who’ve gone on to create their own remarkable careers in hospitality, including Tetsuya Wakuda.

Image: Oliver Strewe

Online reservations The old book, pencil and eraser are out, and platforms like Dimmi and OpenTable have taken their place, improving the efficiency and professionalism with which restaurant operators can put bums on seats. Online reservations mean restaurants and cafes can take bookings at any time of the day or night, with the reservation and confirmation process taken care of by the provider, not the business. Operators are also able to build detailed profiles of their guests, allowing them to deliver customised experiences for return diners. Deposits or full payments can also be made online before the booking, reducing the likelihood – and impact – of no-shows.

MasterChef The first episode of the global franchise hit Aussie screens in 2009. MasterChef Australia – the reality TV program that sees talented home cooks competing under the gaze of leading industry figures including George Calombaris – has been both a blessing and a curse for the industry. It created unprecedented interest in dining out, the affect of which operators are still enjoying today. However, many argue the show has glorified the trade, causing a spike in the number of young apprentices unaware of the realities of the job.

April 2017 Hospitality 25

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Bait, offal and ‘non-loin’ cuts

Pigs' ear schnitzel by chef Colin Fassnidge

Brains, livers, kidneys, pigs’ ears, tails, tongue – they were all part and parcel of our diet decades ago, but for a while there they went out of fashion, along with secondary or ‘non-loin’ cuts like neck, chuck and jowl. But, what’s old is new again. Chefs have witnessed a resurgence in ‘nose to tail’ eating, thanks in part to Fergus Henderson’s The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating book. While this all-encompassing approach to eating is both the common sense and sustainable way to cook, the renewed interest in cuts like pork belly and brisket mean they’re no longer the affordable and accessible cuts they once were.

Review platforms, blogs and ‘influencers’ Where once a review in the newspaper could make or break a business, now it’s all about user-generated content. A significant proportion of today’s diners head online to check out what their peers have to say about a venue before making a booking. With enormous global audiences, business rating and review websites like Zomato and TripAdvisor, together with the work of restaurant bloggers and social media ‘influencers’, can have an enormous impact on the livelihood of foodservice businesses.

End of the corporate lunch The long, boozy business lunch was an integral part of CBD corporate culture in Australia, until a hungry treasurer brought it all to a halt in 1986 with the Fringe Benefits Tax. Now instead of being able to blithely write off dining as a business expense, there are complicated rules, and the employer is taxed on these benefits they provided to an employee. It didn’t stop business people eating lunch, but the sales of Crown Lager and expensive reds was definitely hit. The nimble operators adjusted with the times, recasting their offer to be quicker and less expensive.

Damien Pignolet Ask any chef who they most admire in the industry and no doubt many would say Damien Pignolet. Together with Tony and Gay Bilson, Pignolet and his wife, Josephine, dominated the Sydney scene in the 80s. Some of his best work was whilst at the helm of the iconic Claude’s, and later at Bistro Moncur where Pignolet revolutionised pub dining. “Nobody did it like we did. We had tablecloths, the food was genuine and had incredible style. The place looked terrific and was launched just out of the recession,” he told Hospitality in 2016.

After the tragic passing of his wife, the Josephine Pignolet Young Chef of the Year award was founded and over its more than 25 years, it’s thrust some of the industry’s most talented chefs into the limelight. These include Mark Best, Phil Wood, Brett Graham, Dan Hong, Daniel Puskas, Hamish Ingham, Mitch Orr and Lauren Eldridge.

April 2017 Hospitality 27

Joost Bakker Florist, artist, restaurateur and sustainability champion, Joost Bakker was labelled by the New York Times as “the poster boy for wastefree living.” He founded Greenhouse restaurant in Perth, which boasts what are now iconic vertical gardens, as well as pop-up venues by the same name in Sydney and Melbourne. Before closing due to a disagreement with the local council, his Brothl diner was Melbourne’s first waste-free café, using discarded bones and meat from other commercial kitchens to produce soups. His waste-free philosophy is also making waves overseas; it’s said that McDonald’s began ordering milk in kegs after senior US staff visited Bakker’s Greenhouses.

Bakker has also mentored a number of young chefs who now share his green philosophies, including Matt Stone, head chef at Oakridge Winery. Stone grows a lot of the restaurant’s produce and has introduced an eWater system in the kitchen, making cleaning chemicals redundant and saving the business $40,000 per year.

Shared dishes Is it our appreciation for how Europeans eat? Or is it simply a case of avoiding ‘food envy’? Either way, shared dishes have become the new norm when eating out. Degustation and a la carte menus still have a strong presence in the market, but chefs and restaurateurs around the country have taken heed of the fact that diners, especially when in groups, want to sample a little bit of everything. And while this might leave chefs chuffed that their diners are enjoying a wide variety of the venue’s dishes, the flipside is that all this sharing means the average spend per head has fallen.

Ethical eating

Image: Blake Storey

Chefs and consumers alike have never been so concerned about food’s provenance and how it’s grown or reared. The diner's growing environmental consciousness and concerns for animal welfare and sustainability mean foodservice operators need to know the difference between organic and biodynamic, grass- and grain-fed, and free range and cage-free.

What are your food miles? Was the fish farmed or line caught? Menus have never been so complicated, diners have never been so educated and producers have never been so well profiled.

Stephanie Alexander Stephanie Alexander is one of the country’s best and most loved food educators. She spent 30 years as owner-chef at several restaurants, and has published a number of books and articles on food, the most highly regarded of which is The Cook’s Companion. Alexander also established the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, which aims to change the way children think about food, teaching primary school students how to grow, harvest, prepare and share fresh, nutritious food.

28 Hospitality April 2017

Woodson Starline offer a complete range of conveyor toaster ovens to provide solutions to every requirement. The Woodson Starline offering ranges from compact countertop units, ideal for open snacks, to large freestanding units capable of mass production every hour.

Woodson Starline is proud of its flexibility and the fact that the Woodson Starline range of products has been installed in various commercial kitchens, such as cafes, quick service restaurants, hotels, mining camps, take-away restaurants, food courts, clubs and pubs.

Australia’s most comprehensive range of conveyor ovens

Craft beer

POS systems The old cash register is still hanging around, but there have been several waves of change since 1967. And like so much technology, capability increases and equipment costs fall, but still there’s a solid chunk of operators who avoid new technology if possible.

The cash register turned into the Point of Sale (POS) with buttons for every item, kitchen printers and table tracking proving to be a huge boost to productivity. Touch-screens took over from keyboards, then the iPad turned this on its head again. Now POS companies are selling an operating system, not pieces of equipment, and the WiFi network is essential infrastructure but has also heralded a new area of vulnerability.

The way Australians drink beer has been turned on its head. Traditionally, the market has been dominated by a couple of key players, mainly Anheuser-Busch InBev and Lion, and while overall beer consumption in the country is on a downward slide, the craft beer movement continues to gain momentum as drinkers’ priorities shift from quantity to quality. Despite craft beer’s small proportion of the market – 2.5 to three percent by volume – IBISWorld predicts that revenues in the sector will grow by five percent per annum over the next five years, compared to 1.7 percent for the traditional beer market. The association of craft beer with boutique brewers is losing its strength however, with the country’s largest manufacturers attempting to claw back market share by acquiring smaller, niche brands.

The ACCC is also in the process of investigating claims that the industry’s largest players are attempting to block out smaller competitors by luring pubs and hotels into signing exclusive beer tap contracts.

Café culture Australia’s café culture can largely be credited to the influx of European immigrants, particularly Italians, after World War II. Many set up or worked in café in Melbourne, and since then Australians’ love for quality coffee and an enjoyable café experience has grown incredibly. According to IBISWorld, revenue in the café and coffee shop sector is expected to grow by an annualised seven percent over the five years through 2016–17 to reach $8.2 billion. Despite the sector’s strong performance, the proliferation of cafés is increasing competitive pressures and pushing profitability down. The rise of the café is also putting pressure on restaurants with more and more coffee houses obtaining liquor licences and offering extensive, dine-in menus.

Food allergies It’s unclear why, but the number of Australians suffering from food allergies continues to rise. According to The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, food allergy affects 10 percent of children up to one year of age; between four and eight percent of children up to five years of age and approximately two percent of adults. Common allergens include cow's milk, soy, egg, peanuts, seafood and wheat. This, combined with the growing number of diners choosing to follow certain diets – think gluten-free, veganism and vegetarianism – means chefs have been forced to diversify their menu, and front of house staff need to be well versed on the composition of the dishes on offer.

30 Hospitality April 2017

Ready-To-eat Quinoa.

Goodness without the fuss.

We’re excited to introduce our latest time-saving product. Ready-To-Eat Quinoa. The no mess, no fuss, pre-cooked quinoa lets you benefit from one of the country’s most requested ingredients, without the effort.

Choose between a pack of plain white or mixed quinoa, each containing two 1.2kg trays – ready to go.

Add fresh ingredients for an instant salad, use in soups, as a substitute for rice and cereals, and even as an ingredient in your favourite recipes.

“‘A must have on modern Australian menus” Call 1800 500 362 or email info@sandhurstfinefoods.com.au

image courtesay of Margaret Fulton’s Baking Classics published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $35.

Fish farming Aquaculture has existed for centuries, but has grown rapidly worldwide in the last 50 years. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations reports that world aquaculture production increased substantially from one million tonnes in 1950 to 67 million tonnes in 2011–12. It’s Australia’s fastest growing primary industry, valued at $2.8 billion in 2014–15, with the sector dominated by Atlantic Salmon, pearls, oysters and prawns. Together with wild production and imports, aquaculture forms an essential part of meeting the growing demand for seafood, both in Australia and in export markets.

Aquaculture has also given the foodservice industry access to a more reliable supply of certain fish species including cobia, referred to as the ‘wagyu of the sea’.

Margaret Fulton Margaret Fulton is one of Australia’s most loved and highly regarded cooks. She’s credited with being one of the first to bring the flavours of foreign lands like Spain, Italy, India and China to homes around Australia, thanks to her articles in Woman's Day magazine. Fulton has authored over 25 cookbooks, been recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia, and was named as one of the National Trust’s 100 Living Australian National Treasures.

Workplace relations Australian wage rates have always been high, but in the last 50 years enforcement of correct pay has become more and more aggressive.

People who thought a Liberal government would go easier on this have been disappointed – the conservatives learned from John Howard’s WorkChoices that promoting wage cuts is toxic politics. Unfair dismissal rights arrived in the early 90s, and now there’s an endless series of rules and regulations that every operator must be aware of: visa conditions, trial periods, weekend penalty rates (recently cut for some areas of the industry) and careful documentation of wage payments.

Neil Perry One of the most influential chefs in Australia, Neil Perry’s career in hospitality spans more than 30 years. He began at Sails Restaurant, then became head chef at Barrenjoey Restaurant, Palm Beach and was given creative control over Perry’s in Paddington. He took over a failing site in Bondi and made it a success with the opening of Blue Water Grill in 1986. Perhaps his most highly regarded opening, Rockpool launched in 1989 and despite duplicating with multiple sites and undergoing numerous rebrands, the brand is iconic in the industry.

Perry has many other foodservice concepts to his name, including Burger Project, a fast casual concept growing rapidly around the country. In 2016, Urban Purveyor Group, owned by private equity firm, Quadrant Capital acquired Perry’s group and rebranded to the Rockpool Dining Group, with Perry as its culinary director. The group boasts over 50 venues and 3,000 staff.

32 Hospitality April 2017

Sandhurst Red Roasted Peppers now come in a 4.25kg unbreakable jar.

Goodbye fussy can, hello handy resealable plastic jar. Our delicious Red Roasted Pepper strips and fillets now come in a jar that is lighter, easier to open, easier to reseal and refrigerate, and is still 100% recyclable.

Unbreakable jar

Resealable

Lighter

100% recyclable

Time-saving

Increase staff safety

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Burgers The first Australian McDonald’s opened in Sydney’s Yagoona in 1971, 16 years after the company was founded in the USA. In the same year, the country’s first Hungry Jack's swung open its doors, and ever since Australians’ appetite for the ideal meal on the run has been insatiable. Of course franchises have become empires on the back of the public’s love for burgers, but they’re not the only ones cashing in on the craze. Over the past 10 or so years, countless independent operators have been convinced that there’s plenty of business to go round, launching their own burger bar, food truck, or simply adding a burger or two to the menu.

Thanks to the meal’s relatively high profitability and the ease and speed of its assembly, burgers have become a no-brainer for many operators.

Curtis Stone One of the best endorsements for Australia and its culinary offering, Curtis Stone honed his skills under the tutelage of Marco Pierre White, eventually becoming head chef of London’s Quo Vadis.

His scope of work soon expanded to include TV, co-hosting Surfing the Menu with fellow chef Ben O’Donoghue. The success of another program, Take Home Chef, prompted Curtis’ move to the US, where his profile (and that of Australia’s) has been further bolstered by appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show as well as Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump. In recent years, Stone has returned to the kitchen, first with Maude in Beverly Hills, where each month he creates a 10 course degustation menu based around a single ingredient, and more recently at Gwen, a meat-based eatery that also features a butcher and a bar.

Sous vide In sous vide cooking, the water bath provides an extremely accurate and stable temperature for cooking food, improving consistency and allowing chefs to produce identical and delicately cooked dishes. Sous vide cookery was first introduced to Australia in the mid-80s, but it wasn’t until Thomas Keller of The French Laundry released his sous vide cookbook Under Pressure in November of 2008 that the method really found momentum in Australia. Equipment in 2009 was supplied by only two very small companies, but today the machines are available from most suppliers and used throughout the hospitality sector, from cafés and clubs to fine diners and food trucks.

Janni Kyritsis The Greek former electrician with a passion for cooking learned his culinary skills under Stephanie Alexander at her Fitzroy restaurant, Stephanie’s in the 1970s. He then moved on to Gay Bilson's Berowra Waters Inn before following her to the Sydney Opera House's Bennelong restaurant. In 1997 he opened MG Garage in Surry Hills, which became a Sydney institution. It was named best new restaurant by The Sydney Morning Herald and won three chefs hats in its first year.

34 Hospitality April 2017

Image: Brett Stevens, Organum by Peter Gilmore (Murdoch)

Combi ovens Combi ovens have revolutionised the way chefs work. Initially developed in the mid-70s, it wasn’t until the 90s that the industry widely realised the benefits of cooking in combination mode.

The technology afforded chefs increased flexibility by allowing them to steam and cook in convection mode in the one unit. All foodservice sectors are now benefiting from utilising combi ovens, from child care and aged care facilities, restaurants and cafés, through to hospitals, hotels and conference centres. Combi ovens can operate as a boiling pot of water, steamer, sous vide bath, dehydrator, fryer, convection and combination oven. They increase the efficiency of back of house operations, requiring less equipment to be installed while also improving a kitchen's production capabilities and labour costs.

Hospitality groups Most restaurants and cafes have traditionally been solo affairs, often run by a family.

Expansion was possible if there were daughters, sons and cousins who could contribute, but two sites was often the limit. With the growth and understanding of hospitality management systems, more powerful technology and the availability of professional managers, businesses today can be duplicated and efficiencies of scale achieved much more easily. Now groups may have dozens of businesses all with different branding, run by the same HR, purchasing and marketing team. A few examples are Rockpool Dining Group (formerly Urban Purveyor Group), Merivale, The Fink Group and Dixon Hospitality. Winning combinations of efficiency and individuality.

FOODSERVICE Dairy for Today’s Professionals

April 2017 Hospitality 35

Compulsory grease traps

Waste consciousness Call it environmental consciousness or profit consciousness – foodservice operators have opened their eyes to the costs of being wasteful in the kitchen. Tied in with chefs’ renewed commitment to using ethically sourced, local produce is a determination to use every part of the produce they handle, from root to leaf, nose to tail and nose to scale. And what can’t be used doesn’t have to be tossed. Organisations like Ronni Khan’s OzHarvest have contributed to the industry’s thriftiness, asking restaurants, cafes, clubs, pubs and other businesses to donate unused produce or uneaten meals to those less fortunate. There’s still a long way to go though, with data released by RMIT in January 2016 indicating that at least 40 percent of food purchased by foodservice businesses around Australia ends up in the bin.

Len Evans British-born Leonard Paul (Len) Evans was one of Australia’s most respected wine writers, judges and vineyard owners. He founded the Australian Wine Bureau in 1965 and had a vision of promoting Australian wine not just domestically, but around the world. In the 1960s he wrote Australia's first regular wine column in The Bulletin. He made a success of Hunter Valley's Rothbury Wines, which he reportedly took from a 10,000-case company in 1972 to one of 650,000 cases in 1996. He was chairman of Petaluma in the Adelaide Hills and in 1969 became chairman of Len Evans Holdings, and then Evans Family Wines.

In 1971 he founded the Len Evans Tutorial, which to this day welcomes some of Australia’s most elite professionals in wine, vineyard, research, hospitality and sales to develop their wine appreciation with leading industry experts.

He published the first encyclopaedic guide to Australian wine, The Australian Winebuyer's Guide, in 1973 and by 1982 he had judged all major Australian wine shows. Before his death in 2006, he held the position as president of the Australian Wine Foundation from 1990–96.

36 Hospitality April 2017

As well as great food and drinks, the average cafe or restaurants spews out an enormous amount of waste: smoke, food scraps, cans, bottles and boxes. Plus enough dirty washing water to fill several swimming pools each year.

Unless there’s a grease trap to collect and cool this, it will end up in the nearest river or beach. By the 80s, people were sick of polluted waterways, and every type of industrial pollution was under scrutiny, especially if it could be fixed with a tank in the ground. Grease traps are part of the scenery now, and waste water doesn’t have to be a smelly mess.

Martin Benn Having worked under industry icons including Michel Lorrain and Marco Pierre White, Martin Benn earned his first head chef role at the age of 25, leading the kitchen at Tetsuya Wakuda’s eponymously named restaurant.

He now operates Sepia, one of Australia’s most decorated restaurants. The Sydney fine diner opened in 2009, and two years later Benn was named the 2011 Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide Chef of the Year. It has held onto its three chefs hat status since 2012 and has been named Restaurant of the Year on a number of occasions. Benn has earned remarkable praise over Sepia’s tenure, not least of which came from Eric Ripert during his 2014 trip to Australia, claiming that Sepia was one of the top five restaurants in the world, and that Benn “just may well be the next Robuchon.”

Wagyu beef Suddenly pasture-fed beef was demoted in the 90s and grain-fed beef was king, aided by the skillful promotion of meat marketing groups. And the best of all was Wagyu, one of four Japanese breeds of beef cattle, the most desired of which is genetically predisposed to meat with intense marbling and producing a high percentage of unsaturated fat. Lean beef was now regarded as second best by the real connoisseurs. Restaurants liked the ability to highlight a premium menu item that everyone expected to be very expensive – now it was bragging rights for how much you paid for those 200g of bliss.

Food festivals For most of the 60s and 70s, the big agricultural shows were where you saw food competitions and displays – prize winning pickles, bottled fruits, sponge cakes and scones. Then came farmer’s markets and a big new emphasis on local produce. Soon food festivals were an annual feature in many towns and suburbs – a combination of the artisan and unusual, plus plenty of chips and hot dogs. Add a visiting celebrity chef, a wine dinner, and prizes for the local potatoes and food festivals attract visitors from far and wide, all excited to spend up on local, tasty treats. Today, the city festivals are elaborate affairs, running for up to a month and attracting hordes of excited foodies and guest chefs flown in from around the world.

The Sydney Olympics The Melbourne Olympics in 1956 was a coming of age for Australia, with a big influx of overseas catering professionals bringing us up to date. Then in 2000 the Sydney Olympics took the country by storm – an event on a scale never before experienced. Archaic liquor laws were changed, businesses were renovated, supply chains were stretched and we waited for the hungry crowds. It wasn’t quite as we expected – better for some, and disappointing for others. But we were all on our best behaviour and in most cases have kept up the standards ever since.

Thermomix

Golden Arches became the McDonald’s logo 38 Hospitality April 2017

Loved by home cooks, and used in Europe since the 70s, the Thermomix has snuck into many commercial kitchens with its unique capability for steaming, emulsifying, blending, heating, mixing, milling, whipping, kneading, chopping, weighing, grinding and stirring. It’s technology that enables cooking that would have previously required high levels of skill and patience. Inevitably there are now imitators and larger commercial versions, but the original Thermomix started a revolution, as did the Robot Coupe several decades before.

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Japanese and Chinese tourism Pub revolution - from hotels to dining First there was the pie oven and hot plate in a corner of the pub, with plenty of chips from a dubious fryer. Then pizza and pasta appeared, and chefs could start a business in many pubs by renting the space and showing off their skills.

Pubs grew bigger, and with the rivers of money from poker machines, it was easy to invest in a large friendly bistro where more often than not deep-fried is still a staple, but is accompanied by some interesting lamb shanks, crispy pork belly and even better chips. There’s even a nod to the vegans now too.

First it was the influx of Japanese tourists in the 70s and 80s – a powerful boost to our newly vibrant tourist industry, especially when their love of seafood could be satisfied in big restaurants.

The Japanese tide has subsided, to be replaced by a huge wave from mainland China – in 2017 they will replace New Zealanders as the number one source of tourists. These numbers will grow and grow – many Chinese tourists love eating out and can't get enough of our great seafood, quality coffee and a slice of famous strawberry watermelon cake too.

Smoking regulations Smoking rates in Australia have fallen from 27 percent in 1980 to half that in 2013, so it was inevitable that smoky restaurants and bars were going to become very unpopular with most of the population. As with drink-driving regulations, operators expected the end of the world with smoking restrictions, but most guests were delighted with the change.

Meanwhile, hospitality staff still smoke at twice the rate of the general public (based on US figures and sure to be similar here). There’s still work to do.

Tetsuya Wakuda

Pokies in pubs Skillful lobbying by the hotel associations and a big problem with loss-making and outdated premises meant that poker machines made the leap from clubs to pubs in the 90s, spreading to every state except Western Australia.

The music room in a pub became a gambling lounge, and the big profits generated enabled high quality renovations and subsidised food. No one could quite believe that the $10 steak was actually good, but it was, and was soon joined by big parmas, massive pastas and plenty of cheap fish and chips. All on the back of the money poured through the machines in those shady back rooms.

40 Hospitality April 2017

A year after arriving in Australia in 1982, the food loving Japanese born Tetsuya Wakuda was introduced to the iconic Tony Bilson, who was searching for someone to make sushi at his Kinsela’s restaurant. This is where Wakuda learned the classical French techniques that he would one day marry with the culinary principles of Japanese cooking at his own restaurant, Tetsuya’s.

He’s maintained close ties with his homeland, becoming the Japanese sake industry’s first overseas Sake Samurai (ambassador) in 2006 and in late 2013 he became the first ever internationally-based chef to be recognised as one of Japan’s Master of Cuisine. Tetsuya’s was ranked on the World’s 50 Best restaurants list from 2002 to 2013, and over the course of his career he’s mentored a number of today’s most recognisable chefs including Darren Robertson, Luke Powell, Martin Benn and Dan Hong.

Eating in shopping centres First there was the coffee shop, with grilled cheese fingers and a creamy cappuccino. Then developers realised they could sell a whole food precinct – tables in the middle for quick service Chinese food, pizza, Mexican and Thai. It was takeaway but you sat and used your plastic cutlery at the table. Some food courts were good, many were not, and the high rents meant only the cleverest operators survived. Now there’s another revolution underway, with comfortable seating, quality food and a diverse beverage offering.

Food safety We’ve always believed in serving safe and hygienic food, but there was often a slip between how the front of house looked and the shabby storage and prep areas behind the scenes. Governments took this much more seriously when big events like the Commonwealth Games, expos and the Olympics meant everything was under scrutiny. With online publicity, it was easy for governments to highlight the sinners and give five stars to the winners, introducing initiatives like the Scores on Doors program and the ‘Name and Shame’ register. Shock-horror TV stories soon followed. As always, the cleanliness of bathrooms is usually a guide to what the kitchen looks like.

Kylie Kwong

Drink driving laws, RSA and lockouts With shockingly high road deaths from drink-driving (drivers and pedestrians), Australian states from 1982 started to adopt the moves in the UK to make driving with a blood-alcohol level above .08 an offence. It meant big changes in how and when people drank – the designated driver became everyone’s best friend. Rural areas were heavily affected, and our drinking habits changed forever. With the link between excess drinking and accidents clearly established, Responsible Service of Alcohol policies put the onus for controlled drinking back onto restaurant and bar operators. Violent areas eventually suffered even more restrictions and lockouts, and often turned from rowdy, risky fun into early-to-bed ghost towns.

42 Hospitality April 2017

After working with the likes of Neil Perry and Bill Granger, chef Kylie Kwong ventured out on her own and launched Billy Kwong in Sydney’s Surry Hills in 2000. Continuously encouraging both chefs and consumers to be more thoughtful and sustainable with how they handle their produce, Kwong only serves local, organic or biodynamic food and wine at Billy Kwong (which now resides in Potts Point). She’s associated with a number of not for profit organisations including the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, OzHarvest and Oxfam. Kwong’s also committed to promoting native Australian ingredients and can be seen every Saturday at the Carriageworks Farmers Market, selling classic examples of her unique Australian Chinese cuisine – pancakes with salt bush, and sticky rice parcels of macadamia and warrigal greens.

Sarah Doyle A doyenne of hospitality, Sarah Doyle is one of the pillars behind the group of much loved Sydney restaurants that includes Bodega, Porteño, LP’s Quality Meats, Stanbuli and Continental Delicatessen. With a background in fashion and a love for the style of the 50s and 60s, Doyle’s eye for detail and style has made her restaurants amongst the most popular in the city, and the group has garnered a cult-like following. In the 10 years that have passed since Bodega’s opening, Doyle’s role within the group has evolved to include PR, marketing, social media and event management. At a time when so much of the interest surrounding hospitality is on the food, Doyle’s professionalism on the floor reminds us that attentive service and style are what really makes a memorable dining experience.

Food processors The first commercial food processor was invented by Frenchman Pierre Verdun in 1960, after watching his customers laboriously cutting vegetables, grinding spices and blending sauces by hand. Processors make short work of these daily tasks, and gained credibility in the kitchen when publicly used and celebrated by famous French chefs in the 70s. From local cafes to fine dining restaurants and hospitals feeding thousands, there’s now a food processor that streamlines every element of food preparation, saving both time and money.

April 2017 Hospitality 43

Kitchen culture There have been many changes in the kitchen over 50 years – from the grumpy chef who works six days a week, to the cost-conscious chef who’s meant to know how much every recipe costs to the cent. Immigrant chefs still power most foodservice establishments, keeping the pans ready for the guys that get all the praise. Thankfully, the Gordon Ramsay-esque screaming matches and pan throwing episodes are being left in the past, as the tide turns towards a more respectful workplace and owners understand that their ‘duty of care’ for staff is non-negotiable.

Ben Shewry Owner of Attica, the highest ranked Australian restaurant on the World’s 50 Best list, New Zealand born chef Ben Shewry is a champion of using native ingredients in truly original ways. Think wallaby blood in the pikelets, tulip leaves filled with lemon myrtle cream and marron with quandong and pearl. He’s also one of the most respected leaders in hospitality, passionate about nurturing his team and the industry as a whole. He’s often seen serving diners at his Ripponlea fine diner; he hosts a 15 minute meeting with his staff before service each day, where one employee will stand up and talk about how their thinking, feeling and working; and he’s even given away Attica’s old furniture to a budding restaurateur who needs a ‘leg up’ in the industry.

Skills shift In decades gone by, apprentice chefs had weeks, if not months to perfect a certain culinary skill before moving onto the next, whether it be breaking down a carcass or getting the jus just right. Things have changed however, and with elements of the apprenticeship scheme fast tracked, shrinking back of house teams and the availability of prepared and portioned ingredients, certain skills have fallen by the wayside. But all is not lost. Young chefs might not be as competent when filleting a fish as their predecessors were, but they can teach their mentors a thing or two about social media, digital marketing, (actually, all things technology) and they can find a recipe costing app quicker than anyone else in the business.

44 Hospitality April 2017

Peter Gilmore Peter Gilmore is the executive chef at two of Australia’s most well regarded fine diners: Bennelong at the Sydney Opera House and Quay Restaurant. One of the industry’s most humble and respected chefs, Gilmore says his cuisine is inspired by nature. He’s an avid gardener and was one of the first Australian chefs to embrace heirloom vegetables. He works with small and artesian producers who cultivate bespoke produce exclusively for Quay and Bennelong. For five years Quay was listed in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, and in 2016 it was ranked 98th in the World’s 100 Best Restaurants. It has been awarded three chefs hats for 15 consecutive years and has been named Restaurant of the Year five times in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. Gilmore is also one of the best advertisements for Australia’s foodservice industry, forming a key part of Tourism Australia’s international Restaurant Australia campaign, which kicked off in 2014.

Image: Alisa Connan

Molecular gastronomy The term was coined in 1988

by French chemist Hervé This and his partner Nicolas Kurti.

It’s defined as the study and application of chemistry, physics, and other scientific principles on cooking, and what began as a microscopic look at how food reacts when it’s cooked soon became an experiment to see how the fundamentals of cooking can be toyed with to develop new and exciting dishes. In today’s kitchens, principles of molecular gastronomy are embraced to differing degrees, ranging from the use of liquid nitrogen and sous vide cooking to more elaborate applications like those plated up by innovators including Grant Achatz, Ferran Adrià, Rene Redzepi and Heston Blumenthal, whose dishes have included jelly of quail with marron cream, caviar sorbet, oak moss and truffle toast; and poached salmon in liquorice gel with endive, vanilla mayonnaise and golden trout roe.

Hats, stars, guides and glory In the late 60s, ‘Galloping Gourmet’ and TV chef Graham Kerr published Graham Kerr’s Guide to Good Eating in Sydney – Australia’s first restaurant guide. Since then, a wide range of publications have come and gone, critiquing foodservice businesses on everything from their menus and service standards to their lighting and toilets. Today, chefs’ profiles and their business’ profitability is heavily influenced by how well regarded they are by various media outlets. They’re rated with hats, stars and wine glasses; given a score out of 20; and in any given 12 month period, there’s at least half a dozen different crownings of Chef of the Year. The rise of the internet has brought a whole new range of critics to the table – with varying degrees of competence and credibility. And while it might only take the tiniest of errors for venues to be the victim of a bad rap, the huge audience that online-based publications can garner means you can just as easily shoot to stardom.

GLAD Wrap was introduced in Australia April 2017 Hospitality 45

1966 competitors

The golden years A

The country’s longest running culinary competition, the Nestlé Golden Chef’s Hat, has witnessed incredible change over its 52 years. Today’s participants have access to produce, equipment and information that their predecessors could only have dreamed of, but what hasn’t changed is the value of learning and yearning.

46 Hospitality April 2017

sk any chef and they’ll tell you that in order to reach your full potential, you need to get outside your comfort zone and learn from others. One of the best ways to do this is to take part in industry competitions. There’s no shortage of arenas in which Australia’s young cooks can hone their networking and culinary skills, but the one with perhaps the most gravitas is the Nestlé Golden Chef’s Hat, brought over from Switzerland in 1965.

The competition has seen many changes over its 52 years in Australia. What hasn’t changed, however, is its commitment to the development of young cooks and its ability to expose them to hospitality leaders from around the country and the world.

Formerly the Silver Chef’s Hat, the competition travelled around the country and in each regional town or urban city competitors would go head to head with the goal of being named in the national squad. From there, they’d travel to Canada for The Taste of Canada, facing off against teams from around the globe.

In 1984, the competition was rebranded and became the Nestlé Golden Chef’s Hat, with the iconic silver toque-shaped trophy flown back to Switzerland to be resprayed in accordance with the name change.

The program has been overseen by the Australian Culinary Federation (ACF) since 2002. Teams of two from each capital city compete at Fine Food Australia each September, with the location alternating between Sydney and Melbourne. Rather than going on to compete again overseas, the winning duo is presented with a once-in-a-lifetime overseas experience, which has previously included a food safari in South Africa, a culinary trip to North America and the opportunity to work alongside chef Alain Roux at the three Michelin-starred restaurant, The Waterside Inn in London.

Tom McDonnell has been involved with the com-

petition in one way or another since its rebirth in 1984 – originally as a teacher and mentor, and eventually as chairman of judges until the ACF took over. McDonnell’s son, Keaton, has even competed twice.

“In its first year, I was teaching in Perth at Carine Technical College and we were invited to compete, so we took a team over to Sydney and it was a bit of an eye opener … Some of the foods we were using in Perth we couldn’t get in Sydney, and some of the foods you could buy in Sydney you couldn’t buy in Perth,” he said. “It’s a tremendous learning experience, and a brilliant way for young people to exchange ideas.”

FOR THE LOVE OF LEARNING It’s not just the competitors who take valuable lessons away from their Golden Chef's Hat experience; not a year goes by where the coaches and judges don’t learn something new too.

“Not only do the students teach each other when they’re competing, the mentors who go with them also pick up different skills and bits of knowledge, so when they go back to their own college or establishment they’re passing on new things that they’ve seen and learnt,” McDonnell said. “And sometimes they’re quite simple things. For years everybody was using takeaway containers to put their food in when doing their prep. Then all of a sudden, one year somebody came along with a sealable Glad bag. That cut down the weight and the space you needed in the fridge.

Now, if you look at the competition today, nobody uses takeaway containers; everybody uses ziplock bags.”

Over the course of his involvement with the program, McDonnell said he’s seen an enormous transformation in how young cooks navigate their formative years – some changes have been for the better, and some for the worse.

Both in and out of the kitchen, a diverse range of cultures and cuisines are influencing today’s aspiring chefs – far more than competitors of previous decades. They’ve also got access to equipment and technologies that older chefs could only have dreamed of.

“There used to be a four burner stove, an oven and a grill. Now, the students have developed and they’re using every modern technique you can think of. You get blown away when you see something you’ve never seen before, and then you realise that it’s a young trainee who’s developing that skill,” McDonnell said.

He referenced the competition’s most celebrated dish – a dessert by 2015 winners, Amanda Polsen and Georgia Harrison. The pair achieved a competition first, scoring a gold with distinction medal for their final course – a glazed dark chocolate ball with caramel and port lava mousse, pistachio semifreddo, raspberry popping pearls, saffron macaroons filled with French vanilla mousse, pistachio crumble and port wine gel.

“The dessert that those girls produced was unbelievable. Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that by a master pastry chef, let alone a trainee. Things have developed and some of the dishes that people can turn out now are just unbelievable.”

Adelene Stahnke and Catalina Rodriguez, 2016 finalists from NSW Metro

SKILL VS SPEED

“The dessert that those girls produced was unbelievable. Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have seen that by a master pastry chef, let alone a trainee.”

The competition's most celebrated dessert, prepared by the 2015 winners.

Despite the flexibility and creativity that these technologies provide for today’s cooks, McDonnell is afraid it’s come at a cost.

“I think some of them rely on technology too much. Take a food processor away from them and some of the kids have forgotten how to use their knives. They rely too much on machines,” he said.

Technological advancements haven’t just sped up the cooking process.

The rise of the internet, iPhones, social media and reality TV have exposed young cooks to all the information in the world, and instilled in them a desire to gather as much information as they can, as quickly as they can.

“I don’t think they do as much research these days. They rely on instant knowledge. If they can’t find it on their smartphones or on the internet then a lot of them don’t go and find books and search through libraries, checking information. They rely on, a – what they’ve been told and they take it for gospel, and b – what they find on their phones. And quite often, it’s not sound. A lot of the old techniques and the old ways still need to be followed ... Being a chef is not an easy job. It takes a long time to build up the skill base,” he said.

“It’s like building a good house: if you’ve got a really good foundation then that house will stand up through anything. But if you’ve got a rocky foundation, when things start getting tough, the house falls down.”

Perhaps that’s why competitions like the Golden Chef’s Hat are so valuable. Mentors, former competitors, judges and other industry members who’ve been around the traps can continuously monitor those who will one day take their place. They can help steer competitors in the right direction, working to ensure they obtain the skills and stamina required to survive in the high-pressure world that is hospitality.

“Competitions aren’t for everybody, but the people who are involved are exposing themselves to new products, new knowledge and new ways of doing things. If you ever come across a chef who says he knows it all, then walk away. Every time we go somewhere, open a book or open the paper, there’s something new there. The thirst for knowledge in these young people should be strong. They need to ask themselves, ‘how do I keep evolving?’” n

BYO concept was introduced in Australia April 2017 Hospitality 47

’60s Up until the 60s, the chef was a guy wearing a little forage cap, a white t-shirt, a pair of shorts and a little mini-skirt apron. Well, in the 60s that started to change. Chefs started wearing jackets. They were always cotton, and their white trousers were cotton – usually King Gee. The apron started getting longer – the waist apron started going down to the knees, and the high pleated chef hat also came about. We started getting regiment.

In regards to footwear, you were probably recently discharged from the army so you would’ve worn your army boots. But then later in the 60s, chefs became very pedantic about wearing leather slip-on shoes, so if they spilt something nothing went into the shoe.

’70s

The chefs started to wear a fitted trouser in a check, except for the head chef or the executive chef who still wore white trousers.

The chef was starting to be seen. So at your local restaurant, you actually spoke to the chef. The hat was being worn because everyone had long hair; they were all wearing the traditional, tall chef hat and sticking their hair in it.

In the mid-70s, the TAFE colleges started to demand that students wore a proper chef uniform. They had been wearing white trousers and a short sleeved shirt, but now the white trousers were out and an actual uniform started to emerge.

The hotels started to put all their chefs into checked trousers and a chef jacket. And because there was such a volume going through these hotels, they wanted the jackets to wash and iron easier. They disliked the old cotton ones because they had to be soaked in starch, so polyester cotton started coming through.

In the late 70s the biggest change was the sizing of chef jackets – they suddenly fit. Right up until the mid-70s, we only used to stock three sizes: five, seven and nine. We then A traditional chef had sizes 12, 14 and 18. Back in that time it was considered uniform from the 1980s that if the chef wasn’t big, he couldn’t cook. So we used to make enormous sized chef jackets. But in the late 70s fashion started to come in and we started making jackets down to – in an old fitting – a size three, which we would now call an 87.

But the trousers were starting to become baggy again, and we were lowering the crutch. Where the pockets were on the waist, we started moving them to the hips so we could make the legs baggier. Flares were all the rage in fashion, but for chef trousers they weren’t. The chef trouser cuff was made just wider than a clog mouth, so if you spilt something and it hit your trousers it didn’t go inside your clogs (which were timber at this stage. Thank God WHS came in…).

This is also where the pop button came in. You could grab the bottom of the chef jacket and just pull it apart, because you were only undoing five buttons. So should something like boiling fat hit the jacket, or a flame, it could be removed very quickly. Safety was now starting to play a part in the uniform’s design.

Another notable mention was that we started making ladies’ chef Chefs’ status in society has changed considerably jackets. We started marketing and advertising that women were now joining the cooking industry and we had their fittings. Previously, the over the past 50 years, and so too has their few women who worked in Sydney as chefs wore men’s clothing. Most uniform. Starting with the 1960s, Stuart Dale women at that stage worked as caterers and they wore the ladies from Fraser & Hughes explains how fashion and white zip up uniform. Do you remember the old nurse’s uniform? Older ladies would wear the button up and younger ladies would wear the zip functionality have transformed the kitchen kit. up, but it was the exact same uniform.

Changing

gear 48 Hospitality April 2017

’80s We brought out what we called a modern jacket.

We made the arm holes oversized and the shoulder hung down your arm a bit. The buttons were wider at the top than they were at the front. So it was more of a French-style jacket. But at this time, the French were testing their nuclear weapons so you didn’t call anything French – we coined the term Continental.

Bib aprons started to be worn by cooks, not chefs.

The chef himself always wore the waist apron, and the executive chef wore the French waist apron, which went right down to his ankles.

And in the late 80s, it was all about how outrageous we could make uniforms. We were screen printing aprons and printing chillies on trousers – now the chef was a fashion conscious person; he was seen in public.

’90s

The modern jacket had the big arm holes and you wore your chef jacket so it looked like it was one size too big.

The apron and the hat started to change. A kitchen hand or a commis chef hat – what we call the flat top – started coming out in all the colours of the rainbow and all different patterns.

Aprons started becoming bib aprons, all printed, all exciting, and the kitchens started to change. It was now exposed. The chef could be seen and he wanted to look as bright as the food. Brands were now appearing on his clothing too.

At this stage we also started to see the first of the imported chef jacket.

It’s around this time – the early 90s – that we used to make a breast pocket on the jacket and certain chefs would ask for their name to be embroided on the pocket and maybe the hotel logo. But every time we used to put these logos onto a breast

pocket, the chefs would stand in front of grills and things like that, and their pens would explode. So we came up with this idea of putting the pocket on their sleeve, away from the heat. That’s now called the tongs pocket; it’s part of a chef’s uniform that everyone now has.

The executive chef was also going back to the original cotton jacket. He’d leave this jacket on the back of the kitchen door and if he went out to meet the public he’d pull it on, along with his nine or 11 inch paper hat. He’d go out and meet people, and he’d never wear an apron. He’d be seen to be very clean, with his black trousers on. But when he went back of house he’d pull on his old polycotton jacket, wear a bib apron and work like everyone else. It was all about image.

’00s

Everyone was branding, getting ready for the Olympics. The chefs were wearing black and white check trousers, white jackets and their own branded apron.

Around this time, the hotels started to go for the much cheaper, imported uniform. And their first venture into that wasn’t completely successful because they were bringing them out in all polyester, and the staff hated wearing them because they were too hot.

At about 2005 we started getting chefs like Luke Mangan coming about. He came back from a trip overseas and said ‘I don’t want to wear a chef jacket,’ so he started showing us a shirt that was being worn in America. From there, we started making exclusive chef jackets, starting with Luke Mangan – and short sleeved jackets starting coming in.

“It was more of a French-style jacket. But at this time, the French were testing their nuclear weapons so you didn’t call anything French.”

’10s

The chef jacket is now far more of a boutique thing.

The trousers are currently going back to black cotton.

The jackets are going back to cotton, and we call it the hipster jacket – short sleeved, flat sew on buttons. It’s simply the old 1950s jacket, but it’s the current rage. n

The Fraser & Hughes Darlinghurst store, 1983 April 2017 Hospitality 49

Brave new world T

Meals on Mars are still a while off, so we’ll have to make do with planet Earth for now.

But what will food look like in 2067? Well for one thing, writes chef Mark Best, there’ll be a Neil Perry hologram.

50 Hospitality April 2017

o imagine how we will be dining in 50 years takes a fair talent for crystal ball gazing. Even going back that long and tracking the changes forward doesn’t seem to help due to the constant appropriation and ebb and flow of food fashion. The current prevalence of fire, whole beasts and long beards shows that there’s nothing linear about it. The rate of change is increasing due to technology and is proportionate to the diner’s boredom threshold.

So where will we be? Given the empirical scientific evidence of climate change and Trump’s ’nukes’ policy, everyone should be seriously worried about actually being alive in 50 years.

The discovery of Earth-like planets in nearby solar systems has given people the idea that our species can trade in this one and start afresh. The reality would be that the rich would go to the shiny new planet and the poor would stay on the old one and have to wear raincoats all the time in some sort of fucked up Blade Runner dystopia.

Matt Damon also gave hope when he managed to get stuck on Mars and ‘science the shit’ out of his old spuds and doggy bags of his own faecal matter. There is some science behind his big screen miasma. Scientists have discovered that the soils of Mars are suitable for growing potatoes. They just haven’t discovered how to protect the gardeners from cosmic rays, cyclonic winds, global dust storms and Don Burke. It looks like we will have to make do with our own blue marble for a while longer.

We have the capacity to feed everyone on the planet now, but between the one percent owning everything and a pathological antipathy to those in most need, we can’t seem to manage it. This peculiar irony plays out best on cable TV. Half the planet watching obese kids doing ‘winning’ double fist pumps on Food Network and the other half shown on National Geographic wondering how to keep theirs alive.

Food security is by far our biggest issue. Our current agricultural systems are under stress and failing to keep up with the consumption of an exponentially growing population – 7.5 billion and growing. In 50 years we’re looking at 10.2 billion with most of the

growth in developing countries. Our traditional means of fulfilling our nutritive requirements are no longer working. Our days of eating chunks of charred cow and sushi for school lunches are coming to an end.

In agriculture, feed conversion rate is the ratio of feed per kilogram output. Beef is one of the worst.

The average dressed kilogram of meat requires 6kg of feed to produce. Pigs are better at around 4kg of feed per 1kg pork roast with crackling. Sheep are baaad at around 6kg of foraged feed per kilogram of Frenched cutlets but at least you get socks and a jumper. Chook is good at around 1.6kg of feed per drumstick if you can get your head and gag reflex around only 39 days to maturity. Bills famous scrambled eggs will take 1.8kg of feed per doz, excluding the remainder of the secret recipe [butter, salt and pepper].

Farmed fish was once seen as the panacea for the chronically overfished natural resource, but 1kg of farmed tuna requires 3kg of wild caught sardines or anchovies to produce. Salmon, excluding the one John West rejected, usually uses a commodified food source at the same ratio. Crickets, the darling of ‘committed, progressive restaurants’ for almost all of 2016 are great at a ratio of 1.7; but, crickets.

There is no doubt dining as we know it will change. By 2067 – if we are not locked into a reductive human flesh eating cycle, a la zombie apocalypse – the process of commoditisation of all aspects of the dining process will continue. The supermarket will devolve even further (if that particular horror can be imagined) with more products based on fewer basic commodity ingredients.

There will be fewer people to serve you, as automation technology will be used to counter the inefficiencies and cost of humans.

The super rich will eat in restaurants owned by ‘Restaurant Corp’ catering premium bespoke products to the super rich and cooked by holograms of 1995 Neil Perry. The vast middle class will be eating protein bars from vending machines. Flavours: GM plankton, stem cell jelly and giant squid. “Please look at the screen to settle your account”.

The rest will be eating each other on a self serve basis. n

Crowned No.1 *

Winner – Australia’s best Mayonnaise at the Chefs Decision Awards To arrange a free tasting or to place an order simply contact Birch & Waite on 02 8668 8000, email cs@birchandwaite.com.au or visit birchandwaiteprofessional.com.au *Data on file