Seeking success
During the past few years a diverse band of British chefs have fled the rain and the economy to work in Melbourne, a city which prides itself on its reputation as the restaurant capital of Australia. Steve Svabo at Olives, Ian Curley at Rhubarbs, Dean Cambray at Cambray's, Jeremy Strode at the George and Joseph Martin at Arrigo Harry's Bar are just a few of the ex-pat chefs currently causing a stir in Melbourne's gastronomic circles.
Their cooking has prompted local food critics to search for new superlatives and the public to clamour for tables to sample their cooking. Inevitably, they have been dubbed the Brit Pack.
It is their training which has done much to win over employers down under. Rita Erlich, editor of the Epicure section in Melbourne newspaper The Age, believes European experience, especially in France, impresses Australian restaurateurs, hoteliers and critics alike. "What these British chefs are bringing to our kitchens is a combination of French training and British inspiration which is highly regarded over here," she claims.
And rising culinary standards in Australia are leaving behind the "barbies" and "tinnies" image and moving towards innovative cuisine. British chefs are coming to regard it as a place to develop cooking skills, not just a scuba diving destination.
Melbourne, in particular, is renowned for the variety of its eating establishments. It has more good, affordable places than its arch rival Sydney, and the city has a population of discerning diners who can afford to eat at quality restaurants at least twice a week.
"Melbourne has come on a lot in the past four years," says Ian Curley, head chef at Rhubarbs. "The well-done-steak brigade is dying out and palates are more adventurous."
Australia has not escaped recession. Unlike the heady days of the 1970s and early 1980s, kitchens are not exactly bursting with job offers, but there are signs of an upturn. As Erlich puts it: "There is room for anyone who is good." The country also offers British chefs benefits besides sunshine: salaries are higher, living costs lower and the working week is generally shorter.
Ian Curley, head chef, Rhubarbs Restaurant
Ian Curley, who arrived in Melbourne five years ago seeking sun and nymphs in bikinis, has few qualms about deserting Britain. "As soon as I got here I was in my element," he says gleefully. "The weather was good, I learned to ski, play golf and I could finish work at 10pm. My quality of life went up by 50%."
As head chef at Rhubarbs bar and restaurant, a fashionable, bustling venue in the heart of Melbourne's trendy Fitzroy district, Curley and his 11-strong kitchen team handle some 100 covers every lunch and dinner with an average spend of A$50 (£25) per head. And when he's not at the stove, Curley enjoys the two houses and affluent lifestyle funded by his yearly salary of A$100,000 (£50,000) - a figure he reckons is 40% more than he would be earning in an equivalent post in Britain.
It's all a long way from chilly London where he worked in a range of kitchens including the Hyatt Carlton Tower under Bernard Gaume, the Savoy under Anton Edelmann and Sutherlands restaurant in Soho. In 1989, bored and restless, he had no hesitation in accepting the Melbourne Hyatt's offer of an executive sous chef position. The hotel arranged his permanent residency visa under the employment nomination scheme (see visa information section, page 44) and provided a month's accommodation. All Curley had to do was pay for his flight.
But on arrival Curley was put to work in the kosher kitchen, not the fine dining restaurant he'd been promised. Disappointed, he walked out after four days. "I didn't travel the world for that," he says. Following stints at other restaurants including the Rialto hotel (now Le Méridien) and San Lorenzo in Perth, Curley joined Rhubarbs when it opened in 1992.
Although the pace is hectic and he still puts in around 80 hours a week, Curley enjoys more relaxed conditions than he did in London. This includes starting work at 10am, taking regular breaks and alternate weekends off. He even enjoys his four-week holiday allowance with a clear conscience.
And whereas European kitchens are invariably hotbeds of stress and emotion, he finds Australians are more relaxed and less temperamental to work with. "In Europe a chef can get hit for not chopping an onion properly. That wouldn't happen here," he says.
Curley, who describes his menu as "Australian with a French technique", is currently basking in praise from food critics for dishes such as warm goat's cheese terrine and, a legacy of his Pommie background, fried black pudding with braised beef cheeks. He attributes his high profile to simple cooking and good presentation, both of which he claims were concepts new to Melbourne during the late 1980s.
"It's easier to get a good reputation over here. It would have taken me 10 years to get to this stage if I'd stayed in London," he says. Australia's proximity to Asia has also brought more of an East-meets-West influence to some of Curley's flavours, particularly from Japan, where he worked for three months before Rhubarbs opened.
Encased in a striking glass atrium and boasting fine glass and cutlery, Rhubarbs presents an upmarket image, but its prices for main courses at about A$17 (£8.50) are reasonable and the atmosphere is far from imposing. Curley believes this lack of formality and snobbishness towards eating out enables chefs to enjoy a higher status in Australia compared with the UK.
"It doesn't matter who you are back home; unless you own the restaurant you're a nobody, but here I play golf with barristers and newspaper editors. It's totally classless," he explains. And with no shortage of job offers, he is currently considering an approach to head the restaurant in Melbourne's ambitious new casino scheduled to open next year. Curley is likely to savour the good life for some time to come.
Dean Cambray, chef/patron, Cambray's
Dean Cambray opened his first restaurant less than six months after touching down in Melbourne. A new place, a chef no one had heard of and a country in the grip of recession. He clearly wasn't there just for the sunshine.
Today Cambray, 28, admits setting up the restaurant was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life". When equipment broke down he worked without it, when he needed flowers on the tables he cut them from neighbours' gardens.
And he still has a long way to go before Cambray's, one of only a very few fine dining restaurants in Melbourne, begins making money. Business at the tiny restaurant, which seats 42, is far from brisk, averaging around 200 covers a week, with a spend of A$50 (£25) per head.
But his standing is formidable. He has already won one chef's hat, a state-wide accolade similar in status to Europe's Michelin ratings, and expects to pick up a second later this year. Born in the UK, Cambray spent his early childhood in Australia, returning to London when he was 10. Holding dual nationality made the southern hemisphere an obvious choice when he became disillusioned with London.
Although his illustrious background, including stints with Anton Mosimann, Jean Bardet, Pierre Koffmann at La Tante Claire and Bruno Loubet at the Four Seasons Hotel, netted him a job as sous chef under the renowned Jacques Reymond soon after he arrived, he left a few months later to start Cambray's with fiancée Sara Stoute. Cambray, who sank some A$50,000 (£25,000) of his own savings into the restaurant, opened with hard-hitting press advertising, "trained by the best to be the best", but diners were slow to respond. "It's taken a long time for people to really understand what I'm doing here," he concedes. "You have to start with simple things because Australians think stuff is too technical if it's too elaborate. Mr & Mrs average Aussie wouldn't know good food from bad."
But his elegant menu, including venison in a wild mushroom and liquorice sauce at A$25 (£12.50) and steamed saddle of rabbit with freshwater yabbies (freshwater prawns) at A$22.50 (£11), has gradually built a loyal following, particularly among Europeans.
Working with only one other chef, Cambray does 80% of the cooking himself, putting in a punishing 100 hours a week in the cramped kitchen, which is often sweltering hot in summer. He argues that Australians who lack European experience can't cope with such a brutal pace and says finding and keeping staff has been his biggest problem. During his first year he lost 20 chefs, two walking out in the middle of service. "Young Australians aren't used to long hours and they can't cut it," he says. "After a few days in my kitchen it's ‘where are my knives, I'm off…'"
Salaries are a heavy outlay because under the award (minimum wage) scheme, employers are expected to pay high rates for overtime and weekends. Bank holidays cost double time and a half.
Import duties increase the price of European equipment, but Cambray calculates he saves on produce including meat, poultry, fruit and vegetables which are 50% cheaper and better quality than in the UK.
"Everything is so fresh here," he says. "My yabbies are pulled out at 6am and with me by 11am, pigeons and ducks are all suffocated for me and lamb is running around in a field a few hours before it's delivered."
Looking back on the past 15 months, Cambray advises other would-be emigrants to pack chests full of equipment and have at least A$50,000 in the bank for running costs alone. He also cautions against opening as an unknown in Melbourne.
"If I'd worked in a big-name restaurant for a year first, people would have flocked to Cambray's, but because I'm not from any of their institutions it's been a struggle," he says.
Cambray had always wanted to open his own place in London, but his then salary of £25,000 plus colossal overheads would have made it impossible. It may be hard graft, but at least Australia has given him the chance to fulfil a dream.
ALASTAIR SEDGWICK,
Cliveden Room, Melbourne Hilton on the Park
Alastair Sedgwick's first job in Australia was the stuff of Crocodile Dundee. As head chef at a winery restaurant in Moonambel, an isolated village deep in central Victoria, he worked in temperatures of 40ºC, battled against plagues of mice, and frequently faced kangaroos careering into his car as he endured a 30-mile drive through bushland to the nearest supermarket.
Conditions are considerably more comfortable in Melbourne's Hilton on the Park where the 34-year-old now works as junior sous chef in the hotel's fine dining restaurant, the exclusive Cliveden Room. Main courses are priced around A$26 (£13).
Sedgwick left London for Australia in March 1991, fuelled by a desire to travel and experience new styles of cooking. His application for a permanent residency visa was boosted by broad experience including a stretch at the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge plus two years as a freelance chef/private caterer.
But despite the smooth administrative process, it took Sedgwick two years to settle emotionally.
"Lifting yourself away from family and friends is a huge wrench and it's very stressful," he warns. Finding work posed few problems, however. After claiming unemployment benefit for a month, a chance encounter with a former colleague led to a successful interview at the Warrenmang winery where he stayed for 10 months, leaving to run a pub restaurant in the same village with his girlfriend.
Although the pub business closed a few months later, a speculative letter to the Hilton won Sedgwick the post of chef de partie in the Cliveden Room and, within six weeks, he had moved to Melbourne and started work. "Finding work is relatively easy because Australians are interested in European chefs," says Sedgwick. "They are also big on self-promotion out here, so the more detailed your CV, the better."
As supervisor of five of the 41 kitchen staff, Sedgwick has learnt to tone down his management style to suit the Australian way of working. "A European style of management wouldn't work here," he explains. "You won't keep your staff if you're too authoritarian because Australians aren't used to it. Gentle encouragement works best."
Sedgwick also believes the standard of hospitality is not as polished as it is in the UK, pointing out that waitresses are invariably young, out-of-work actresses, rather than professionally trained personnel. However, he has no complaints about his working environment and standard of living.
He works an average of 60 hours during a five-day week, starting at between noon and 2pm continuing till midnight under head chef Werner Kimmeringer and is on a salary of $A32,500 (£16,250). "My life is much better," he says. "I have more money in my pocket; I can eat out when I want, I pay £43 a week for a spacious, two-bedroom house. Dreams and aspirations are attainable and there's so much space. I can breathe here."
He has been able to develop his cooking skills too, moving away from heavier dishes to lighter and simpler styles which complement the climate. However, Sedgwick believes Australia has its professional limitations and regards a stint at a European hotel as inevitable to keep up with trends in styles and cuisines. o
