About Me
A CAREER CHEF
G’day, I’m Gav, owner and chef of Zephyrz Pizza & Grill. Since 1995 I’ve been a professional chef cooking around Australia in fine dining restaurants, sometimes with celebrity chefs, plus at 3 countries overseas in big 5-star hotels. I hope you find my Culinary Biography interesting as you discover how I ended up in Nagambie owning Zephyrz Pizza & Grill.
A CULINARY BIOGRAPHY
In Australia, restaurants are awarded ‘Chef Hats’ for consistent culinary excellence. In 1995 I was fortunate enough to begin my career at Area restaurant, a one-Chef’s Hat award winning restaurant in Double Bay, Sydney as a 1st year apprentice chef. Their cuisine was fine dining Modern Australian, and they’d host many Hollywood and political celebrity guests. I began cooking on larder and desserts and then progressed to hot entrees. Here I received my first compliment from a guest – by Nicole Kidman for my chocolate brownie with whiskey ice cream! From then on, I was hooked on the industry.
My next job was as a 2nd year apprentice chef cooking with celebrated chef Genevieve Copland who, on occasion, cooked with famous Maggie Beer on joint gala dinners. This was at the Grand National, a one-Chef’s Hat award winning restaurant in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Their cuisine was fine dining Modern Australian. I was responsible for cooking the hot entrees and assisting on the mains. Genevieve’s style of food influenced me as her fine dining felt simple but delicious. The KISS method, “Keep It Simple, Stupid” was her mantra.
Soon, Genevieve Copland joined forces with celebrity chef Matthew Moran (Master Chef TV personality guest presenter and famous Australian chef) to open a new restaurant in East Sydney called Bonne Femme, which was quickly awarded a one-Chef’s Hat for excellence. Matthew Moran was a silent investor in this restaurant, and they asked me to join them in the pre- opening team to continue my chef apprenticeship. These award-winning restaurants gave me excellent cooking skills, training and discipline at very high standards, plus the opportunity to cook for many famous people like Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Bill Clinton, and Brian Brown! Next, Genevieve offered me a position in a very high-end restaurant that was opening soon, with a celebrity chef named Luke Mangan. She explained this would take my skills up another level and that I deserved a shot at it. I thanked her sincerely, met with Luke Mangan and got the job!
The year is 1999, and I’m now with celebrity chef Luke Mangan with the pre-opening team for his new restaurant Salt in Darlinghurst Sydney, which quickly became highly acclaimed winning Two-Chef’s Hat award! Salt restaurant became ranked as the top 5 restaurants in all Sydney plus top 10 Australia wide. Salt was also reviewed globally from London to Kuala Lumpa to New York. It was a phenomenally high-achieving successful restaurant.
Salt’s cuisine was Asian-French fusion. I was hired at the end of my apprenticeship, graduated to Chef de Partie and then got promoted to become his Sous Chef during my 3 years there. I could cook it all with Luke, redefining my chef skills to superior high standards consistently without exception, excuses or compromise.
During this time I flew with Luke Mangan to Melbourne to cook in the 2001 Melbourne Food Festival as a guest chef and on another occasion worked alongside celebrity chef Jamie Oliver as we all prepared a joint gala dinner!
As Luke Mangans Sous Chef, I was responsible for maintaining his high standards from all the chefs and staff. Luke trusted me to run his master restaurant, Salt, in his absence and proud to say I never let him down.
On the 10-year anniversary of my cheffing career, I opted for a change of scenery. In 2005 I moved to tropical north Queensland to join a “Leading Hotels of the World” award winner, Hayman Island on the Whitsunday Islands. I was as a Senior Chef there for 2 years, living on the island and working in their banquets and buffets kitchen cooking for up to 500 guests per day. This gave me the opportunity to develop my banqueting skills within 5-star hotels.
During this time, I won an award for Outstanding Achievement and Customer Service. This was a great experience working and living on the island in a staff village. My skills as a fine dining restaurant chef were being complimented with a Leading Hotel of the World banquets chef to create a great package of talent.
But I was eager to achieve and experience more, so decided my next move was to look internationally. I signed up to work as an Aussie expatriate chef cooking overseas at high-end five-star hotels.
Most expatriate chefs begin work in the Middle East. The year is 2007, and I landed the role as Sous Chef, later to become the Head Chef, at the five-star Ritz Carlton managed Sharq Village & Spa Hotel in Doha, Qatar. This was a culture shock, with everything in daily life being Arabic-oriented. The hotel had 4 restaurants, and mine was called Al Dana, their seafood restaurant. I had 12 chefs and together we cooked varied cuisines including sushi bar, 2 wok burners, Aussie grill, whole fish, lobsters, and crabs with Spanish and French influences. The management systems at the Ritz Carlton were wonderful, which invested heavily in training managers to become better leaders and inspire their staff and customers. During my 2 years there, I trained and lead a culturally diverse team (no local Qatari worked) of Filipinos, Indonesians, Indians, Shri Lankans, Nepalese, Lebanese, Syrians, Moroccans and more. Each nationality was keen to show off their culinary cuisine and it was wonderful.
Examples of my food at the Peninsula Hotel in Manila:
However, after a short time I resigned due to disagreements with senior directors over best ethical ways to manage staff. They were nothing like the wonderful Ritz Carlton or Peninsula senior leadership teams. Unfortunately, this meant I was abruptly forced out of Abu Dhabi, leaving me homeless and jobless. Needing temporary accommodation whilst assessing my next career move, my mother’s spare bedroom came to mind. She recently retired and moved to a peaceful little regional town in Victoria called Nagambie. I looked online for jobs there and saw The Royal Mail Hotel “Top Pub” was looking for a head chef, so from Abu Dhabi I gave them a phone call. You can imagine their reaction receiving a call saying, “Hi, I’m an Aussie international 5-star chef with 20 years’ experience coming to Nagambie and looking for work. Can I be your head chef?” It was stunned silence coming over the phone… eventually they said, “sure thing cheffy!”
In Jan 2012, I joined The Nagambie Rowing Club as Head Chef. Their menu was quite basic, and they lacked any kitchen team, structure or standard methods. The General Manager told me that customer complaints were frequent and daily, therefore asked me to “hit the floor running” which I did. I heavily recruited for new chefs and apprentices and strictly training them up to a consistent level; I implemented kitchen standard procedures, recipes and expectations; and I personally drafted and redesigned their major kitchen renovation, working closely with the builders throughout the whole process. Combined, all those changes achieved a much higher catering output from the kitchen with improved quality in every meal possible. I wrote their banquets and functions menus, a la carte menus, kept their daily specials board menu interesting and ever-changing, and made every Christmas Day menu event a success. I was the Nagambie Rowing Clubs Head Chef for 7 years and gave them a total of 11 years’ service, plus always guided the succeeding head chefs after me, in the background. After 11 years, it was finally time to leave them, and buy my own restaurant!
In 2023, a restaurant in Nagambie called Zephyrz went up for sale. It was a struggling pasta and pizza wine bar with mixed public perception, mainly due to people not even knowing when its open or not! Unfortunately, the venue wasn’t maintained very well and needed a lot of work and money put back into it. But this venue had potential to be great…
With the support of my incredible wife, Maria and our 3 kids, together we bought Zephyrz. Believing in ourselves, we changed the dining concept to our two favourite foods – great BBQ’s and delicious pizzas – all with the vibe of a casual family bistro. This continues my winery-pub style cuisine with the “Keep It Simple, Stupid” mantra.
I hope everyone will visit us at Zephyrz Pizza & Grill for a relaxed stay, some tasty food, good music and good vibes. See you at Zephyrz! Gav
