Peter Gordon

Peter Gordon is perhaps New Zealand’s most internationally recognised chef. Born in Wanganui Peter started collecting recipes from the age of four and began cooking not long after. After completing a chef’s apprenticeship in Melbourne in 1985 he travelled throughout South East Asia, India and Nepal for a year before setting up the kitchen at The Sugar Club in Wellington in 1986. Peter moved to London in 1989 and worked at various restaurants until he established his name as executive chef at Mayfair’s Green Street Restaurant then at the Notting Hill and Soho branches of The Sugar Club. Peter opened his current restaurant The Providores and Tapa Room with his partners in August 2001.

www.peter-gordon.net
www.theprovidores.co.uk

Slice of Life 2007

By Peter Gordon - June 2007

In 45 minutes a cab will come and take me to Heathrow, then I’ll be on an Air New Zealand jumbo via Hong Kong heading to Auckland. I create the food served on all Air NZ flights out of London so it’s always great to check it out. Needless to say I’d better type quickly.

Every 3 months or so I head out to Auckland to oversee the new seasonal menu at dine by Peter Gordon, and at Bellota restaurants, both located within the SKYCITY complex in central Auckland. The former is a fine dining restaurant, and the latter a very authentic, modern Spanish tapas Bar – which incidentally has been nominated for Best Bar Food in the NZ Bar Awards. Of course it would be brilliant to win the category, but to be nominated within six months of opening is great in itself.

Also on this visit I’ll be orchestrating a leukaemia fundraising dinner event called SKYCITY Dining for a Difference which will be held on the 30th June. This dinner is based on the London event I set up, and continue to run, called Who’s Cooking Dinner? – which has raised almost £3 million over 9 dinners. In London we get 20 of the best London based chefs (think Jamie Oliver, Bruce Poole, Philip Howard, Ruth and Rose from The River Café, Sally Clarke, Gordon Ramsay…) in one kitchen and they all cook a four-course dinner for 10 guests. In New Zealand it has a different format, one in which we have one American chef (Govind Armstrong), four Australian chefs (Christine Manfield, Philip Johnson, Justin North and Greg Malouf) as well as great local talent (Mark Gregory, Al Brown, Rex Morgan, Geoff Scott, Peter Thornley, Simon Gault, Phillip Kraal and myself). The chefs will all produce a different menu for 2 tables each, so with 13 chefs in one kitchen, and 260 guests eating their food, it’ll be amazing. Air New Zealand are flying everyone into Auckland which has to be one of the most generous acts of support I can think of.

The key to keeping it exciting is that the table hosts won’t know who’s cooking for them until the night. At that point, the chefs will go up on the stage and draw two table names from a hat, and that’s who they’ll be cooking for. No doubt people will be hoping for their favourite, but the aim of the dinner, apart from raising a lot of much needed money for the NZ Leukaemia and Blood Foundation, is to expose some of the best culinary talent to as wide an audience as possible.

This month’s photo is of the creative force behind The Providores - I thought it would be good to show you what we look like! From left to right it’s Jeremy Leeming, myself, and Michael McGrath. You can check us out, and the restaurant, on www.theprovidores.co.uk

However, the clock is ticking, I haven’t quite finished packing, and I need to send this off.

And by the way, I know I go on a bit about Firstlight Wagyu, but I’ll be serving it to the table that gets drawn for The Providores on June 30th. If you’re coming to the dinner it may be you!

Cheers, Peter