PROFILE // Lillia McCabe
Lillia McCabe
Lillia McCabe always wanted to be a chef — until she didn’t. Words Madeline Woolway
WE OFTEN HEAR stories of young chefs destined for the kitchen from childhood,
entering the industry with one goal in mind: run a restaurant, one that’s preferably your own. It was no different for Lillia McCabe. Given her family pedigree — the chef
and sommelier’s mother, grandfather and uncle all worked in hospitality — it’s not
surprising she never really considered doing anything else.
McCabe formally started working in
kitchens when she left school at the age of 15. It was during a four-year stint at The
Wharf Restaurant (a now shuttered one-hat venue on Sydney’s Jones Bay Wharf run by
Tim Pak Poy and Aaron Ross) that she truly
got her start and learned far more than basic technical skills. “I learned how to be tough
and how to hold my own,” says McCabe. “I learned everyday kitchen banter.”
Now more than 10 years on, and with
a different mindset and newly defined
goals, McCabe is grateful for her years at The Wharf. Why? Mentors. Pak Poy and
Ross created a supportive kitchen and took McCabe under their wings.
McCabe went from their tutelage to join
the team at Sydney institution Claude’s (closed 2013) and then ACME (closed
2019), where she found another great
mentor in chef Mitch Orr (now head chef at CicciaBella).
“Aaron and Mitch are still my mentors to
this day,” says McCabe. “They understand who I am and what I need. [Good
mentors] teach life skills, they’re there for you as a person and they develop you as chef and hospitality worker.”
While McCabe has been lucky to
find mentors throughout her career, it
hasn’t always been a smooth ride. There have been venues that didn’t provide a conducive environment. “You miss
something, and that’s disappointing,” 22 | Hospitality
