Ben Shewry

Um, I cook for a living.

Yeah, um, that's the essence of what I do. But it's probably quite a lot broader than that. I, I run a company called **Attica**, have 40 full-time employees and we cook for 50 guests five nights a week. And that's that's that's what I do. That's part of what I do. So running that company with my wife, Kylie. Um,

It's amazing.

Uh, I let her win.

Uh, I, I think we'll have like a reasoned discussion around it until it kind of just gets thrashed out to what the obvious choice is. Yeah. You know, that's probably but we also, it's not just Kylie and I making decisions. It's Kylie and I making decisions with a bunch of experts. You know, it's Kylie and I making decisions with our accountant, our lawyer, our management team, our whole team. Um, I, I guess probably ultimately though, we both know when it comes down to it, decision has to be made in a sort of like a 50/50 call. I'm very comfortable making that decision.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, particularly in the last five years. Um, and and my wife is responsible for the company surviving during the lockdowns, undoubtedly.

It was her actions. Her, um, positivity.

Uh, she is a really unique skillset that a lot of restaurants don't have access to. And I think when that first lockdown was coming, I was kind of a new owner. I'd only owned the restaurant, I think at that point, for about three or four years. Even though I'd been working there for a decade. And...

I did. Yeah. I was, I was first an employee at Attica. I answered a a job in the newspaper for a chef back when there were jobs in the newspaper. And, um,

It is. It is. That's 2005. And I got the job and I worked for somebody else for a decade. So I was the head chef, but I had no financial interest in the business until I had the opportunity to buy it. I brought it. And then I guess that's two, yeah, that's like three or four, four years later. COVID comes. And, you know, there's a moment where I, I'm certain that we will lose everything. And I'm despairing.

It was. And I'm sure this is the story of many people. You know, I'm internalizing. It's my birthday actually. And, um, today...

On that moment where I knew that we'd have to close. Um, and we canceled three months of reservations. And I just couldn't see how any kind of initiative around takeaway food could support all the employees. And just couldn't see it. And so I was feeling sorry for myself and despairing. And she was just kind of constantly saying, "Let's just give it a go. Let's have a give it a crack."

You know, "We don't have anything to lose." And she just repeatedly said that. And I kind of wasn't listening. And then a friend of mine, Bruce Don Levy. He's a, um, like an investment guy from San Francisco, Benchmark Capital. And he emailed me and he said, "Just, just lead with positivity." Just, "That's, that's it." It was a very short email. "Be unrelenting," I think he said. And I woke up to that this morning. And I thought, "You know, that's it." So, you know, I did kind of shock myself. You know, I haven't really been listening to her. And always listen to your wife.

Um, and and so I would credit her. And it wasn't just that, um, initial push to really make me reconsider doing this thing. But it was also then the build of the infrastructure. We, we did delivery. We had 10, 10 waiters on the road as delivery drivers every night. Um,

I think it was called. No, no. We couldn't afford to use any of those third parties. They take too much of a cut and the margins are really fine in ambitious restaurants like ours. And so I, I just knew we wouldn't survive if if we, if we would, if if we even losing 10% or 15%, it's not there. You know. So to take 30% on one of the big delivery apps is not not a possibility. And we really couldn't charge any more than we were charging. And and so, um, we decided we'd do everything ourselves. She organized the IT infrastructure. With our with our partner, it had to kind of be built within a week. She organized all the delivery routes. And it's pretty complex. You know, about 120 deliveries of food, hot food, a night. Plus about a 100 pickups. Scheduling all of that.

Absolutely. Yeah. And it was, you know, it was, it was a baptism of fire. And absolutely, a lot of teething problems. But but in essence, we went from collapsing a company and a whole way of thinking, a way of life for us and work. Yeah, to starting and executing a whole two whole new businesses within one week.

Was a good thing. Yeah, there's a positive out a negative.

Yeah, so I had this sort of, um, naive ambition. It was a private one that I really didn't admit to anybody but Kylie early was that we, I would have called this whole time a success if we could retain every single one of those employees on full full salary and full hours. Um, and we not only did that, but we actually employed another 10 on top of that to meet demand because it got so crazy. There was a day, I've never told anybody this. There was a day, Father's Day, where we had 900 orders. And we're a tiny organization. You've got it, you know, like it's all handmade.

And Matt, our head chef, and I were out on the road that day. We did 120 deliveries ourselves. It was just an extraordinary hustle. Um, and so, but what we found with take, with the takeaway business and with the other initiatives, we started a T-shirt company. We did a Pottery Studio. We did a a a bakery.

No. I mean, we got no, sadly like all of those things that we built. But especially the takeaway. We actually thought that takeaway, and I think this was kind of a global feeling amongst restaurants, yeah, that takeaway would be an amazing kind of, um, sideline business for restaurants, which have always been as sort of frail as Fabergés kind of at the best of times. Yeah. But what what we found pretty suddenly, it was feast or famine. You know, as soon as the lockdowns would ease, there'd be nobody who wanted to take away. Everybody wanted to return to restaurant. And I understand that desire as a consumer. Um, and ultimately it, it became too hard to to do both things properly at once.

Oh, if you balanced out across the years, no, it was, it, we didn't make a loss. But like it, literally was, you know, revenue up 40%. Yeah, higher than it had ever been.

Yeah, yeah. Um, during the lockdowns. But then down, you know, 85, 90% at its lowest. So it was, it was kind of like this. Whereas, you know, Attica is quite a stable business generally. Um, so yeah, it was incred, I always say it was incredible highs and incredible lows. Um, but it was also like this one moment for just the most pure learning. You know, this experience you couldn't, yeah, actually manufacture that for people.

I think I've always know how to survive. I think I knew that before that, you know, I think I'm a chef that it's a tough gig.

Is one of the toughest industries in the world. It is. But if it was your great love, you know, I'm sure you could.

You have that just that it's my love. It's not that.

Yeah, yeah. It's that, it's a thing that I've, you know, that I've put everything into. Um, but yeah, kind of, um, I've known how to survive. But it was a clarifying time in that everything fell away. Yeah. You know, it was like in those moments in those first weeks, in those days, in the as those months build on, there was no noise. You know, there was no chatter. It was just the pure focus of of our people, of the community and our company. And there was very little distraction. And and you'd remember this as well. People were so available and present. And and and so I was like, "Wow, this is incredible." You know, "I want to remember this." And as I came out of it, I was like, you know, "I don't want to return to a lot of what I would call *[expletive]*." A lot of things that I used to do. I don't, I don't want to return to that.

I think moving quicker is a huge one.

Yes. It's so important. Um, but when you're obsessed in business, it's a lot easier to move fast. I find.

I think it's innate. I think, you know, I think it, it doesn't matter if it's cooking or writing or friendships or, you know, hobbies. Like it's just, can't, I can't help but kind of be obsessed about them. It doesn't mean that I'm going to excel at all those things. Um, but I'm really going to give it a crack and and try. Um, and just try to be super consistent. I think.

It is within. Nobody pushes me. There's, I feel no sense of pressure, uh, other than the pressure that I put upon myself. Um, and I think if you can hit a really high standard, um, just generally, it does make it easier because because those, those sort of societal expectations or norms or pressures that people feel really don't matter. You know, if you're setting your own agenda and you're setting your own standard. And and I know it's not possible for everybody, but but but it is possible almost, you know, everybody's part of their life at least, you know, um, for me as an owner of a company, um, I own the company not because I have this intense desire to own the company. I have a really intense desire to protect the creative work I do. Therefore, owning the company is the only way to guarantee that that can't be messed with.

I used to hate the business side. I and I, I used to think that that wasn't my place. I had, um, some real hang-ups. And there's sort of a system of how we're taught as cooks as well that the business is best left up to the adults. And and we don't, you know, chefs are stupid or chefs don't understand numbers. And and so and because I was a deeply creative person and focused on creative as I built the earlier part of my career. Um, I thought that it wasn't for me. And and I even thought that money and making money and talking about business is kind of a dirty thing. And super boring and not creative at all. I really had like the wrong way about it.

Absolutely. Completely and utterly changed. You know, we friends.

And well, it, it, it has to have changed. And I realized that I was really limiting myself and hurting myself. And in fact, that some of the bad things that were happening to me were happening because I had a lack of confidence in kind of coming to some of this stuff. You know, into, in interest in business. So when I was, I was 39, I bought the restaurant, which is quite old, you know, like in my opinion, to own the restaurant after being celebrated for cooking for a decade when I, when I purchased it, um, I was terrified of it. So I just kind of applied the creativity that has a cook to business now. You know, I think...

You made a lot of mistakes. But essentially, um, I kind of my model has never been to be one of the best restaurants in the world. It was to be **one of the best small businesses in the world**. So there's a different, there's a pretty strong point of difference.

Because if we just continue to follow, you know, whatever the, um, the history of restaurants is, I don't think that's really like a, that's not, they're not good lessons for the future necessarily. Some of them are, but not all of them. Yeah. Um, and so, so that fear of being bad at business and that fear and a deep fear of going broke have been pretty big motivators and drivers of of the success of my business. Um, and I've learned to absolutely love business and realize that that everything can have a creative element, you know. And and that business can be creative.

Yeah. In a creative role more than a production role.

Um, and so my, you know, I guess my probably if you know, if you wanted like an official term, I don't have an official term. But if you wanted an official term for what I do, it's some sort of **creative director**. Okay. Yeah. Um, driving the creativity of the of the enterprise in the kitchen with its communication with anything external. It does combined with Kylie as well who has great creative ideas. Even though she doesn't call herself a creative person. Um, and then so developing the dishes, developing the concepts. And Attica is an enormous network of collaborators and artists and musicians, um, makers. Right? Is people who, who, you know, we, we're 40 employees. But there's probably three or 400 other people that contribute to it. Suppliers. Um, and so I'm really connected to that community as well. And we're always trying to bring people in to educate us and to to make the work more meaningful. But I think, um, you know, business is just such an interesting, interesting, um, thing to apply creativity to because for me, you know, the definition of business is problems. And it's not if you're, it's not, it's not about whether or not you're going to have problems or not. You're going to have problems. Um, but it's how you solve them. And there's always a solution. There is. And and so long as you're with good people, you know that that's kind of. And I think it's who you solve them with and how you solve. So I really like that sense of overcoming that business provides people. It's not, if you're going to have a problem, you're going to have a problem. I just touched on that.

Well, I found that by building a really, really strong culture. And not one that's just for, um, just for posturing on social media. Like a really intrinsic, deep, values-based culture with good intentions. It naturally attracts people who hear about that and want to be a part of that. And so that's that's probably one of the biggest pulls of talent is that, you know, it's run, the restaurant's run very differently. It it's, it tries to be exceptionally respectful. And and so people who sometimes have had a hard time in hospitality might want to come. Or younger people who have heard about, you know, that, who have a different set of values perhaps, you know, more sophisticated than the ones that I grew up with. Um, naturally want to come and and and I guess that reputation or that knowledge means that we always have great people to work with. Then of course, we're exceptional at selecting people. When we select somebody, we'll work with them as well. You know, like I don't expect somebody to come to Attica and and to and to to measure up immediately. You know, you need to give people time. They need to be trained. No matter if they've been in the industry for a long time or not. You know, um, in and and I think the most powerful tool that we have is through demonstratable actions. You know, I don't just ask for certain things in certain ways. I practice them. And it's visible. So we have a very simple rule. **Say hello, how are you to every single person in the building every single day.**

Every single person. And and so I have to live that value. Yeah. I have to go, "Hi, how are you?" You know, "How was your day?" You know, "How's your day?"

Now, I don't expect a straight positive answer every time because people are on a, you know, experiencing life. So sometimes I have to be prepared like, "Oh, Ben's coming. Oh, put your head down." No, not at all. But like some, somebody might say, "Well, you know what, actually, you know, they been a bit tough."

I'm like, "Are you okay?" You know, and you know, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Um, and so it's that, um, but that's just a little thing and it's one of, you know, dozens of small details that that pulls people out of their shell, makes them, you know, as they join because we have people, you know, I start first. Generally, I'm there at 8:30 and there's people coming at 10:00 and 11:00 in the morning or...

I might finish at like 8:00. You know, it's a 12-hour day.

Long it is. I, I always start work from home at probably 6:30, 6:00, um, and I probably work after I've finished at the restaurant too. All my choice. Um, but yeah, I think, um, you know, that, hey, because there in restaurants, there are two teams. You know, there's, they say there's one team, but there's a front of house team and a kitchen team. And they generally run by, they are run by different managers. They require different personality types. Um, the work is incredibly different. One, you have to expand a lot of social energy. The other, you can kind of be like a hermit crab if you want to be, you know, the kitchen. Um, and and so by sort of not forcing, but by encouraging those two groups of people to say hello to each other, to have an exchange, know it's, it just sort of builds a, um, it builds like it's just like a, it's muscle memory. It builds camaraderie and a little bit of connectedness. And when you start your shift and you're going around to say hello to everybody, you become present in it rather than just kind of going straight to the task.

Yep.

Yeah. They actually were tough jobs. I didn't get the credit where credit was due, but it was, they were tough jobs. And it was just abuse and abuse. But I became so used to it. There was just became normality at the time. So, yeah. To hear that your place is very different is...

What, what, what's devastating about your story just then is not that you got abused. That's shitty. But that you left. You know what I mean? Like that you left. And and I'm not sure if it was because of the abuse you copped.

The hours are tough. The hours are tough. You really, for me, you really have to love it. Yeah. Unfortunately, the hours, the abuse, whatever, a part of hospitality you don't enjoy is the reason why a lot of great people like yourself leave though. You know, and I and I suppose part of the change that we want to be a part of and we are a part of at Attica is wanting to kind of resolve that. Because those hours, if you, you know, if it was just because you're working from, you know, 5:00 till midnight and that's when all your friends are socializing, there's sometimes not a lot that can be done about that in hospitality. But setting people up so that they with, for example, all of our employees are on a **four-day week**.

Yeah, yeah. And that has been our, that's been now for seven years.

Attica is a super Melbourne thing. You know, it feels like this is sort of actually, it feels like this is the only city that this could exist in the world.

I don't think so. Now we have a lot of customers from Sydney, but it's tough in Sydney for restaurants. You know, it's maybe a more fashionable market. Um, in Melbourne, the beauty of the Melbourne dining scene is that the customers support restaurants for decades. And when I was thinking about, you know, where I could live and what I could do, I looked at, you know, great restaurants that have been around for way longer than Attica. Restaurants like Flower Drum, yeah, you know, have been around since the '70s. And also Florentino, another great restaurant. I've been around since the '70s. I'm like, that's cool because customers keep coming back to them every six months, every year. Um, and and that's a sort of, I want to be a part of a community where where where, um, age is something that's positive rather than just all newness. You know, for me, that was really like crucial that that, and because what that says to me is that that that's a really sophisticated dining city. You know, that new things can come in and the hot new things can come in. And that's that's cool as well. Um, because you always, you know, if if you have, if you're in a thriving industry, there's always opportunities for people coming up through the ranks. You know, that they're getting their shot. But at the same time, if you live in a, you know, in a really positive restaurant city, it should also be able to accommodate restaurants that are historical, you know, um, and that's what's so great about Melbourne.

I think it's the people. You know, like I like to work closely with the team. You know, that's we have a close relationship. And and that keeps the quality super high. Like we, Uber focused on quality. You know, Uber multiple times.

It's another level. Thank you. Well, if I opened another business, I'd have to imagine that I would be at Attica 50% less.

Yeah. And I'm not sure that that definitely wouldn't have a 50% drop off in quality. It could have a 10% or 15%. I'm not sure. Like I'm not saying that I'm the number one driver of quality because a team very much are. But I'm there with Kylie. Both of us are there frequently, um, to motivate to...

Well, yeah. I mean, I think, um, I think, you know, we're, we're there to mentor and support the team and help them execute this vision together. You know, um, and I guess probably from me, whilst I, I very much doubt that Attica will be the only business that I ever do, maybe if I was going to do another business, it wouldn't be a restaurant.

It's pretty good. Um, I get, I, I'd say I get seven hours.

If no, well, I, I, this for the bigger part of my life, it was four hours, five hours, three hours for a huge part of my life. But I realized that was probably going to kill me. So, um, and I wasn't a super fun person to be around.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to work 100 hours. You know, like it's actually hard to actually just there's only so many hours. You know, you break it down, seven days a week, what's that? 13, 14 hours a day.

For one, it's not sustainable. And I did it for a really long time. And I fell into a deep depression through it. And and so I know never to go back there. So I'm still prepared to work long hours because it's my company. And it's what I enjoy. And and there's a lot of different parts to it now too. And we run a separate business called the Venture Initiative, which is, you know, really about brand ambassadorships and communications and doing other stuff. I guess, you know, creating stuff for people. Um, and I and I like that work too. But, um, yeah, I had to get more sleep. And that's just a fact. You know, I, I thought I was one of those 1% of people that can survive on four hours.

I thought I, I thought I was. But I, I realized that the statistics would say that I'm absolutely not.

No, no, I'm not that good a sleeper. But I generally can, I probably sleep through half the time, I'll wake up in the middle of the night. But I, but I'll go yeah, and go and go back to sleep. Um, so I'd say I, you know, I've been practicing sleeping better, I would say in the last three or four years.

I don't do any of that. I don't do any. I don't do any supplements. I don't do any meditation. And I'm like not very chill person. So I'm, I'm not sure that, um,

I'm not sure. Maybe. Um, but I, and in terms of, um, lifestyle. I mean, my lifestyle has varied a fair bit. Like through time, often when you're working incredibly long hours like I was, you, you're eating absolute rubbish.

Not great. You know, not great. But but also, you know, masking eating bad was the fact that I was on my feet for probably 95% of those 100 hours. So you're, you're basically exercising doing the hours.

Yep. Yeah. But in recent months, I've had a real, real. And I've had sort of like, you know, my weight has fluctuated throughout my life a little. Like I've been overweight several times. I am, yeah. And I'm as lean as I've been since I was in my 20s right now.

Really?

How'd you lose 12 kilos? Uh, just by going through a calorie deficit. What's the saying? Eat more. Uh, eat less. Do more.

It is. It is sustainable. I mean, I don't need to lose more weight. I'm pretty happy with the weight that I'm at. But I, and I put the weight on when I was writing a book, which took two years. And that, that masterpiece.

Um, and and so that time had to come from somewhere. So I wrote the book from 5:30 a.m. till 9:30, seven days a week for a year without day off. And then went to work after that.

And so I kind of gained weight because I was just in survival mode a little bit. Snacking. Yep. Um, and then, you know, I, I always knew that I had to return to kind of like a healthier weight and exercise. And I just put it off. And I put it off. And I put it off. And I think it was two months out from the book being released, I was like, you got to do something. And and literally it's nothing really for me. It's nothing about, um, looking good. It's, it's actually just about feeling good in my mind. You know. And I can be vicious on myself internally. So so it's felt good to kind of eat minimally and eat well. Like really well. Eat a lot of vegetables. Um, were you fasting? So were you doing...

No, I don't fast. I just, you know, I just I know what my, I know I, I knew what my daily daily calories should be to lose weight. And I, you know, and I'm not, I'm, you know, nobody listen thinks this is a good idea. But this is just what I did. You know, and I'd serve to cut it, you know, that's it. Okay.

No drink, no sugar, no alcohol. Very little gluten. Next to no bread. Um, and this time for the first time, I ate more protein. Um, and yeah. I guess it kind of was. Yeah, without any thought process about what it was. Just I know an egg is 70 calories. I know that I can eat two or three of those and be fine. I eat a lot of vegetables. I'll eat some chicken. You know, drink a lot of water. You know, like, um, I watch my dairy intake. I won't really eat cheese. Um, this is through that time. I'm starting to relax it a little bit now. But probably the easiest way to say is that if I have like, I like, you know, my wife loves to eating restaurants. Um, and so do I. Maybe not to extent that she does. But she, but so restaurants are certainly always going to be a part of our lives. But I won't go and have a big meal somewhere. And then double down the next day with a big meal. No way. You know, I will eat minimally and cleanly and raw vegetables. And and it's very surprising for a chef.

But it I think, you know, I'm, I'm aware that one of the things that affects performance and my performances is my physical state. And and because that affects my mental state. And therefore to actually have have a clear mind and to have a happy sort of sense of self and to create anything properly, you know, it's better if I can, if I can be living a healthy lifestyle.

It's not as much fun. Um, and I mean, it's funny what I look forward. Like but when you can have everything, nothing is as good. Yeah. You know, um, and like it's funny, like I'm thinking about I have this very kind of bizarre breakfast routine, which is essentially like I have a very beautiful ceramic coated nonstick pan. Not a Teflon one. That's it. It's like a beautiful pan forever. It's forever pan. Um, and I'll take it. And I...

They do need a forever pan. This is a life-changing pan. Um, and I, I spray just just a tiny, tiny little bit of olive oil in that pan. Like I'm talking minimal. And I crack really great egg into that pan. I fry it on both sides.

And then I have that on a small piece of rye bread.

Crack of salt and pepper. Should say cut on the side. And you're done.

It's, it, when you I don't know, food has been more enjoyable actually. You know, because when I've had something, I think when you know, the the overstimulation is a big thing for chefs. You know, pallet overstimulation. Like we get to eat anything we want. Um, and so then everything can become boring. And also, if you don't watch that, then you can kind of go too far and kind of overseason. So it's good to have these period of sort of pulling back from... I mean, you, you know, being in a kitchen can be so excessive. You know, food-wise.

Yep.

Probably in winter, snowboarding is a really big snowboarder. Really big fan of snowboarding. Um, I come, you know, I've got this kind of rotating cast of hobbies. I'd say there's probably 10 things. And at any one time in my life, across five-year period, it'd be a different thing that I'm doing.

I go to the gym. I see a personal trainer once a week. And I should be going a couple of more times myself. Um, but that's more of a, I really love this guy's name is Al. He's the absolute best. And and and that's almost like a social catch-up now. I mean, he works me. We work in the whole time.

We yak about life. Sometimes my one of my daughters comes. Um,

Well, the old Blue Zone mentality. People in the Blue Zones don't go to the gym. They, they move. They might, um, uh, look the garden they walk up a hill. They move. Okay. And that's why they're living well beyond 100 years of age. Right? And that's exactly what you're doing. You're just, you're moving and your diet's on point.

I mean, I've described that toast and egg. That's like, that's right up there. I mean, I my mind immediately goes to, goes to lasagna. But that's not something that I can eat and expect to be around for a long time. So it's not going to be that. Um, I think like there's two things. There's some, I like to make some kind of what I would call a **compound salad**, which is like a bunch of stuff in the fridge. So let's take a head of broccoli. I'll chop it up, roughly blanch it in boiling soda water, um, drain it. Yeah. Take something else. Like half a bunch of spring onions, maybe a can of cannellini beans. Um, maybe something else. Like this is about making something quick and easy but super healthy. Maybe some pre-prepared kimchi. Um, maybe a grated carrot. Bit of everything in there. Bit of lemon. Yeah. Like, like a, like a chopped salad or almost like a salsa that I would mix. Um, I would tend to put ingredients in it that can hold up so I could have it the next day as well. If I put tomatoes in it, for example, it's going to, it's going to die.

Yeah, you could put chicken in it for sure. Like poached chicken breast or something like that. Or grilled chicken. Um, so that would be kind of one thing that that I know that is really good for me and that is delicious. Um, small amount of olive oil, a little bit of salt and pepper. Some sort of dressing but a healthy dressing. And don't ever use like in my, I don't use mayonnaise. I, I use, I substitute mayonnaise with yogurt. With natural yogurt if I'm going to use that. Um, so that would be one thing. And then the other thing that I think is just super useful and delicious to have. It's just a bunch of **boiled eggs** in your fridge.

Me too. Yeah, yeah. So if I'm hungry, boil. I think. And I've got a B like rather than kind of going to the pantry and going for something that, you know, when we get really hungry, like if you're working out in in the backyard or going for, you know, sport. And you come back and you're starving because whatever the timing with your meal is a little bit off. So you've got a real craving just to eat anything. And rather than grabbing, I don't know, like a bowl of cereal or something that's processed, I if I've got a hardboiled egg, then I'm going to go to that egg.

Yes. 'Cause they're so obviously so good for you. They are. And they fill me. But also there's a whole heap of things you can do with a boiled egg. You know, you can peel it, slice it. I like to put a little salt and pepper and a little hot sauce. Frank's RedHot Sauce, which is available everywhere, which is super vinegar and delicious. So, um, and then then they're just good to have. If you want to make a meal from them too. You know. So, um, so I'd suggest that that would probably be those are two things that I'd always have around.

Yep.

Yes.

Well, firstly, writing a book is, you know, in most contexts, is not about the author wanting to make money. So there's there's got to be...

No.

There's got to be something that you want to share or a story you want to tell. And for me, um, you know, I think for me, the solution to most problems is creativity. You know, and I think the use of creativity to solve problems is kind of the central theme of the book. Another angle of the book is that I'm from a a family of storytellers. And sharing stories. And sharing a journey around a table or around a fire was the way that my back-country family dealt with the issues of the day. You know, how they brought them out into the light. How they made fun of them. There's a lot of hardship in farming where I, where I came from.

Uh, like a sheep and cattle farm. Yeah. So that's a kind of a central...

Absolutely. You know, that's how you learn to fix things and how do you learn to survive, to be a good human being.

You got to get along with your neighbors. You know.

Um, and so, so that, that, that's kind of, you know, the book is also, um, very much about having fun. And the joy of life. Um, and and if there's one thing that I would have liked that I that I hope that I've done is to impart a little wisdom on people who read it. And just go, "You know what? I really think there's a, there's a, there's a problem, there's a solution for every problem." And and so whilst, you know, I, I'm critical in the book at times. Um, I would never, I'll never have a weed. And then not leave the reader with a solution.

That's, **you should never give up**. You know, that that you can keep coming back and keep coming back. And there's always kind of a way through. You know, and if you leave with empathy and kindness, um, you'll always have friends as well. And that's one of the greatest things in life.

So, I mean, I think, you know, we were talking about, we were talking about **Flower Drum** earlier. So I'm going to...

It is. I mean, the cooking is so amazing. Yeah. Um, and the continuity, the continuity of their service and its elegance is really great. They're a great role model for restaurants like mine.

People who grew up there, you know, I've met people that have gone up there. Um, the Flower Drum is, is a great place. I love any restaurant by **Andrew McConnell**. You know, from from Gimlet to, um, Supernormal, um, to Cumulus. His restaurants are always fantastic. Um, I and then there's lower-key places as well that I really like. I think **Andrew's Hamburgers** in Albert Park is the best hamburger in the world.

And it's an ultra Australian hamburger. They've been going since the 1950s.

Man, like it's, it's a high calorie thing. But it's like, "No, I'm going to go smash one." It's in. Here's my recommendation to you. Go get Andrew's hamburger. Walk, uh, 200 meters to this, there's a park just around the corner. Sit if you're feeling like a special treat to sit in the park with that hamburger and a glass of champagne is pretty amazing thing.

Um, **Calamata Souvlaki** out in in Oakleigh does the best souvlaki in Australia. Hands down.

It's really amazing. And they do a pork souvlaki, which is particularly good. Um, they were wonderful people. So I'm always happy to be recommending them. Um, goodness me. There's so many things. You know what? I'm going to give you a little sleeper tip here. Um, as well. There's a place in, um, in Clayton called **For Heaven's Steaks**.

Yeah. And that is the steak sandwich that's worth driving however long it takes to get to, um, that neighborhood. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a real treat. Uh, like love spot. Um, but it, it, they go there for a reason. It's amazing steak sandwich.

I really like **Grossi Florentino** in Bourke Street. Now that's not going to surprise anybody. It is an institution. But let me tell you why it's so great. Um, first of all, it's maintained its standards for a ridiculously long period of time. They care about where they buy their food from. It's got the best wines by the glass in Melbourne in my opinion. It's also got an incredible cellar. But you can go there and just have a great glass of wine and that's not necessarily super common. Um, they import a lot of wine from France. But the number one, my number one thing that I love about Florentino is that I love to go there, you know, and hopefully I'm there at about 9:30, 10:00 and just see the cross-section of the Melbourne community there. You know, you see really wealthy people who are in this 80s coming in for dinner at 10:00 p.m. You know, you see young couples out in dates. And you see people that maybe do illegal business for their, um, for their income. I'm not sure, you know. But mismatch of people. And it's beautiful. You know, um, and I, you know, I've had some outrageously good times there.

Yeah. Great, mate. That was great.

Thanks for having me.