Max Smith is from a city in northern England most people have probably never heard of. He grew up in Preston, Lancashire, but swapped snow for sunshine when he moved to Sydney six years ago. It wasn’t the first switch for Smith, who traded Euro-centric fine dining for Japanese izakaya-style cuisine. And now, he’s the tastemaker behind Jimoto Foods; a condiment and sauce company.
27-year-old Smith talks to Hospitality about kicking off his career in a pub kitchen before working for Gordon Ramsay in London, taking and leaving a head chef role and knowing what you want to get out of an industry that is unlike any other.
Max Smith wasn’t sure what his future career would entail when he was at school. That is, until he spent the day in a pub kitchen: “I fell in love with it,” he says. After those fateful few hours, Smith began studying cookery, but the formal environment just wasn’t a match.
“I’m not the best at sitting in a classroom and learning that way,” he says. “Being thrown in the deep-end at 16 and being surrounded by strong cooks was a better way for me to learn.”
Smith spent his first year as a chef at a local pub before moving to London to work in some more “high-profile restaurants”. And it doesn’t come any more high profile
than the kitchens of Gordon Ramsay. Smith worked at the Savoy Grill, Bread Street Kitchen and the Michelin-starred Pétrus.
“While it was a huge learning experience, you kind of put everything else on hold,” says Smith. “A lot of people my age were going out on the weekend, but all of that was put to the side for me.”
Smith continued to forge ahead with the Ramsay brigade for a number of years before taking on a role at Jason Atherton’s Pollen Street Social. “I worked my way up to chef de partie and was on the meat section,” says Smith. “I was working 16-17 hours a day. I learned a lot, but I never really enjoyed it. You have to sacrifice a lot.”
The young chef came to a crossroads: after three years, Smith’s heart just wasn’t in fine dining. While he would spend his work days plating up Euro-leaning dishes, he took an interest in a different style of cooking in his personal life. “I found myself eating at a lot of small Japanese restaurants on my days off and I felt more drawn towards that cuisine,” he says.
A six-month stint at a pub with a friend followed, and it was here where things really got interesting. “We did a pop-up and I met a guy called Jeff Claudio, who my friend had worked with,” says Smith. “We got talking and I mentioned I wanted to move to Sydney, and he said he’d set me up with a trial.”
Claudio, a fellow chef, arranged a trial for Smith at his restaurant of choice: Cho Cho San in Potts Point. “I came across Cho Cho San and it jumped out at me straight away,” says Smith. “Being English, the concept of a Japanese izakaya is a take on a pub, but the food is a lot better in an izakaya.”
Smith had made up his mind: he was leaving London, but there was an element of doubt. “I had worked in so many different environments by the time I was 21 and I spent all this time learning how to make pureés and braising and now this guy [Claudio] is sending me to a restaurant where it’s the opposite,” says Smith. “I was like, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ All these people I worked with were progressing, but I had the feeling that I had to break away and do something different.”
Any doubts were soon quashed: “Jeff organised for me to do a day at Cho Cho San and I loved it,” he says. “The Owners Jonathan [Barthelmess] and Sam [Christie] were so cool and as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant, I knew it was a highly skilled kitchen. You had chefs making steamed baos and breaking down fish. There were a lot of ingredients I hadn’t seen before and I was instantly learning. I was drawn in straight away.”
Smith was exposed to a whole new world (one with sudachi juice) and had the opportunity to learn from Nic Wong, who was the head chef at the time. It wasn’t long before another stepping stone would appear when Wong left for Japan to launch The Apollo Ginza. “The head chef role was offered to me and it was a big challenge to step up,” says Smith. “I was a bit like, ‘Wow, what an opportunity’.”
He decided to jump outside his comfort zone, and says it was an easy decision thanks to the constant championing he received from Christie, Barthelmess and Wong. “It can be really hard to be a head chef at a young age if you don’t have the right support,” says Smith. “Working with those three people every day and being able to bounce ideas off them really helped me.”
Claudio, a fellow chef, arranged a trial for Smith at his restaurant of choice: Cho Cho San in Potts Point. “I came across Cho Cho San and it jumped out at me straight away,” says Smith. “Being English, the concept of a Japanese izakaya is a take on a pub, but the food is a lot better in an izakaya.”
Smith had made up his mind: he was leaving London, but there was an element of doubt. “I had worked in so many different environments by the time I was 21 and I spent all this time learning how to make pureés and braising and now this guy [Claudio] is sending me to a restaurant where it’s the opposite,” says Smith. “I was like, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ All these people I worked with were progressing, but I had the feeling that I had to break away and do something different.”
Any doubts were soon quashed: “Jeff organised for me to do a day at Cho Cho San and I loved it,” he says. “The Owners Jonathan [Barthelmess] and Sam [Christie] were so cool and as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant, I knew it was a highly skilled kitchen. You had chefs making steamed baos and breaking down fish. There were a lot of ingredients I hadn’t seen before and I was instantly learning. I was drawn in straight away.”
Smith was exposed to a whole new world (one with sudachi juice) and had the opportunity to learn from Nic Wong, who was the head chef at the time. It wasn’t long before another stepping stone would appear when Wong left for Japan to launch The Apollo Ginza. “The head chef role was offered to me and it was a big challenge to step up,” says Smith. “I was a bit like, ‘Wow, what an opportunity’.”
He decided to jump outside his comfort zone, and says it was an easy decision thanks to the constant championing he received from Christie, Barthelmess and Wong. “It can be really hard to be a head chef at a young age if you don’t have the right support,” says Smith. “Working with those three people every day and being able to bounce ideas off them really helped me.”
Claudio, a fellow chef, arranged a trial for Smith at his restaurant of choice: Cho Cho San in Potts Point. “I came across Cho Cho San and it jumped out at me straight away,” says Smith. “Being English, the concept of a Japanese izakaya is a take on a pub, but the food is a lot better in an izakaya.”
Smith had made up his mind: he was leaving London, but there was an element of doubt. “I had worked in so many different environments by the time I was 21 and I spent all this time learning how to make pureés and braising and now this guy [Claudio] is sending me to a restaurant where it’s the opposite,” says Smith. “I was like, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ All these people I worked with were progressing, but I had the feeling that I had to break away and do something different.”
Any doubts were soon quashed: “Jeff organised for me to do a day at Cho Cho San and I loved it,” he says. “The Owners Jonathan [Barthelmess] and Sam [Christie] were so cool and as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant, I knew it was a highly skilled kitchen. You had chefs making steamed baos and breaking down fish. There were a lot of ingredients I hadn’t seen before and I was instantly learning. I was drawn in straight away.”
Smith was exposed to a whole new world (one with sudachi juice) and had the opportunity to learn from Nic Wong, who was the head chef at the time. It wasn’t long before another stepping stone would appear when Wong left for Japan to launch The Apollo Ginza. “The head chef role was offered to me and it was a big challenge to step up,” says Smith. “I was a bit like, ‘Wow, what an opportunity’.”
He decided to jump outside his comfort zone, and says it was an easy decision thanks to the constant championing he received from Christie, Barthelmess and Wong. “It can be really hard to be a head chef at a young age if you don’t have the right support,” says Smith. “Working with those three people every day and being able to bounce ideas off them really helped me.”
Claudio, a fellow chef, arranged a trial for Smith at his restaurant of choice: Cho Cho San in Potts Point. “I came across Cho Cho San and it jumped out at me straight away,” says Smith. “Being English, the concept of a Japanese izakaya is a take on a pub, but the food is a lot better in an izakaya.”
Smith had made up his mind: he was leaving London, but there was an element of doubt. “I had worked in so many different environments by the time I was 21 and I spent all this time learning how to make pureés and braising and now this guy [Claudio] is sending me to a restaurant where it’s the opposite,” says Smith. “I was like, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ All these people I worked with were progressing, but I had the feeling that I had to break away and do something different.”
Any doubts were soon quashed: “Jeff organised for me to do a day at Cho Cho San and I loved it,” he says. “The Owners Jonathan [Barthelmess] and Sam [Christie] were so cool and as soon as I stepped foot in the restaurant, I knew it was a highly skilled kitchen. You had chefs making steamed baos and breaking down fish. There were a lot of ingredients I hadn’t seen before and I was instantly learning. I was drawn in straight away.”
Smith was exposed to a whole new world (one with sudachi juice) and had the opportunity to learn from Nic Wong, who was the head chef at the time. It wasn’t long before another stepping stone would appear when Wong left for Japan to launch The Apollo Ginza. “The head chef role was offered to me and it was a big challenge to step up,” says Smith. “I was a bit like, ‘Wow, what an opportunity’.”
He decided to jump outside his comfort zone, and says it was an easy decision thanks to the constant championing he received from Christie, Barthelmess and Wong. “It can be really hard to be a head chef at a young age if you don’t have the right support,” says Smith. “Working with those three people every day and being able to bounce ideas off them really helped me.”
Smith chose to emulate a similar management style with his kitchen team, where it was all about leading by example. “I learned from a young age how to manage people on the section, and the main thing is you have to make them want to be there,” says the chef.
“You get the most out of staff if you treat them well and show them respect. If you’re going to tell people what to do, you have to make sure you can do it yourself and be prepared to show them how to do it. With young chefs, you have to give them the opportunity to taste everything and listen to their ideas.”
During his tenure as head chef, Smith honed in on classic Japanese dishes, adding okonomiyaki to the menu as well as tonkatsu. Everything was tracking along for Smith, who met all the goals he set; ticking off chef de partie by 21 and moving from sous chef to head chef not long after.
“When it all happened, it was kind of like, ‘What’s next? What’s the next thing that’s going to take me out of my comfort zone?’ Hospitality is like a sport, you have a certain timeframe. You don’t really want to be working 16-hour shifts when you’re 50, even though some people do and they’re amazing. You have to think about what you want to get out of it.”
The answer is by no coincidence related to the pub. “I had an idea to make sauces and condiments and I wanted to make something scalable,” says Smith. “The word jimoto means local in Japanese and that draws back to the pub and the izakaya.”
Smith launched Jimoto Foods in 2020 during the lockdown with the help of his partner, and the range now encompasses sauces such as yuzu and chilli, shiso teriyaki, spicy ume and lime and hot miso. “I wanted to create products with flavours I’m inspired by; similar to what I did at Cho Cho San — artisanal Japanese meets local Australian ingredients. I want to spread those flavours and get them to as many people as possible in a non-restaurant environment.”
Jimoto’s first batch of products were in the midst of being lab-tested when the lockdown struck, which gave the chef the time to focus all his energy into getting the products right. “To be able to have a month off as a chef is insane,” says Smith. “I’m sure all chefs agree that time is something you never really have.”
The first release saw 200 bottles go up for sale, and retailers were quick to jump on board. “We have 20 retailers at the moment and we’re getting new ones every week,” says Smith. “Thai Kee IGA has been amazing and we’re also stocked in 1888 Certified in Double Bay, The Boatshed in Perth and some cafés in Brisbane. The plan is to keep growing and see where it goes.”
Smith has plans to expand the range, and a ponzu will be available shortly. But it will have a local edge, like all Jimoto products. “It’s going to be full of native Australian ingredients,” says the chef.
“Every product isn’t something you could find somewhere else. For the teriyaki sauce, we get heaps of fresh shiso from Sydney and steep it in the sauce like a tea. Every product has to have a point of difference and use local ingredients.”
2020 was a big year for Smith, who welcomed a business baby and a son with his partner. The day he found out he was going to be a father was also the day he decided to step down from his role as head chef of Cho Cho San.
“It was a decision I naturally made for my partner and for our son,” he says. “Being a head chef means coming home late five to six days a week, and I felt it was an opportunity to not put myself and my career first for once.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I thought it was the right one. COVID-19 made me realise that I’d like to spend more time with my girlfriend. From 16 to 27, I’ve literally not stopped. I felt like I’d gotten to where I wanted to be and I was really happy with what I’d done in my career.”
But it’s not a closed book for Cho Cho San and Smith, who has since returned to the group in a new role that allows him to balance fatherhood with Jimoto. Smith has taken on a hybrid gig of sorts, which sees him in the kitchen and the office working closely alongside Christie and Barthelmess in a creative capacity across Cho Cho San and Brisbane’s Yoko Dining.
“It’s a support role, so if one of the head chefs needs a cover, I’ll be there, and I’ll be training new chefs, too” he says. “It’s also a good opportunity for me to learn new things and [provide] all-round operational support.”
Smith has accomplished a lot in a decade; moving countries, working his way up the kitchen ladder and now owning his own business while experiencing the joys of fatherhood. You only get out what you put in, and in Smith’s case, the rewards a
career in hospitality delivers have proven to be more than fruitful.
Image credits: Nikki To