ABOUT OUR CHEF
Aussie-born chef Ben O'Donoghue started his career working in several award-winning restaurants in Australia, including Goodfella’s restaurant in the trendy Newtown area of Sydney and the uber-cool Tribeca restaurant in Double Bay, Sydney.
Ben then came to the UK and worked at The River Café before moving to become Head Chef at the exclusive Monte’s Club in Knightsbridge with Jamie Oliver. He then worked as Head Chef at the famous Atlantic Bar & Grill and helped Oliver Peyton win the contract to open the National Dinning Room at the National Gallery with his creative and seasonal menus. He is now the creative director of food for The Great Australian Pie Company based in the UK.
Ben co-presented a BBC2 10-part prime-time series The Best in April 2002, with an accompanying BBC book of the same name, and filmed an 8-part food and travel series for the ABC in Australia called Surfing the Menu with an accompanying ABC book in early 2003. This series was shown in Australia in February 2004 and was screened on BBC’s UKTV Food channel in 2004, with the UK book coming out at the same time. It has also sold to 26 other territories. Ben filmed the second series of Surfing the Menu and wrote the accompanying book in 2004. He has finished filming the third series, and will be co-presenting the fourth series-taking place in New Zealand in 2006.
Ben writes a regular food column ‘Ben’s Basics’ for Olive Magazine as well as a regular column for Delicious Magazine in Australia. Ben is 35, married with a daughter, and loves fly-fishing and surfing.
You can visit Ben's own website by clicking here.