The owners of one of the Sunshine Coast’s most celebrated restaurants have revealed how Australia’s newly crowned Chef of the Year triumphed after taking on his first head chef position at a young age.
And he still finds time to inspire, create and demonstrate his passion for cooking.
Yandina’s Spirit House head chef Tom Hitchcock this week was announced as the winner of the Foodservice Australia 2023 Chef of the Year – considered the most prestigious chef competition in the nation.
The contest is open to any professional chef working in a café, restaurant or commercial kitchen.
It pits chef against chef and the clock in a test of creativity, culinary knowledge and ingenuity.
Australia’s hottest chefs battled it out at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from April 30 to May 2 for the title.
The entrants were whittled down to a chosen 32 finalists, who then had one hour to prepare two dishes from a mystery box of ingredients. Respected industry judges, including Hotel Sorrento culinary director George Calombaris and ALH Hotels group executive chef Gary Johnson, scored the final dishes.
As well as the title, Hitchcock takes home $10,000 cash and valuable prizes from major sponsors.
Spirit House made the announcement to its customers and supporters on its Facebook page on May 2.
“We are a bit emotional writing this right now because we have all seen the immense passion and love that Tom has for his craft and this accolade vindicates all those years in various kitchens working under other famous names, trying new ideas, pushing the boundaries and finally the spotlight now shines on Tom Hitchcock and his enormous talent,” the post read.
“We couldn’t be more proud of him and can only guess to how much pride his parents and daughters must feel for him right now.
“Tom, we have said it before, you are a true artist and all your hard work has earned you this and you deserve it. All your Spirit House family are so proud of you!”
SUBSCRIBE here now for our FREE news feed, direct to your inbox daily.
Spirit House owners and staff were eagerly awaiting his return late yesterday from Melbourne to offer their congratulations in person.
Acland Brierty, who owns the restaurant his parents Peter and Helen started in 1995 with his brother Blake, said Hitchcock was able to withstand steep competition from “super-talented chefs from some serious restaurants”.
He praised the award for recognising talented individual chefs.
“There’s heaps of talented chefs out there but they’re hidden behind the restaurant name or they’re hidden behind another head chef’s name,” he told Sunshine Coast News.
“The restaurant either gets the glory or the head chef is the star and yet you’ve got these guys slaving away in the background, wanting to make a mark.
“That’s what I love about this award: it puts the spotlight exactly where it needs to be – not on Spirit House but on Tom Hitchcock.”
Brierty said Spirit House had given Hitchcock his first role as head chef just over six months ago, although he previously had worked for the restaurant a few years earlier as sous chef.
Hitchcock’s passion and drive to create made any risk in hiring him worth taking.
“As a normal chef, you come in, you cook and you go home. For any head chef, it’s one thing after another,” Brierty said.
“You’re not necessarily doing what you love, which is standing in the kitchen and cooking. You’re dealing with suppliers, or equipment has gone wrong and you’re chasing up a repairman.
“We reached out and asked him if he’d be keen to come back and take the role as head chef and obviously it’s paid off.
“We had some naysayers as well when we employed Tom because he had never been a head chef and he was a young guy.
“Sometimes you can see the talent and the best thing you can do is grab that talent, put it somewhere and then just hang on and see where it all goes.
“It would have been easy for us to have advertised and got some well-seasoned chef.
“People always say: ‘Follow your dream, follow your talent’ and businesses have got to also take that risk sometimes.
“The risk with Tom was never with his cooking, never with the creativity.
“It was ‘how would he respond now, taking on all the reality of managing a kitchen and answering to owners, compared to dreaming out loud with ingredients and creating dishes?’.
“He’s got two young kids and there’s the balance of that, too.
“At the end of the day, this is a multimillion-dollar business with a huge reputation. But Tom was born a head chef and he’s knocked it out of the park.”
Brierty likened chefs to artists – all brave enough to put their creativity on show and take any criticism dished out.
“Someone like Tom working in a restaurant like (this), it really is art on a plate,” he said.
“You’re putting your craft and your creativity out there on show and you’re putting it out to be judged.
“Tom really cares about the craft. He wants to take Thai food to a different level. He wants to show technique.
“We want to stand out and be different and lead the way and be seen, too.
“For every complaint, we get about a dish being too spicy, we get another complaint about the dish being not spicy enough. You start to question who you listen to.
“The reality is, it takes a lot of courage, really, to say: ‘It is what it is, this is me and this is what I’m doing and I stand behind it’.”
Brierty said Spirit House was lucky to have Hitchcock and “an amazing team around him”.
“They believe in him and the food and he believes in them as well. He would be first to admit that it really is those guys that help keep the passion there and inspire him,” he said.
“The kitchen are all incredibly excited for him and it’s great inspiration to them.
“I’m hoping that more of these guys will also now want to compete. It’s not about the winning, it’s about ‘come on, create and put it out there and see how you go and have a shot’.
“For a lot of chefs who come to the Spirit House, it is a stepping stone to bigger and better things and, one day, Tom will have his own restaurant and it will be amazing.
“He will be doing his food and his name will be on the door and that is really is our ultimate goal for Tom.”
In the meantime, though, Brierty understands that Hitchcock’s win will be a game changer – but not in the way you might think.
“When he comes in with a dish and I say, ‘Does it really need this pickled lime burnt zest powder stuff on it?’, he gets to say, ‘Hey, mate, you’re talking to Australian Chef of the Year. If I say it’s on the plate, it’s on the plate’.
“It gives him a lot of whipping power now over the owners.”
Local journalists supporting local people. Help keep independent and fair Sunshine Coast news coming by subscribing to our FREE daily news feed. All it requires is your name and email at the bottom of this article.
