As a boy, George Calombaris says
he was tied to his mother’s apron
strings. These days, the ties have
loosened but his Greek heritage
is still very much the driving force in his
life and career.
“I’ve always been around food. It’s a big
part of my family,” says the chef whose
modern interpretation of Greek cuisine at
The Press Club hit a major chord with diners when it opened in Melbourne in 2006.
His most recent venture, Hellenic Republic, is more like a Greek tavern, offering simple, robustly-flavoured dishes that
are more traditional in their approach.
Both are expressions of Calombaris’s
heritage, growing up in Melbourne with a
Cypriot mother, Greek father, two siblings
and 21 cousins, who, whenever they got
together, were always surrounded by food.
“In a Greek family, food is not only a
time for feeding. It’s cultural, it’s religious,
it’s what time of year it is,” he says, noting that they’d be eating lentils during
Lent, followed by octopus and calamari at
Easter, after which there would be beautiful cakes and pastries.
“I was classically trained in modern
French and I’ve juxtaposed that with the
flavours I grew up with.”
From the time he was a child, Calombaris
knew he wanted to be a chef. After finishing school, he undertook an apprenticeship
at the Hotel Sofitel in Melbourne. “It was a
real food-focused hotel back then, with 130
chefs and lots of departments so you did six
months in one section and six months in an
other. There was lots of learning.”
For the first two years, he worked under Raymond Capaldi, a tough taskmaster but one responsible for creating a
kitchen full of passionate individuals.
Calombaris was desperate to work for the
Sofitel’s three-hatted Le Restaurant, which
he finally got to do after two years of
“hard graft and long hours”.
After his apprenticeship, he teamed up
with Capaldi and the Sofitel’s executive sous
chef Gary Mehigan to open Fenix, where he
worked for two years. In his book, The
Press Club, published by New Holland last
year, Calombaris credits Capaldi with
teaching him “how to think about food and
become a visionary” while Mehigan taught
him “how to be a manager”.
“Ray and Gary let me bring out my own
style ... I learnt a lot from those two men.”
He then took time out to compete in the
Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, France. “It was an
amazing experience to represent your
country at that level, and to be in France
amongst the best chefs in the world.”
On his return, he went to work at Reserve, in Melbourne’s Federation Square,
where customers would fly in from all over
the world to sample its unique brand of
molecular gastronomy. It was his first
“head chef gig” and at the age of 24, he
won Young Chef of the Year, Best New
Restaurant and two chef’s hats in The Age
Good Food Guide.
But the venture was short lived and after two years, Calombaris had already decided he wanted to open his own place. He
could not see the point in doing food that
broke down barriers but that wasn’t financially viable. “At the end of the day, I wanted to cook food for the consumer, not for
my ego. I took a turn in life where I wanted to go back to my culture and cuisine.”
Greek cuisine is not the “tourist island
food” of dips, fried cheese and sugary pas
tries that many people believe it to be, says
Calombaris. “It’s simplicity, it’s elegance.
It’s olive oil, lemon juice, fresh herbs, lots
of fish and pulses. It’s not cream, it’s not
butter, it’s not starch. It’s a very ancient cui
sine. It’s refinement, simplicity and health.”
His food at The Press Club is his own interpretation of Greek cuisine, with “soul, elegance, substance, technique and, above all,
respect and understanding of the product”.
Unlike many modern Australian restaurants, he doesn’t use Asian flavours—“I
use feta as my salt. I use olive oil, they use
sesame oil”. But he does uses some Asian
techniques and at the end of the day, he
says “we all speak the same language.”
“What is Australian cuisine? It’s all these
beautiful migrated people who come out
to this wonderful country and food brings
them together.”
Early last year, he opened Maha Bar &
Grill with his friend and chef Shane Delia.
“We did our apprenticeship together and
are good mates,” says Calombaris. “We
thought we’d get together and do some
thing amazing.”
The modern Middle Eastern style
restaurant was quickly followed by Hellenic Republic, which he describes as “real
traditional and homely” compared with
The Press Club’s “upmarket, edgy” style.
For Hellenic Republic, he deliberately
went for a quirky location in Brunswick,
with graffiti on the outside walls.
“It ain’t all whitewashed walls and fish
nets.” he says. “It’s noisy and loud, with
chefs cooking over charcoal. It’s got all the
homeliness of a Greek household. The
Press Club is my baby but when I’m in
Melbourne, I eat at Hellenic Republic
every day.”
Last year was a particularly busy one for
Calombaris. In March 2008 he spread his
wings internationally and opened the 45-
seat Belvedere restaurant in a hotel on the
Greek island of Mykonos. The hotel owners had invited him to come on board and
he had no hesitation in taking up the invitation. “An Aussie boy cooking in Greece—it
was a big coup.”
When Hospitality spoke to Calombaris last
month, the restaurant had just won its first
major award, similar to The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide chef’s hat.
At the Belvedere, he is cooking similar
food to that served at The Press Club—“a
modern take on Greek cuisine”. Calombaris has done brief stints in some of the
country’s leading restaurants, and says
“there are chefs in Greece who are doing
amazing things. I’ve had a great friendship
over there with all the chefs.”
He travels to Greece several times a year
to keep an eye on the restaurant, although
work on a new television program is consuming a lot of his time and he is likely to
go only once this year. He says the secret to
managing so many restaurants, especially
when they are abroad, is to have good staff.
“I have 130 staff and I treat my staff like
family. My core staff have been with me
for a very long time. They really work hard
together and have the same commitment
[to the business] that I do.”
At the time of our interview, Calombaris
was busy filming the Channel Ten series,
Master Chef that went to air late last
month. The 16-week series will screen in
prime time six nights a week—an Australian first. Hosted by Sarah Wilson and
also featuring Matt Preston and Gary
Mehigan, the show has 7500 people from
around the country vying for the opportunity to become a chef. “It’s a really exciting show,” says Calombaris.
“People who want to be chefs think it’s
all fanfare and Jamie Oliver. Everyone
thinks they can cook but we put reality
into that. It’s a realistic, authentic show.
We’re there to educate consumers about
what it’s like to be a chef.”
Although he was a regular on the Ready,
Steady, Cook TV series for three years, this
is Calombaris’s biggest gig on TV so far,
and he has had a kick out of helping young
people fulfill their dreams. Working on the
show “brings it all back” about what it’s
like to want to be a chef, he says.
Calombaris is now working on his second book, Hellenic Republic: Stories From
The Hellenic Heart, due out in October,
but whether or not there’ll be more restaurants, he can’t say.
“When we’re ready to expand, we will,”
says Calombaris. “We’re not ready at the
moment. I’ll never open the same restaurant. I’m not into chains or franchises. I
want every restaurant to be a unique experience.”