Nov 18, 2017
Ben Shewry's Attica is ranked #32 in the World's 50 Best
Restaurants list and it's Restaurant of the Year in the first
national Good Food Guide – but according to his son Kobe, Attica
is
"not
bad" for a restaurant that doesn’t have a burger on the
menu.
Many years before Ben gained international acclaim for Attica's
uniquely Australian dishes (from his inventive
take on avocado on toast to a savoury pavlova), he was shaping
margarine sculptures
for hotel buffets and cooking New Zealand's biggest nachos for
drunk students.
While living in New Zealand, he met his wife Natalia over scones
and they eventually moved to Australia together. After a memorable
honeymoon in Sydney (a highlight was Janni Kyrsitis's “punk”
dessert at MG Garage), he worked in Melbourne before eventually
becoming head chef at Attica in Ripponlea.
“When I took over, the restaurant owed $250,000," he says. "It was
just in a dreadful situation. We had nothing."
He was only 27 and a new dad – and starkly aware of the
restaurant's debts, the need to make the restaurant viable and
provide for his family.
"That’ll make you do crazy things. It really will. It’ll make you
do things that you never thought you were capable of. Good things
as well," he says.
The next five years involved "having
no customers, having wolves at the door all the time, taking out
all of the credit cards under the sun to pay people".
Some key things turned around the restaurant's fate – Ben's
determination and invention as a chef, endorsements by influential
people such as
David Chang and Rene Redzepi and Attica landing on the World's 50
Best Restaurants longlist.
"Man, did it have an impact," he says of the moment that Attica
appeared in the 51-100 rankings.
“That was the moment from when it went from being a little
neighbourhood restaurant in Ripponlea to this global thing.”
The runaway appetite for Attica reservations meant that bookings
were filled
for nine months out.
It took me 14 hours to edit this podcast, and I spent most of that
time with a smile on my face because Ben is so enthusiastic,
inspiring and full of life. He shares so many fascinating stories
about his career's highlights and true lowlights – and how they've
emphatically shaped him.
Catch him at Attica, or upcoming events in Sydney at Rootstock
(November 26, Carriageworks) and The Dolphin Hotel in Surry Hills
(December 13).