John Torode's Australia

The Sydney-born host of MasterChef started in the kitchens of Melbourne, moving to the UK in the Nineties, where his honest approach to food led to work with Terence Conran and made him a household name

Words by Alex Mead

This article was taken from the Christmas 2024 issue of Food and Travel. To subscribe today, click here.

Twice a week the baker's van would pull up on to Nana's driveway, where the three Torode brothers would wait for the back doors to open, sending the scent of freshly baked bread and pies in their direction. ‘That’s one of my oldest memories,’ says John Torode.

Nana’s cooking was John’s inspiration. Born in Sydney, his family moved to Melbourne when he was three. ‘I remember a bit of that, because when I was four, my mother died and we moved up with Nana to Maitland, which is north of Sydney,’ he says.

With his father staying in Melbourne to manage the family orange juice business, his grandmother was all- important. ‘I used to sit next to her and watch her cook,’ says John. ‘I suppose because I was looking for something matriarchal, I sort of stayed around her apron strings.

‘There was a mulberry tree at the back of our house,’ he continues. ‘I remember my brothers having a fight with these mulberries and Nana being furious. She had peaches in the back garden, passion fruits, banana trees and a combustion stove, which meant we had to light the fire to actually use the stove. But the food was always good, home-cooked and delicious.’

Roast chicken, grilled lamb chops and mashed potato were favourites. ‘Her mashed potato was amazing,’ he enthuses. ‘I still make mashed potato the way she did.’

Which is how? ‘Let the boiled potatoes dry a little bit in the pot on the side of the stove with a tea towel across the top of them, then mash them with a fork – never a masher. Put a hollow in the middle of the pan with a little bit of milk and some butter and white pepper and salt, and beat the whole thing together. Every so often, she’d put an onion in while she was boiling the potato as well. She was a brilliant family cook.’

At the age of ten, the family moved back to Victoria. ‘We ended up living on the beach in a place called Edithvale. Out the back gate – and there was the beach.’

As is the case today, Australia’s greatest asset was its diversity. ‘When I was 16 or 17, I started cooking and going to Prahran market and realising the incredible influence of the Greeks, the Italians, the Turkish, the Lebanese, and the food at our disposal. There was a policy in Australia about not importing food, so they had to find a way of growing and making everything they needed to cook, and we got amazing olive oil and mozzarella, the most beautiful Italian-style ricotta, all made in Australia.

‘The Chinese food in Australia was unbelievable,’ he continues. ‘Yum cha on a Sunday morning in Melbourne was, and still is, renowned, always packed.’

After Melbourne, John moved back to the east coast, eventually returning to Sydney, where he worked in catering for sporting events before moving to England in 1990. Initially, he followed a similar path in corporate cooking until Australia came calling. ‘I got a job on Sydney Street in Chelsea; it was Australian style,’ he says. ‘Properly cooked food, changing menus – that’s where I first met Gregg [Wallace], in 1992 – when I was out the back of this restaurant washing the vegetables.’

Through a chance meeting with Terence Conran, John moved on to Le Pont de La Tour, Quaglino’s and then became head chef at Mezzo. He went on to open Smiths of Smithfield with partners and a rising profile saw him reach TV, first with This Morning and then MasterChef in 2005.

He still returns to Australia every year, to do the ‘relo [relative] run’, seeing his dad and one brother in Sydney and the other in Morpeth (near Maitland). ‘It’s really important for me that I stay connected to Australia,’ he says. ‘I love going to a great café, where you could be sitting next to a billionaire, because food brings people together. A cup of coffee and a piece of cake is appreciated by anybody and everybody.

‘As I left, there was a lot of influence coming from Vietnam, Korea and China. And it’s still got this access to great produce. Because Australia is so vast, you can grow tropical fruit at the top and you can get Atlantic-style salmon down at the bottom; you can get oysters from Sydney, wasabi grown in Tasmania and incredible tuna from South Australia. You’ve got this extraordinary world of olive groves and vineyards and tropical fruits, which means every culture can grow its own produce.

‘I suppose the big thing now is a lot more people are proudly Australian,’ he adds. ‘You can look at guys like Matt Moran in Sydney, who has really developed his own style. Then there’s Neil Perry, with Margaret in Sydney – I can’t believe the guy’s still opening restaurants in his 60s.’

And of course, coffee is king. ‘You can always get a great cup of coffee. Coffee’s considered so important now in Australia, and I love the fact that means the chains have been booted out.’

His advice for travellers is to go west. ‘Fly into Perth, where the time difference is not quite so great, go down to Fremantle, maybe down to Margaret River. There are great places there – one is The White Elephant Cafe and another is Margaret River Bakery. And at Busselton there’s a great micro brewery.

‘Then go across to the east coast,’ he continues, ‘or drop into somewhere like Adelaide on the way through. Don’t just go to Sydney and think, “That’s Australia.”

‘Go for a drive, and I don’t mean an hour’s drive, I mean a drive! As a kid, when my dad was down in Melbourne still, we would drive 14 hours down there for our summer holidays and then drive back again.

‘Go into Melbourne centre and walk the streets, pop your head into a restaurant. If it looks good, give it a go, because more times than not, it’s going to be good.’

He reels off more places. ‘Manly is one of my favourite places in the world – get out of Sydney, jump on a ferry, wander along the beach. There’s a place called Hemingway’s on the strip, a tiny place doing some great French food. Down the back, there’s a really good old pie shop; there are cafés, a really lovely Italian place, wine shops.

‘Go to Morpeth and get a pie,’ he adds, without taking breath. ‘When you get to a town, see where the guys in high vis are going, because they know where to go for a good pie.’

At the other end of the scale, he gives a nod to Josh Niland, the chef behind Saint Peter in Sydney. ‘He’s a man who treats fish in a completely different way,’ says John. ’He’s making sausages out of their intestines, using bones to make noodles. The way he thinks about fish is holistic.’

That John’s passion for Australia remains as strong as ever is understandable since its food, its mindset, have been the making of him. ‘The chefs are ground-breaking and I think that’s partly because they’re not under the influence of those guides [Michelin isn’t in Australia], so there’s freedom to be experimental and do whatever you like.

‘In Australia,’ the chef concludes, ‘I grew up thinking I could do whatever I wanted. I could conquer the world if I wanted to.’

John’s new book, John and Lisa’s Kitchen (Quadrille, £25), is out now.

JOHN TORODE'S HOTSPOTS

CHIN CHIN SYDNEY
Ben Cooper has a Chin Chin in Melbourne and in Sydney, and what he’s done there with Asian food is just
great fun. Good cocktails, good music, a good night. chinchin.sydney

KITCHEN BY MIKE, SYDNEY
Mike [McEnearney] has a very egalitarian restaurant in Sydney, but he’s also the creative director of the Carriageworks, a farmer’s market near Newtown, which is really, really cool. kitchenbymike.com.au

MARGARET RIVER BAKERY, MARGARET RIVER
In the middle of absolutely nowhere, always packed. If you like a good sandwich and a great coffee, it’s perfect. margsbakery.com

THE SEBEL SYDNEY MANLY BEACH, SYNDEY
Not a posh hotel in any way, but you get a balcony that overlooks Manly Beach, and you get up in the morning and there’s the sun coming up and there are pine trees in front of you, the sound of the sea. Fantastic. all.accor.com

FERMENTASIAN, TANUNDA
This Vietnamese in the Barossa Valley has a massive Australian wine list. Only Australian produce is used but with all these Vietnamese flavours; the owner grows the herbs and her mum and dad work in the kitchen. fermentasian.com.au