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Warwick Brown: Kiwi chef on the benefits and drawbacks of the industry · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Good afternoon. We're talking about becoming a chef. Is that
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  Speaker 2: still a wise career choice? Met you at a family
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  Speaker 2: member who said to your two boys, he forbade them
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  Speaker 2: from ever getting into cheffing because it is an incredibly
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  Speaker 2: tough profession and put him through the wringer.
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  Speaker 3: Can I just say, Tyler before you continue on, it's Michelin,
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  Speaker 3: not Michellin.
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  Speaker 2: Michalin Michelin. It is French.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you thank you very much. You were saying Michelin.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Michelin, it's for bade and it's Michelin right on
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  Speaker 2: the line right now. Is a fantastic person to chet
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  Speaker 2: to Warwick Brown, he has been a chef, restaurant being
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  Speaker 2: in the restaurant trade all his life, has worked for
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  Speaker 2: Michelin restaurants in the bars as well. Warwick, very good
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  Speaker 2: afternoon to you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, hi guys, is that the correct pronunciation that he's
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  Speaker 3: getting there? Is it Michelin Michelin? So Warwick is cheffing
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  Speaker 3: a career that you would recommend to a young person?
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  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty five one.
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  Speaker 4: Hundred percent, one hundred percent. It's like today's world becoming
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  Speaker 4: a trade person, having a skill, whether it be a
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  Speaker 4: draft person, electrician, plumber. Chef pulls into that category. Cheffing
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  Speaker 4: is a fabulous business. It's a fabulous career to the end.
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  Speaker 4: But just I'd like to know why people would not
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  Speaker 4: recommend it. But you know, if you're an architect or
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  Speaker 4: a designer or real estate agent, you're at the top
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  Speaker 4: of your game. You're earning good money, good lifestyle, travel
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  Speaker 4: the world. No different from becoming a chef. There are
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  Speaker 4: loads of chefs out there worldwide, including New Zealand, who
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  Speaker 4: work in kitchens. They work hard, they're passionate, but unfortunately
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  Speaker 4: they don't move up the ladder. And what happens becoming
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  Speaker 4: a chef, it's all about image. Can be very egotistical.
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  Speaker 4: You need a profile. Once you have that profile, that
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  Speaker 4: turns into dollars and that then turns into opportunities. And
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  Speaker 4: there are lots of chefs in New Zealand that that's
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  Speaker 4: happened to. I was one of the lucky ones. I
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  Speaker 4: left school when I was fifteen. I did a food
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  Speaker 4: and Beverage hotel management degree, became a chef, took off
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  Speaker 4: to France and spent my early days working in very
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  Speaker 4: high profile restaurants Wow, which basically gave me my ground spot.
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  Speaker 3: So when you say you have been very successful and
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  Speaker 3: you know you have to have your profile, and you
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  Speaker 3: also describe yourself as lucky, this is probably a difficult
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  Speaker 3: question to answer. But there's twenty five thousand chefs in
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand currently. What percentage of them can expect to
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  Speaker 3: do very well?
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  Speaker 4: Five percent?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: So then would you say so when you say it's
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  Speaker 3: a great profession, is it a great profession if you
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  Speaker 3: start off and you have all how quickly can you
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  Speaker 3: notice that? Because someone might spend thirty years in go
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  Speaker 3: nowhere shifting, But how quickly could you tell if you
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  Speaker 3: were one of the people that was going to be
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  Speaker 3: like you and was going to be a superstar.
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  Speaker 4: I've had many young chefs work for me in all
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  Speaker 4: the restaurants that I've had in Auckland over the years,
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  Speaker 4: and they've gone on to become great chefs. They're working
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  Speaker 4: in Australia, they're working in London, they're working in New York,
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  Speaker 4: they're working, they're doing extremely well. It's very difficult in
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  Speaker 4: New Zealand. New Zealand at the moment, it's got some
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  Speaker 4: great restaurants. It has and this is debatable for me.
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  Speaker 4: It has reasonable food, reasonable has great restaurants. It struggles
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  Speaker 4: to get staff that are dedicated and passionate because go
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  Speaker 4: back fifteen twenty years ago, owner operators were at fault.
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  Speaker 4: They didn't have great facilities, They built terrible kitchens, they
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  Speaker 4: never invested funds, they had bad equipment for chefs, and
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  Speaker 4: this will reflects on the job and the capabilities that
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  Speaker 4: you can run a good menu at. Fast forward to
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  Speaker 4: twenty twenty five. It's improved, but if you look at
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  Speaker 4: what's available around the world, New Zealand is very dead
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  Speaker 4: in that market. We just do not spend the money
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  Speaker 4: in those kinds of environments to attract good workers.
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  Speaker 2: Right looking at and I want to come back to
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  Speaker 2: that Warwick. But this image that we have of particularly
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  Speaker 2: at the high level, and you've been at the highest
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  Speaker 2: you can get in the world, but you think about
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  Speaker 2: the pressure cooker environment and it's dramatized and the beer
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  Speaker 2: and Gordon Ramsey and Marco Pyear, is that truly what
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  Speaker 2: it's like at that level? And is that why some
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  Speaker 2: chiefs just don't make the distance.
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  Speaker 4: Twenty five years ago, I would say it was twenty
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  Speaker 4: twenty five, I would say it's not. For the last
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  Speaker 4: ten years I spent I spent five months of the
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  Speaker 4: year traveling the world looking at food ideas. I'm about
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  Speaker 4: to leave in two weeks time for five months in Europe,
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  Speaker 4: and I visit kitchens, markets, hospitals, airline catering kitchens. You
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  Speaker 4: do not see that environment anymore right now.
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  Speaker 3: There's a certain amount of creativity in becoming an high
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  Speaker 3: level shift like yourself, what work, But a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people wouldn't ever. You know, a lot of people would
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  Speaker 3: spend their career as a shift just making other people's recipes. Right,
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  Speaker 3: How hard is it to move up from being someone
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  Speaker 3: that's making the food to someone that's creating the menu
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  Speaker 3: and arguably creating food art.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, you have to be very passionate about food.
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  Speaker 4: You have to be prepared for long hours. I remember,
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  Speaker 4: going back quite a few years now, especially when I
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  Speaker 4: had Chinchin, which was a big, high profile restaurant in Auckland,
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  Speaker 4: one hundred hours a week would be nothing to me.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, bag out and that's not for everyone wick.
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  Speaker 4: No, No, it's not. Then, But then you know, there
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  Speaker 4: are thousands of young kids who are plumbers, who are
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  Speaker 4: great plumbers, and then there's five to scent of those
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  Speaker 4: plumbers who are innovative, passionate, come up with new ideas
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  Speaker 4: and have their own business and employ people no different
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  Speaker 4: from a chef. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I just want to come back to what you
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  Speaker 2: said about our food scene, Warwick and the investment that's
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  Speaker 2: needed and the quality of our offering. Is that partly
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  Speaker 2: to do with our culture here in New Zealand, that
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  Speaker 2: we don't tend to go out as much as we should,
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  Speaker 2: that there's not that backing traditionally from the from the punter.
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  Speaker 4: So which next week when I'm flying to I'm flying
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  Speaker 4: to est Opona, which is in southern Spain. So I
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  Speaker 4: spend quite a bit of time in Marbeya, Spain, and
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  Speaker 4: then I go up to San Sebastian. The streets will
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  Speaker 4: be dead up until ten o'clock at night. From ten
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  Speaker 4: till two in the morning, every restaurant is ramped, jam packed, bars,
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  Speaker 4: tapest bars, everybody having a fabulous time. Because in Europe
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  Speaker 4: people have small accommodations, they live on the street. Come
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  Speaker 4: back to New Zealand, we have big villas, in Mount Eden,
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  Speaker 4: we all go into our villa, closed the door, the
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  Speaker 4: streets are dead.
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, no you continue, sorry, sorry, Warrick.
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  Speaker 4: So it's that type of environment, you know that. And
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  Speaker 4: also we've got five million people that live in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 4: probably only four and then you've got Auckland City which
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  Speaker 4: has just had a blowout of restaurant developments. There are
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  Speaker 4: some that are that are opening up in the last
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  Speaker 4: three or four months with high profile operators obviously being
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  Speaker 4: recognized over the weekend and the rewards, and they do
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  Speaker 4: really well. But if you dig drill down into those owners,
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  Speaker 4: they're high profile owners that have worked one hundred hours
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  Speaker 4: a week over the years.
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  Speaker 3: So we've got this text here coming through just finally,
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  Speaker 3: thank you so much for you call, really appreciate it.
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  Speaker 3: But the top five percent, this person's said, how much
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  Speaker 3: money would the top five percent make? What could you
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  Speaker 3: expect if you do well to make as a chef?
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  Speaker 4: Okay, So so if you forget about being an owner operator, right,
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  Speaker 4: So say, for instance, you are a high profile chef,
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  Speaker 4: So let's let's let's look at Superyots New Zealand. Chef
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  Speaker 4: from the main Superot office in at even the southern France.
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  Speaker 4: They are a wanted commodity. They want New Zealand chefs.
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  Speaker 4: They love them. So I put a chef on a
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  Speaker 4: job five months ago, big, big boat, one hundred and
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  Speaker 4: twenty five meters crew of forty. His salary twelve thousand
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  Speaker 4: euros net tax free per week.
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  Speaker 2: That is big money.
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  Speaker 4: Okay. So that's on a super yocht where there's no
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  Speaker 4: such word as no. If you say no, they'll put
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  Speaker 4: you off the boat and find someone else.
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  Speaker 3: Just in the kitchen, Yeah, just in the kitchen.
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  Speaker 4: So for that, the owners prepared to pay you that
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  Speaker 4: kind of money.
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  Speaker 2: What's another one hundred thousand euro a year? You wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: say no, would you?
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  Speaker 4: Correct? So another good friend of mine, he's Canadian but
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  Speaker 4: has lived in New Zealand. He's the vice president of
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  Speaker 4: Emirates Flight Kitchen. He's on two hundred and twenty thousand
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  Speaker 4: US year.
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  Speaker 3: All right, So it's if you're in the top five percent,
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  Speaker 3: then you can do very well. Thank you so much
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  Speaker 3: for your call.
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  Speaker 2: Fascinating chat. Thank you very much. That was Warwick Brown,
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  Speaker 2: renowned restaurant tour and chef.
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