A beginning...

Brendon

For more than 20 years Brendon has cooked in every kind of kitchen and received many accolades along the way. In 2001 attaining 3rd overall in the apprentice of the year completion at the Restaurant and Caterers awards held in Sydney.

From a humble little Italian trattoria to some of the countries most acclaimed.
Berardo’s in Noosa, The Observatory Hotel in Sydney, Songbirds Rainforest Retreat, Bacchus restaurant in Newcastle, Rae’s on Wategos, Peppers Coorabell Retreat, The Cabarita Ocean Retreat and Spa, also having the honour of working alongside Tetsuya, Charlie Trotter and Rick Stein during his time at the Observatory.

Brendon’s younger years cooking were defined by a small Italian trattoria on the Sunshine Coast, surfing every day and tossing pasta by night. Refining his skills at the heralded restaurants of Noosa’s Hastings street, Brendon moved down to Sydney with a love for food and a zeal to learn. After cooking in Sydney for some time at the acclaimed Observatory Hotel, Brendon left the big smoke to pursue his passion for snowboarding and surfing once again. Taking up a position cooking in New Zealand, traveling the entire country for 2 years, snowboarding and surfing his way from the south to the north. Leaving New Zealand’s shores his career followed a path of coastlines and mountains, Sumatra, the Maldives, South Africa, Mauritius, Reunion Island, Margaret River, Japan, Fiji, Canada and the U.S. Moving back to our sunny shores and taking up helm at Bacchus restaurant in Newcastle, then moving north to be on the beaches of Byron Bay where he spent a lot his youth surfing.

During his personal, and professional career, Brendon has cooked for a celebrity list that includes Tom Cruise, Silver Chair, Penelope Cruz, Russell Crowe, Paris Hilton, Elle Macpherson and Chris Hemsworth. In his time at Newcastle’s Bacchus restaurant as head chef, Brendon was instrumental in helping the venue go on to achieve a chef’s hat from the SMH. Moving north to take up stay’s at Rae’s, then onto Peppers, both establishments soon attained chefs’ hats with AGFG, including write up’s in Ocean Road magazine, Vogue, Lush, also appearing on channel 7’s Creek to Coast, as well as in The Australian Financial Review’s “Life and Leisure” magazine. Since the building of Anise, wedding features in WHITE magazine, HELLO MAY magazine, STYLE ME PRETTY wedding blog, as well as featuring on the SPELL blog, have all followed.

Away from all the cooking Brendon’s biggest loves remain surfing and snowboarding, his two little gremlins, as he affectionally calls them, Arlen and Sophia, and his loving partner Zoe as his number one.