Approach.
How I Work
1. Concept
Understand what the founder or the room is actually trying to be. Not the brief they wrote — the thing underneath it. The cultural ambition, the commercial reality, the gap in the market they're trying to occupy.
2. Menu
Build from the concept down: cuisine identity, dish structure, table logic, COGS discipline from the start. A menu isn't a list of dishes. It's an argument about what this place is.
3. Systems
Recipe books, SOPs, station setup, training protocols. The kitchen has to be able to execute without me in it. That's the job.
4. Launch & Stabilisation
Launch is where the work gets tested. I stay close to service, protect the standard, adjust in real time, and build the habits that let the team carry it properly.
Atsushi Sakai, Future Future, Fitzroy (2021 to present). Long-standing. Five-day weeks, all stations including the pass. MFWF cover. The kind of relationship built in service, not conversation.
Diana Desensi, Bar Bambi & Daphne (2024 to 2026). Bar Bambi relaunch: kitchen systems, training, standards. Three-month stabilisation at Daphne (Etta Group).
Matt Woodhouse, Untitled, Richmond (2023). Post-opening stabilisation. Standards, recipe setup, station build.
Mischa Tropp, Avani, Tucks Winery & Toddy Shop (2023). Second chef at Avani. Ran Tucks solo for a weekend. Residency extended two months on the strength of it. Day-one kitchen at Toddy Shop, first Sunday solo.
Years of kitchen craft
20+
Venue Projects
10+
High-volume service environments
100–300+
Melbourne, Bali, Jakarta
3 cities
Open to the right room.