Chef Tony Bilson

Restaurant Bilson’s - Number One Wine Bar - Sydney - Australie

 

Age :                                                        Mentors : Troisgros : sauces                                                                                     Louis Ousier : plating

Nationality: Australian                         Favourite Recipe: Duck pepper,                                                                                peaches, cherry vinegar

Position: Executive Chef                          Favourite Tool: Big knife

 

 

School

University of Economics

 

Career (If you can join Resume)

Employee at the Reserve Bank

Working in restaurants and Hotel snowfield - 3 years

Work in Melbourne to do some Landscaping

Head Chef at La Pomme d’Or Camberwell Melbourne at this time the restaurant manager was the Prince Louis von Habsourg who tookover the restaurant later on.

Albion Hotel

Executive Chef at Tony’s Bon Gout restaurant - 1973 Alain chagny restaurant manager, sister auberge de sete)

Head Chef of Berowra Waters -6 years

Head Chef of Kingsela’s restaurant – 3 floors avant garde complex with the brasserie on the ground floor, bar and a theater on the top floors.

Consultant : the Hotel Intercontinental, Opera House, Circular Quay restaurants. Chef Tony Bilson worked as a state consultant for more than 35 restaurants.

 

 

Chef, Cooking style and Atmosphere

It’s quite an hard task to sum up in an article such successful and long-lasting career.

Chef Tony Bilson started to love cooking in reading books of Escoffier « Histoire de la cuisine Francaise » when he was 7. His mother was also a very good cook and as they were living in the countryside they have beautiful products and especially game like woodcock or snipe...

Georges Mollard, very good friend of Tony’s Father, suggested a place where the young guy could go to work. He started as the dishwasher to ended up as Chef 9 months later. Then Chef Tony Bilson began an outstanding career running lots of successful restaurants: Most famous of them are Berowra Waters or Kingsela’s.

 

Chef Tony Bilson is owning currently two restaurants; “Number One Wine Bar “on Pitt Street and the restaurant of the Radisson SAS, “Bilson”. He is cooking a modern and flavorful cuisine in both of them.

Chef Tony Bilson expresses himself as an artist without fearing criticism anymore, which is very important in cuisine, where you rely a lot on criticism.

“Number One Wine Bar” Restaurant is a practically hidden place in front of Circular Quay. Chef Tony Bilson has created a simple, “bourgeois boheme” atmosphere, propitious to share a good glass of wine after a hot day on the city. Passionate by good wines he’s striving to find “l’accord parfait” between its wines and dishes.

 

As Christian Constant who owns 3 places in Paris including one wine bar, Chef Tony Bilson is spending most of his time in “Number One Wine Bar”.

 

Qualities of a Chef de Cuisine

• To be good enough confident to be yourself and develop your creativity.
• To have a good pallet (if you try a dish you have to know how to fix it)
• To have a good wine education (any dishes should go with a main beverage)

 

Difficulties in the industry

• When you are creating something you depend on opinion of the others, so until you’re confident critics can be very destructive.
• Investment to create a restaurant is huge (so hotel have capital structure to invest)

 

Advice to young people

• Work for the best chef that you can (ex: if you want to become a Thai chef work for the best Thai restaurant and so on)
• Always use the biggest knife

 

French Gastronomy at Unesco Patrimony

Of course Chef Tony Bilsons considers food as an art, “it give insight about beauty of life”. He also supports recognition of french food at Unesco patrimony and says “Vive la france”. Nevertheless he thinks nowadays cooking is no more cuisine of one country because borders are disappearing.