An Italian heart
Tobie Puttock is one of Australia’s best known Celebrity chefs, with a career spanning three decades and the globe. He tells how he’s gone from washing dishes to avoid having to stay at school to a stunning collaboration with famous chef, Jamie Oliver.
The dishes Tobie Puttock washed as his first job were at Melbourne’s iconic, Caffe é Cucina under the tutelage of industry giant, Maurice Terzini. At that point, he wasn’t so much hankering after a life in the commercial kitchen, but rather a career in snowboarding. The teenaged Tobie swapped school to try his hand at the snow sport, but he needed an income.
“In all honesty, looking back now, I wasn’t that good, but I loved it and still do,” Tobie says. “It did, however, allow me to enter the world of hospitality as I quickly worked out that if I worked at cafés and restaurants, I could have money to snowboard and travel around, snowboarding while I hopped from job to job.”
At Caffe é Cucina, Tobie says that all he did “was prepare the antipasto and clean squid and onions.” Not the most glamorous of jobs. “But it gave me freedom. Freedom to not have to go to school, freedom to snowboard and freedom to realise that I could leverage off this to travel and snowboard some more.” It also gave him a love for great Italian food that he retains to this day.
It was this combination of work and play that took him overseas. Tobie eventually found himself travelling through Europe, learning, growing and enjoying that enviable freedom. Again, he found himself working in numerous kitchens and spending considerable time in Italy. It was also this time in his life that would prove to be most influential in his subsequent growth and development as a chef. Chief among those influences was when he found himself alongside the man who would become a household name, British Chef, Jamie Oliver, working in the kitchens of London’s The River Cafe in 1999.
They remained friends. In 2001, Jamie Oliver asked Tobie to help him set up his “Fifteen Foundation.” The Fifteen Restaurant would be used to train young, underprivileged people. It opened in London’s Hoxton with Tobie as Executive Head Chef. In 2006, the call of home lured Tobie back to Melbourne, where he opened Italian restaurant, Termini. Jamie Oliver also agreed to open a Fifteen restaurant in Melbourne and it was up and running in 2006 with Tobie at the helm.
There is an immaculate SYNCHRO adorning his benchtop as he talks and it is the catalyst for him to launch into the subject of coffee, which he has a great love for and appreciation of.
“After travelling throughout Europe and living in Italy for extended periods, I really got to understand differences in coffee. Working crazy hours, days turning into nights, shifts, early mornings, late nights, everything became a bit of a blur. If it wasn’t for the coffee I don’t think I would have made it out alive,” he says.
“We are very passionate about our coffee here at Fifteen. The team know exactly what is needed to get a good cup”
“I really loved the Italian way of life and their focus on quality, not just with food, but right across the board. They savour every minute and enjoy every experience. Life to Italians and Europeans, is something that is there to be enjoyed, to create a beautiful memory and not to be rushed. This crosses over into all they do, even making and enjoying a delicious cup of coffee. I always remember and still carry on the tradition whenever I am here to make coffee for all the staff, so we can all enjoy a moment together and reflect on what is going on. It is a special part of the day that we all look forward to and have come to expect.
“We are very passionate about our coffee here at Fifteen. The team know exactly what is needed to get a good cup and I am proud to say that we are partnered with a local roaster, Veneziano Caffe. Relationships in business are important, critical in fact. If you don’t have the right people around you and working with you, nothing seems to go right. The relationship we have with the team at Veneziano is perfect. They provide us with a great product, professional support and service and above all are as passionate as we are about their business, which is perfect!”
Although Tobie has no Italian blood in him, it has not stopped him already writing two Italian- themed cookbooks and he’s in the process of releasing a third.
“The Italian way of life and their whole culture really resonated with me while I lived there. I learned heaps and picked up a lot of their habits and traditions. I even have my own stove top cafetiere at home to brew my coffee!”
Tobie also closely follows the changes that have occurred in the Australian coffee scene. “It seems to be akin to the shift in people’s yearning for quality, fresh and seasonal food. As a population we seem to be striving for something else, something more and coffee is, simply put, not only a necessity, but an affordable luxury that most people can enjoy.
“My good friend and well known sommelier, Matt Skinner, is really excited about all this coffee activity around town. He compares it to the way wine started to develop a few years ago. Look at where that’s gone now - everyone is a connoisseur!” Tobie says.
“Everyone has a palate and knows what they like. I can’t sit here and tell you to like this and that something you like is not good. It’s definitely a case of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it’s great to be able to have the opportunity, as we do now, to taste, drink and celebrate so many different blends of coffee and the emergence of single origins as a mainstream offering through some very cool cafés.”
