(DYNAMIC THEME MUSIC) Welcome to Dream Catchers, a series about New Zealanders living in the United Kingdom. I'm Hilary Timmins. This is a series that will enthral and inspire us as we meet some of those Kiwis living their dreams and taking a little piece of New Zealand to the rest of the world. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018. Peter Gordon has been a star of the British culinary scene for almost three decades. His fusion food influence has helped transform eating out in London. The Providores, his Marylebone restaurant, has become legendary. Known as the 'Godfather of Fusion' and is well known in New Zealand, as he is here, Peter was one of the first New Zealand chefs to make a name for himself internationally. I think we were the first chef restaurant, that wasn't in a hotel, to begin serving breakfast. You know, like, people just didn't do it or it just wasn't done. Being open all day, a named chef, kind of, didn't do that stuff. They'll do a lunch service, a dinner service; it'll be all terribly formal. So we introduced a New Zealand-Australian style of food and restaurant-ing to Britain. The Providores is a food provider. And we thought, 'Well, let's focus on small plates. 'We'll get a big tapa cloth, we'll shove it on the wall, and we'll define the two spaces.' So downstairs will remain casual and relaxed, and upstairs will be, probably, white table cloths. We made a deliberate decision to, sort of, push the New Zealand agenda in all sorts of ways. I like to think that, you know, the wine is a really obvious thing. But also the work I do with New Zealand Beef and Lamb. You know, my kitchen at home is a Fisher & Paykel. The house ` most of the ceramics here are from New Zealand. Peter grew up in Castlecliff Beach, Whanganui, and his love of food began at an early age. My mum often tells the story that when I was 4 years old, she came in... in to the living room, or somewhere, and I was sitting on the floor with a pair of scissors cutting recipes out of the Women's Weekly and putting them into a scrapbook. So from an early age, I was interested in food. Growing up in a harvesting environment, as a child Peter became a keen cook. Feijoa tree in my garden. That's produced three feijoas in five years. New Zealand native. This is New Zealand. I will make a salad from my new book. It's this salad here, and it's based on... In the book, it's burrata, but I couldn't get that today, so I'm using buffalo mozzarella, and it's with tomatoes and a mango dressing. When I was 7, I was cooking with my father. Went into the kitchen to check on the deep-fat fryer, and I fell off the stool, and I grabbed something, which was the fryer, and tipped it all over my head. So all these burns and skin grafts and stuff from the age of 7. Whoa. And that should have been traumatic, but it never put me off cooking. With a fledging food and wine industry in New Zealand, Peter left for South Australia, initially to study winemaking. And it was in Melbourne, while working as a waiter, he would get his first taste of a commercial kitchen and decide to become a chef. I did a very formal apprenticeship. And at college, it was all about French, English, German food, and I didn't really enjoy it. And I was going out as a young apprentice eating Japanese food and having fresh tofu and eating Moroccan food and Thai food and Vietnamese food. And I was so excited by that food. And so at college, I was quite disruptive. Finishing his four-year apprenticeship, Peter would spend another year travelling through South East Asia and India, before returning to New Zealand to become head chef at Wellington's Sugar Club, where his fusion skills would come into their own. Then with plans for a Sugar Club to open in London, Peter left for the UK and began to carve out a name for himself, initially as head chef at a private member's club in Mayfair. I got my first press for the food, and it was Evening Standard, The Independent and some others, and they all said, 'Wow, there's this style of food we've never seen before, 'and it's amazing, and you should follow it.' So then the Sugar Club site was found. My sister Trace was diagnosed with leukaemia. I went out to Australia. I ended up doing a bone marrow transplant. The transplant was successful. And through his charity event, 'Who's Cooking Dinner?', Peter has since raised almost NZ$15 million for leukaemia. Returning to London, The Sugar Club would open to rave reviews. And in 2001, Peter would set up The Providores, which has become a right of passage for many Kiwis wanting to break into London's competitive food industry ` many of whom have gone on to have their own successful restaurants and careers in Britain. We're very much` I think, like most New Zealanders, I think you'll find because we are so few, but we're often big hitters, we will do what we can to help promote other people. A true collaborator, Peter has also joined forces on a new venture ` Crosstown Doughnuts, supplying more than 100 outlets, from Selfridges to Hollywood movie premieres, with their gourmet, bespoke doughnuts. It's a industry with lots of... lots of opportunity ` like, huge amount of opportunity. And I think, you know, for me, I write; I do TV; I have a weekly column in The Herald; I do books; I cook in restaurants; I consult. Can you taste the feijoa? Ooh, yeah. Mm. Feijoa is so distinctive, though, isn't it? Yeah. Mmm. I like that. All right. (CHUCKLES) She's stolen me doughnuts. Come back. What I find myself doing is trying to be a mentor, either through the business over the years, or just in general, and just saying, you know, 'We're from a little` 'I'm from a little part of a small town in a small country on the other side of the world, 'but look how amazing ` the things you can do.' You know, if you set your mind to it. You can't always achieve it, of course, but, you know, aim high and try and do good. Us Kiwis are tough. Yeah. That's right, yep. They really can fly. (LAUGHTER) Cheers. ALL: Cheers. (GLASSES CLINK) Cheers, everybody. WOMEN: Cheers! (FUNKY ELECTRONIC MUSIC) New Zealander Elaine Ngan is a chef with a twist. As a food stylist, her work is featured in many award-winning British and international ad campaigns. She travels the world working on television commercials for giant consumer brands, such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds and Pizza Hut. She's worked with most of the United Kingdom's top supermarket chains, and on film sets, she's created an 18th-century banquet scene for Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and non-melting ice cream for Willy Wonka. I work abroad a lot. I was in China shooting, uh... KFC I was shooting, and also Pizza Hut. I went back to New Zealand to shoot McDonalds, actually, for a one-day shoot. It is art, I suppose. It's like being a make-up artist to a pizza. Yeah. What I do at work, I don't always think of it as food. I think of it as a product that I'm working on and how you achieve it to make it look yummy. I have to pin the lettuce in. So this lettuce flicks up here and it flicks down there, and the sauce will dribble in a certain way, and the tomato will have a little spritz on it. Because it's completely different angle on food. No one eats it; you just look at it. So it doesn't have to taste of anything, but it has to look amazing. Elaine's family had the local greengrocer store in Bulls, where she grew up. Studying home science at Otago University, she was reluctant to become a dietician or a teacher and decided to travel to the United Kingdom to do a cookery course. So, I was taking any job I could that was to do with food. I worked in a pub as the chef. I worked in all sorts of places ` private chef. I worked up in Scotland, where they had hunting lodges. And then somebody rang my flatmate and asked her if she knew anyone who could cook because they needed an assistant on a film, and she couldn't do it, so I did it. And that was the beginning, really. But on the sort of food that I do, it's for TV commercials, mainly, and it has to be very precise. It has to be repeatable. So if you have something happening like a piece of sauce flowing down the front, it has to be able to do that every time, 50 takes. So you have to be very organised and have a lot of the food ready. It can't deteriorate because, you know, the cameraman or the lighting guy has messed around ` you still have to be able to produce it to look nice. It has to look hot although it's not. It's not exactly cheating, but it's managing the food so it looks at its peak. You've got to be super organised, and you've got to try and... If you can have a lot of prep time, then your day will be much more comfortable. The cheese pull is an art. That is an art form, actually, because you have to know how to deal with the pizza so when you take the slice out, the cheese is all nice and stringy, and the toppings are all lovely and glisteny. If you leave it too long, it's too cold ` it won't happen. If you do it too soon, it's too hot, and it all falls off the pizza. So there is a real timing thing involved in that, and everyone has to be ready. Pull it up. Up. Not out? Up and towards you. No! Slowly, girl. (CHUCKLES) Well, you didn't say slowly! DELIBERATELY: Slowly. Now I have to do another one. Up and (LAUGHS) towards me. Slowly, slowly! In my world, there are quite a few New Zealanders who are food stylists, and I think it's because of the attitude more than anything. The attitude that, 'Sure, we'll give it a go,' or 'We'll think round the problem,' cos there are a lot of problem-solving things. I think that it's very difficult to get into this industry because there is no training for it. Experimentation, talking to other food stylists, reading. And you learn to know what it is that are the characteristics of the food. I was on Willy Wonka for a little while. I had to make non-melting ice creams. You know, the little ripply thing on the ice cream, that's what makes you think it's ice cream. So if I can do that on something fake, you think it's ice cream. When I come home, I still cook dinner. I still cook dinner parties. It matters to me if it's yummy. It's gotta be a Kiwi question, but how do your friends feel when they're asked to bring a plate? (LAUGHS) Well, you know, people don't often ask me out back for dinner, and I hate that. They always say, 'Oh, I'm so scared to cook for you.' Give me fish and chips. I love it. I don't have to cook; it's brilliant. Give me baked beans. Make them look good. Coming up ` two award-winning Kiwi chefs who made a fresh start in the UK's competitive capital. (MEAT SIZZLES) This is actually New Zealand lamb. Former New Zealand Chefs of the Year Melanie and Hamish Brown live in South London with their daughter, Ella. The couple met when Hamish was executive chef at Christchurch's George Hotel and Melanie began an apprenticeship there. Leaving behind successful careers in New Zealand, but keen to broaden their culinary skills, they moved to London in 2005. Hamish is now the international group executive chef for the award-winning ROKA restaurants, and Melanie has established her own successful business ` New Zealand Wine Cellars. Both initially worked with the team at Peter Gordon's Providores. It was a great environment, full of amazing people in all aspects of the business, and it was good for us too. Melanie obviously stepped out of the kitchen at that stage and was working in the bar and starting to do her wine studies. And for me, I was working in the pastry section. So it was really... It was nice just to have a nice balance of life and work. It was good a foundation, I think, to start in London as well. We learnt a lot from both running a business and running kitchens. They provided us really good foundations to be able to take that further. The marketplace was surprisingly tricky, I think, actually, when we first came over. Getting to understand the market, understand the restaurant industry, and I think, um... And I dropped my CV at many doors. It didn't get a lot of traction. I think once you have got experience in a kitchen in the UK, people start to take you a bit more seriously. Award-winning ROKA has four sites spread across London and a staff of almost 500. Hamish began working for the brand in 2008, and as international group executive chef, now has a team of 140 chefs working under him. ROKA experience is essentially Japanese. We like to call ourselves contemporary Japanese cuisine. We are focused around a robata grill, which is a great big charcoal-driven barbeque pit, which is based in the centre of our restaurant, which really does set us apart from the other Japanese restaurants around. We use the counter around that barbeque as you would normally see a sushi counter. So we're very much hands-on ` theatre in the restaurant. The cuisine itself is very much traditional techniques and traditional produce, which we give a Western twist ` I guess, the best way to describe it. And you stack them up. One. They sit on each other. Like this, OK? MAN: All right, chef. Good-sized scallops today, yeah? We're focused on respecting the Japanese tradition. That's really important to us. But also making it more palatable for people in the London market. We're used to bigger flavours in London ` a little bit more excitement, spicier, more acidic. So we, kind of, balance our food to suit the local people. We're very much a neighbourhood restaurant. That's what we focus on. All four sites are based around the people in that neighbourhood or in that area. As the executive chef, my responsibilities are not just the food. It's making sure that our restaurants are moving forward, we're evolving and that we're also looking for new opportunities. And a big, big focus on training ` training people and making the next generation ready for us to expand. Keeping one step ahead of all these other brands that are coming in. I started off in this restaurant as the head chef, which was a big challenge within itself. Learning a new cuisine was a big thing. Obviously, in New Zealand, we have big connections with Japan and Japanese food and other Asian food, but to really get into the depth of it took a lot of study, a lot of reading, a lot of researching. I think food for me started at a very, very young age. Having a father who was a chef kind of had a massive influence on me, of course. And it wasn't so much the food, actually. It was more the atmosphere, the energy, the kind of connection that the team had. The teamwork, the way they looked out for each other, it was a big extended family, and it really, I think, made a deep impression on me as a person. Key thing, I think, for my success in London was actually the upbringing in New Zealand and the cuisine. When I was studying at the George Hotel, I was given the chance at a very young age to be an executive chef. That kind of set me in really good stead for the challenges ahead I've had in London. I think I was kind of mentally prepared to deal with larger groups of people and all sorts of different staff. In New Zealand, I think we deal with such a broad spectrum of people as well. In the restaurants and food, we're focused on everything. You're not just doing one thing. You're doing the butchery. You're doing the pastry. You learn at the bottom in the apprenticeship. I went to Christchurch Polytechnic, did my full apprenticeship. You do everything. You follow a really rigid system, which sets you in really good stead for when you get into a kitchen over here. And the biggest challenge, actually, was walking into an environment where no one knew who I was. It was refreshing in many, many ways, so I could just focus on actually learning and absorbing a new culture, new cuisine, as I did with ROKA. But it was difficult. I mean, when you put a lot of effort into becoming something and making a name for yourself, it's hard to walk away from that. You just gotta go for things instead of sitting back and waiting for things to happen. I think that's why Kiwis do so well in the hospitality industry in particular, because you can just wait for people to give you a promotion, but I think the Kiwis that I've worked with and the Kiwis that work for me, it's all about going for it. * While Hamish was going for it at ROKA, Melanie was using her own Kiwi initiative, and seeing a gap in the London market, New Zealand Wine Cellars found its first home. Pop Brixton is a concept that was brought to life by Carl Turner, who's a local architect, and he developed a very, kind of, Christchurch-esque upcycled shipping container village ` you could almost call it ` which is really cute. And it's a combination of retail, food, drink. There's businesses here, so we've got Brixton's radio station. We've got a PR agency. There's an Impact Hub down the back which has, I think, about 50 hot desks. And so it's all about trying to create a nice little village of free spaces for local schools to put up their artwork, for people to meet, for people to, kind of, look at the businesses that are growing within Brixton. When we kind of got an inclination that potentially we might be in the running for one of the units, we thought, 'Far out. How are we gonna raise the money? 'Are we going to potentially use crowdfunding? Are we gonna get investors? 'How are we gonna make this work?' Because I knew, ultimately, that I had to have a retail space, and I knew that this was gonna be a really lovely stepping stone to eventually having something bigger elsewhere. And a 20ft container looked like the right idea for me. Melanie and her colleague Rosie Finn put together a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign and managed to raise the �35,000 needed in just two weeks thanks to support from influential wine industry experts back home and an encouraging Kiwi fan base here in the UK. Joining the likes of New Zealand Society, Kea, New Zealand Business Women's Network ` the Kiwi networks over here are just so strong, and the people that support who we are and what we do is just phenomenal. And without those people and the people in New Zealand sharing what we do, we couldn't do it. So, we purchase from distributors based here in the UK. So we purchase next-day delivery to us. It gets shipped to our head office, which is my living room. And we then pack it for our online orders or we restock the shop from down here. Travelling over here as a chef, Melanie soon got a job alongside Hamish working at The Providores. Developing a bad skin reaction to the water in London, she convinced The Providores to employ her 50% on the floor, front of house. And it was here she developed her passion for New Zealand wine and began studying to sit her wine and spirit WSET diploma. Being immersed in the wine selection that they had at The Providores and being able to live and breathe it just fuelled that passion for me. So moved completely on to the floor, and as, kind of, time went on, the wine buyer left, and I kind of managed to fit into that role, which was amazing, because it allowed me to taste and explore and, kind of, see the diversity of the wine that is available from New Zealand. So just seeing that diversity open up and seeing these new producers and their passion and integrity come on to the scene was something that just sparked for me. And working on the floor at The Providores made me increasingly aware that there was a demand for the platform of the New Zealand seller ` somewhere where people could purchase these wines but not pay Michelin Star or high-profile restaurant prices, to be able to enjoy them in the comfort of their own homes. It's getting people out of the supermarkets and supporting small, boutique, family-run producers. I think one of my biggest challenges with my whole dream and how I've got here is just learning how to digest all of the challenges that you're faced with on a daily basis. I was very naive walking into this with the amount of work that it would take to build something of this nature, but I had passion, and I had drive, and I knew that it was gonna be successful because there was a demand. So never lose focus. I think always having that ability to see past those challenges and adapt. My whole drive and ambition was to nurture the producers back home and provide a platform that allowed their ethos and integrity to be showcased throughout the world and I'm so thrilled that I've managed to contribute to a little bit more, kind of, recognition for those producers. This dynamic duo are here to stay ` for a while, at least ` and are very much part of New Zealand's global family. Moving so far away from home and having those networks and communities available to you is... Just to engage in that Kiwi culture abroad is really important. And New Zealand is a beautiful place, and it's great to see that community spirit extend itself halfway round the world, you know? And I think we need to` as Kiwis, to kind of keep that up and keep passing it on so that we do have a community cos it's a great place, and we don't want to leave it behind. There are some things, though, we can't replicate here that we all miss. Crayfish for sure. Actually, whitebait fritters... and pineapple lumps. And steak-and-cheese pies. Jaffas? Jelly tips. And rocky road. Rocky roads, yeah. Rocky roads are good. Rocky road. (CHUCKLES) Bluebird chips? Minties? All the classics. Burger Rings. Burger Rings are good. Yeah, they are good. Moro bars. Oh, dip ` onion dip. Onion dip. Yeah. Chocolate fish. Oh, kumara chips. Goody Goody Gum Drop ice cream. Hokey-pokey. Awesome. Yep. That stuff. Plus probably another` Was that one dish or was that, like, 15? (LAUGHTER) That's great. (ALL LAUGH) Raro. Rar` No, I don't miss Raro. Captions by Jean Teng. Edited by Antony Vlug. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018