Southern Charm

Analiese Gregory is one of Australia’s most-talked-about young chefs. Will her latest move to Tasmania see her realise her full potential? MAGGIE SCARDIFIELD meets the culinary nomad on her sea change.

- Maggie Scardifield

Analiese Gregory has made a habit out of confounding expectations. When she returned to Sydney after stints in the élite kitchens of Bras in the Aubrac, and Mugaritz in San Sebastián, it wasn’t to a fine-diner, but to wine bar Bar Brosé, where toasted sandwiches and a whole deep-fried onion featured alongside giant gougères. Peter Gilmore, who mentored her as his 2IC for four and a half years at his acclaimed restaurant Quay, says Gregory is “the most serious and dedicated young chef” he’s ever come across. And yet just over a year after her head chef début in Sydney, she had left again, and Bar Brosé closed in her wake.

Gregory is no stranger to a sea-change. Born in Auckland to a Chinese-Dutch mother and a Welsh father, she moved around more than most while growing up. “For about two years we left home in New Zealand and drove around Australia in our caravan,” she says. “It makes you very adaptable, kind of like a chameleon.”

In June, she moved again, to Tasmania to head the kitchen at Franklin. David Moyle, who opened the restaurant to acclaim in late 2014, was leaving to focus on his next project, the still-to-open Longsong in Melbourne. None of it was planned, says Gregory, but in March, after a phone call out of the blue from Franklin co-owner Ben Lindell asking her to consider the move, she felt the pull.