Posts in foodtravel
Truffle Cooking Recipes: Robertson Truffles Winter 2024

Truffle recipes

Basic truffle butter

This is one of the easiest recipes with left over truffle, Sometimes we add a little choped anchovy or olive to the mix as a source of rich saltiness, however ingredients like this reduce the self life.Just make sure that your butter is at room temperature.

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A Birthday Week at Pebbly Beach Escapes, South Coast NSW

Pebbly Beach Escapes is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful and peaceful locations on the NSW coast. A wonderful collection of accomodation reminese of the classic Australian summer holiday home gone luxuary. I was lucky enough to be invited to stay and cook for an entire week for a family celebrating a special birthday event at Pebbly Beach escapes. The brief was mainly vegan and vegetarian food with a little bit of local seafood and a nod to gluten free.

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Sydney Private Chef Menus February 2022

It has been a busy few weeks for the Sydney Private Chef team across Sydney, Central Coast, Hunter, South Coast and Southern Highlands. We have cooked for some wonderful clients in some beautiful and amazing locations.

Enjoy the gallery below

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HIDE (UPSTAIRS) OLLIE DABBOUS, PICCADILLY. LONDON 2019

Admittedly, a touch of food fatigue tinged with trepidation had creeped upon me approaching our lunch at Hide Upstairs. Two previous days of Michelin starred eating had consequences, two stars in two days… blah blah blah. How was I to consume more! I know it sounds pompous and at a level of wanker-ness that my wife says I’m only capable of, but I was almost a little over Michelin.

Simon Rogan’s brilliant interpretation of English food had left me impressed, the flavours of Elystan Street were so deep one could bath in them, and then there was a rather anonymous late-night Club Sandwich and a bottle of Champagne in the depths of the Fulham. And then on the second last day in London we were booked into Hide, Ollie Dabbous Piccadilly restaurant.

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London dinner party September 2019

I like nothing better than a challenge, as as a private chef you never know where your going to end up, who you might be cooking for or what it is you can be cooking. Everywhere from private houses to villa in rural Italy and France to ultra modern apartments in Singapore. I’ve cooked the simple and the complex for all manner of clients, from poached eggs on toast to a banquet based around the book “A hundred foot journey” I have become pretty good at arriving, usually flying in a few days in advance and instantly having to cook. Below is a menu and a few photos from a dinner party in London

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A French inspired lunch in the Southern Highlands.

Some jobs I just can’t say no too, and this was one of them. The brief was a birthday party for a Darling point couple at their Southern Highlands property outside of Robertson, NSW. The part that was so exciting was the very French inspired menu that they had chosen….some French classics. All dishes that had been enjoyed over the years and still much loved. Snapper Quenelles, Bouillabaisse and chocolate tart. The Snapper quenelles was, for me, a dish from my past. A dish that I hadn’t cooked in onwards of 25 years, but thats the challenge, to cook memories and provide the client with exactly the food they want.

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Truffle hunting in Robertson

It was beautiful early winters day, fingers of sunlight, lush green paddocks and the late tint of autumn leaves.  Robertson in the southern highlands just outside of Sydney, is a neat little country town with a rather up market looking restaurant just next to the local Massey tractor dealer. That’s the duplicity of the area. Across the rail line we descended into the eastern valley, the road sanguine to the bottom of the valley, across a waterway and into the picture-perfect Robertson truffles.  Pulling up into the drive way we were greeted by Sam (the owner) and a much welcoming open fire, a few nice cheeses and some conversation with our fellow hunters.

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London and a few wines from the Cotes-du-rhone

While in London I regularly purchase wine from the Jeroboams store on Heath Street, which is an agreeable distance from my flat. I like, on each trip, to concentrate on an individual wine region. Last year it was the wines of Tuscany. Mainly Sangiovese based wines. Super concentrated wines with tight tannins and big flavours, Chianti’s and Montepulciano and the like.

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Bistro Officina. Bowral, Southern Highlands NSW

There are dishes, and then there are dishes. These are the culinary moments that stick with you, in the very front of the food memory bank. The meals that everything else is measured against.

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