Meet the five top young WA chefs plating up at Perth’s best restaurants

Meet the new wave of exciting local chefs. Five passionate hospitality professionals, all 35 years old or younger, who plate up stunning showcases of sustainable WA produce for Perth diners at some of the best restaurants around town. Emily Jones, the 30-year-old head chef at new Fremantle restaurant Cassia, always wanted to be a chef. She started an apprenticeship at age 15, working at Matilda Bay Restaurant for four years before heading overseas. In her early 20s, Jones was working long shifts three days a week at the Tower Restaurant in Edinburgh and “staging”, or working for free in exchange for training, at Michelin-star restaurants on her days off. Before returning to Perth in 2020 to serve as head chef at Republic of Fremantle, she did an unpaid internship at three-Michelin-star restaurant Maaemo in Oslo, Norway. “I was very young, full of energy,” she said. “I was really hungry for knowledge and wanted to be as good as I could be.” While Jones plotted her career arc from an early age, the other four members of the fantastic five all say they fell into hospitality. At high school Oskar Pinter, 32, head chef at French bistro La Lune in East Fremantle, hoped to be an architect. When the Freo local failed to get high enough grades to study at university, his sister suggested he try doing work experience at a restaurant. After the first week of staging at much-missed Mundaring restaurant The Loose Box under local legend Alain Fabregues, Pinter was “in love” with hospitality. In his four years at The Loose Box, Pinter rose to sous chef before roles at top Perth venues including Bread in Common, Balthazar, Fabregues’ Bistro des Artistes in Subiaco and now La Lune, where he gets to explore “fresh, homely” French cuisine. He also lived and worked in British Columbia, mostly at ski resorts, before the keen snowboarder opened a 30-seater restaurant with friends in Marysville, BC. “We had no menu for the first three months,” Pinter explained. “Me and the other chef would just come in and bounce ideas off each other, create on the day.” Pinter considers the now-retired Fabregues as his “master” — the pupil still seeks advice from his teacher. Speaking of teachers, Jessica Roe — who recently launched her first menu as head chef of Petition Kitchen at the State Buildings — planned to teach physical education for a living. The Noggerup local got her first job at the Mumballup Tavern, washing dishes and serving parmis, which led to dreams of setting up a paddock-to-plate restaurant on her family’s farm. Roe, now 24, landed an apprenticeship at Crown Perth, where she was headhunted by Bistro Guillaume head chef Robert Murphy. At Petition, she aims to “keep it simple and let the food speak for itself”. “Fresh produce is key, people want to know what they’re eating,” Roe said. “I really want to take Petition in the direction of supporting local small businesses.” The chef agrees with her peers that the molecular gastronomy championed by celebrity chefs such as Heston Blumenthal is out-dated. “Why take a carrot, turn it into a puree and then shape it back into a carrot,” Roe laughed. That’s not to say that fine-dining is also unfashionable: just ask James Cole Bowen, head chef at game-changing Cottesloe brasserie Gibney. The 32-year-old also claims he never wanted to be a chef. “I fell into it,” he said. “I was always doing creative stuff, like, music, woodwork, mechanics — buildings things with my hands. “It wasn’t until the second year of my apprenticeship (at White Salt Cafe in Sorrento) when it clicked. It had all the elements I liked.” Cole Bowen regards former Restaurant Amuse owner and chef Hadleigh Troy as his mentor. “It set me on the right path,” he said of his three years at the East Perth favourite. The young veteran said working at fine-diners and larger a la carte restaurants in Perth and Melbourne for the past 14 years had given him a well-rounded education in hospitality. Logan Place, 35, perhaps has a unique perspective on WA produce having grown up in Vancouver, Canada, before moving to Perth in 2016. Within his first month, he landed a job at Leighton Beach’s Bib & Tucker before moving to Fleur at The Royal in 2021. Place is now head chef overseeing all three venues at The Royal, including fine-diner Fleur and Willi’s Pizza Bar. “I instantly fell in love with Australian cuisine,” he said. “My whole culinary world was opened up by all the local ingredients and ways of cooking.” The Canadian loves to put his own “riffs” on classic dishes. “Food is always calling back to its roots,” Place said. “But I try not to get held up in the rules of the classics.” These fives chefs add to an already abundant level of talent in kitchens around Perth. Other top local chefs such as Nieuw Ruin’s award-winning Blaze Young, Parker Group executive chef Brendan Pratt, Vasse Felix head chef Cameron Jones and Shane Middleton, who recently joined the Sesh Mafia Group behind hot spots Shui and Papi Katsu, are all under 40. Russell Blaikie, who owned Highgate’s iconic Must Winebar for nearly 20 years and is now director of food for the Prendiville Group’s hospitality empire, said there were great opportunities for young, talented chefs to move quickly through the ranks. “That is a double-edged sword because … the key to developing your skills as a chef is about getting the experience and influence from different head chefs,” the 60-year-old said. “You take those influences into your own career and develop your own style.” This week Blaikie took a group of Prendiville Group executive chefs on a tour of the South West which included a visit to farm-to-table restaurant Glenarty Road in Karridale and a masterclass at Alberta’s in Busselton with Ben Ing, the Canadian former head chef at the world-renowned Noma in Copenhagen. “We’re all just buzzing,” he said. “We’re all still learning and we’re all still getting experience from other chefs. “The great chefs are constant students.”