Food

MEETING WITH GUILLAUME BRAHIMI

Australia's favourite French chef shares his joy for cooking, markets, and more.

When Guillaume Brahimi told his mentor and boss, the late Joël Robuchon that he was leaving his employ for Australia, Robuchon’s response was: “Australia? I’ve never heard of this restaurant.” 

His departure must have surprised not only  Robuchon but Brahimi’s fellow chefs, for whom working at the legendary three-Michelin-starred restaurant was a career pinnacle. 

“There were 25 chefs to serve 40 guests and it was always booked out six months in advance,” Brahimi says of the renowned Jamin, in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. “It was fulfilling and I learned so much, but it was also very hard. There was so much pressure. You were taught with such rigour, with discipline and respect for the produce. We did no preparation, each day was started with an empty fridge.” 

Still, choosing to leave France for Australia was a surprising move for a chef of his ambition already ensconced in one of the best restaurants in the world. So, what was behind the decision? 

“I haven’t got the answer yet,” laughs Brahimi, who has now called Australia home for more than three decades. “I do impulsive things like that sometimes. Originally, I came just for a holiday. My parents have some friends here, and they said, ‘Come,’ so I came. Just imagine it’s summer in Sydney. I’m 23, going to Bondi Beach and I’m like… ‘My god, this is pretty good.’ And you know, I didn’t expect to stay, but I did.” 

Brahimi says he was eager to establish himself in a country only just finding its culinary feet. 
“Australia was very young at this stage of cooking but it was also a great opportunity because you could make changes quite easily. I had something to prove. And because I was lucky to be in charge very quickly of a kitchen, I could put my own mark with my ideas and what I had learned.” 

BRAHIMI'S EARLY DAYS IN AUSTRALIA

Within just three months, Pond in King’s Cross, where he was head chef, had received two chefs’ hats. Brahimi was then lured by Leon Fink to Bilsons, which was renamed Quay. The 1990s were a time of freewheeling experimentation for Australian chefs (not always successfully), but Brahimi, a self-confessed perfectionist, credits his acclaim to hewing to what he knew best.

“I was sticking with my classic heritage. I was not trying to do anything else than French cooking but to showcase the produce of Australia and cook with all the techniques I learned in France,” he says.

It was a perspective that resonated both with critics, who awarded Quay a coveted three hats, and the Australian dining public, to whom French cuisine was inherently valued over any other. But the French attitude to food is more than just haute restaurant cuisine or technique, Brahimi says.

“One thing the French do very well is shop for food. The grower’s market forces you to buy seasonal produce because that’s all that’s available. And because we don’t have huge fridges and cool rooms or big kitchens in houses or apartments in France, you shop often. My grandmother would buy bread every day, for breakfast, for lunch and to have with dinner.”

He recounts his grandmother’s disbelief on hearing of the existence of sliced packaged bread. “When I first came to Australia, I was on the phone with my grandmother, and she said ‘Tell me something that is different about Australia.’ And I told her, ‘In Australia they’ve got bread that is in a square, sliced. In a plastic bag with a use-by date.’” And she hung up and rang my mum and told her, “I am very concerned about Guillaume.” So why do French people seem so self-satisfied – what is it exactly that inspires the famous joie de vivre?

FRENCH PEOPLE LIVE IN THE MOMENT.

“French people live in the moment. They enjoy a slower pace of life. They rush less than we do. And it is a pretty amazing country. I think the French people are very happy to live in France and not travel too much. But again, you can’t talk of happiness without mentioning food, it is such a big part of the French people’s lives. In France at breakfast, you talk about what you had for dinner the night before. And at lunch, you’re talking about what you are going to have for dinner. I had never had a sandwich for lunch before I came to Australia,” Brahimi laughs.

Despite its reputation and the many celebrated restaurants, Brahimi concedes his home city can be disappointing for travellers expecting every meal to be en pointe. “Paris can be very average if you don’t know where to go. Because of the cost of cooking, and the wages being so high in France, some restaurants outsource everything, from the jus, to the pastry. But there’s also some jewels, and I’m not talking about three-star Michelin restaurants, but the corner bistro, the boulangerie who are using whole flour old school great artisans who respect their work.”

So, how should visitors sort the wheat from the chaff to guarantee a good meal in Paris? “A menu in English at the front of a restaurant is normally not a good sign, so just walk away. It’s the same in cities all over the world. You need to get away from the tourist sites. Another tip is to look at who’s in the restaurant, look who’s on the terrace. If you see some very cranky Parisian, that must be a good place. And look, you might not get it right all the time, but now there are enough guides and social media to be able to do your homework.”

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While he has produced his own SBS series on eating out and the history of restaurants and culinary artisans in Paris, Brahimi encourages food-loving tourists to venture further. “There is good food everywhere in France,” he says. He nominates the cities of Lyon, the birthplace of the globally influential chef Paul Bocuse; Bordeaux, where he is leading a food tour in June this year, and the Basque region (where he’s also taking a food group) as being among his favourite French food destinations. He has a special fondness too for the Atlantic Coast and Brittany, where his grandmother came from.

“The produce is outstanding. It has the best seafood in Europe. My perfect day would be spent there going to market, buying some live scallops, some live oysters, some Brittany lobster and a turbot and cooking for friends and drinking some great Burgundy.”

While he appreciates eating out, Brahimi says he would choose cooking at home to dining in Michelin-starred restaurants and cites cooking for friends and family as his greatest joy. “I feel like it’s a selfish thing to do because it makes me so happy making people happy. Hosting a lunch with friends is one of the best things in the world. Picking the wine, what we’re going to do, what cocktail we’re going to make. Sharing it with the people I love the most.”

And his favourite thing to cook? “Tarte tatin. I am good at it, and I love making it because everybody loves it so much. Whenever I ask the question of what we should have for dessert, it is always ‘tarte tatin!’” (He recommends Pink Lady as the perfect tarte tatin apple.) The other dish he cooks on repeat, is surprisingly, a simple roast chicken.

WILL AUSTRALIA EVER APPEAR IN THE MICHELIN GUIDE?

While he’s moved on from the more formal style of his former restaurants, specifically Guillaume at Bennelong at Sydney Opera House, Brahimi says that his actual cooking hasn’t changed much over the years. “I still use a lot of butter,” he laughs. “I would not be French otherwise, but I have tried to lighten things up, for example using a carrot purée in my boeuf Bourguignon instead of cornflour.”

While his former restaurants have received the highest accolades possible in Australia, what does he think about the Michelin Guide, first published in France in 1911 and now covering more than 25 countries, consistently snubbing his adopted country? 

“I think it will come and I think the way it will come is that we will be part of the Singapore guide. At the end of the Singapore guide, there will be a few pages about Sydney and Melbourne because we do have half a dozen restaurants that could push for two Michelin stars. I think we will not start in the guide with a three-star, but I think we will have a two-star. And after that, when the guide is established here, I think some of the restaurants will aim for a three star. I think Quay definitely. Alexander Pavoni, what he is doing at Ormeggio is unbelievable, and I think Encore at Crown is between two and three-star Michelin.” 

He laughs when asked if he thinks his own restaurants, Bistro Guillaume in Melbourne and Perth would make the cut. “No, it’s a different thing. It’s bistronomy. Somewhere you go all the time. Somewhere you can come and sit at the bar with a bowl of onion soup. We give people good food and make them happy. And I think when you decide to go for the Michelin star, it’s a different ball game. As special, but different.” 

However, he doesn’t discount opening a Michelin contender in the future. “You never know. I just need to find the right spot. Location is everything. But it’s a lot when you start chasing the stars. But I would never say a definite no.” 

As to the man himself, what has changed in him throughout a career that started at the tender age of 14? “I used to be a perfectionist. And that is a terrible thing,” he says. “Now I am wiser and more mature and realise that maybe perfection is impossible to reach and when you focus on perfection, you only see what’s not working, but when you focus on excellence, that pushes you to do something achievable. So now I’m trying to pursue excellence. That’s what makes me happy.”