Neil Perry

No.

And arguably, the work that was being done by chefs like Neil Perry-

Mm

... and like Steve, and like Peter Doyle, and all these great chefs in Australia, no one had any idea.

But really, the very first people who I went to were not any of the retailers or not any.

I definitely went to chefs and, you know, some of our great chefs from Neil to Matt, Neil Perry, Matt Moran, Guillaume, Kylie, all those people right from the beginning just said, what can we do? Because there isn't a chef that doesn't love.

food and doesn't hate to see it go to waste.

And did you already know them through your work in the food industry as a caterer and event manager already? Were they existing relationships?

there wasn't many other ways to eat it.

Yeah, I mean, like you don't have to look back too far in Australian, you know, cuisine to see Neil Perry, you know, down in Bondi there with Blue Water Grill, you know, turning out incredible fish with very simple dressings and then Greg Doyle and then Stephen Hodges at Fish Face.

And so watching, you know, how those people went about their work was You know, I love that work.

I love taking something that's whole, you know, converting it into something that's then very valuable to a lot of people and also scarce.

And I think wine, I have suggested to Qantas that we just get an airplane and fly around Sydney airport for a few hours to see if we can do it.

But I kind of follow Neil Perry's approach to food with regards to taste.

And Neil basically goes off the philosophy that if it tastes good on the ground, it'll taste good in the air.

And we take the same approach with wine.

Yeah you can buy more wines for the seller yeah.

So before the skies you had quite a ground game with some of the Australian top restaurants.

You mentioned Neil Perry and you've worked with Dan Hunter at the Royal Mail and Merivale.

How did those experiences shape your palate and your approach to service?

Throughout your career, You've collaborated, and the acknowledgements in the book read like a who's who of Australian food, and I think that's part of what the reason why it has been so successful.

Just a few of the names there, Yanni Karitsis and Neil Perry, obviously, who worked with you at Stephanie's, but Natalie Paul, Beatrix Bakes, who some of you might know, tested all the recipes in the book, and the acknowledgements go to, of course, your friend Maggie Beer, Will Studd, John Sussman, who just received his Order of Australia, Greg Maloof, Christine Manfield, Damien Pilonnet, Charmaine Sullivan, Tony Tan, David Thompson, even the Australians Women Weekly is acknowledged in the book here.

Very important.

Do you think that your spirit of collaboration in that regard has made it more than, I mean, it would be great if it was just what Stephanie Alexander thinks.