CHEF OF THE MONTH

Rob Cullen

For Rob Cullen, Executive Chef at the Wairarapa’s luxurious Wharekauhau Country Estate, his culinary career has been no picnic, but instead a worldwide whirlwind of highs and lows, most of which he would never exchange.

His distinguished career has taken him right to the top, working all over the globe and even spending six years as kitchen manager for His Majesty, King Abdullah the Second in Jordan.

However, cooking wasn’t a career path that Rob initially chased intentionally.

“I wasn’t really interested in school and was getting up to a bit of mischief, so I left and I’d left home at just 15 years old,” says Rob. He started travelling and he began work as a dishie. “I was lucky my mother knew how to cook. She was always preparing preserves as they did back then, so once I got to England from New Zealand at about 19 I thought, “I can do that (cook) and I eventually landed some good jobs.” However, those good jobs didn’t come until Rob obtained some qualifications in England. “I woke up and smelled the coffee and ended up going back to school to study for two years at the City & Guilds to gain some qualifications, working part time as well.”

Rob even tried his hand at front of house for a time, but that wasn’t for him.

Eight years working around England and Scotland landed him in some Michelin star establishments. Rob says he learned the hard way during a day when junior chefs put up and shut up. It was a tough lifestyle at times back then. “I remember thinking, “Can I handle it?’ he says. “Then I thought, ‘No, stuff it, and I stuck with it.” That move sure paid off. For Rob cooking has always been a passion. Right from a very young age he recalls popping into his grandma’s restaurant that she owned in New Brighton, Christchurch. “She’d be in there cooking away out the back.”

Food inspired him and as a youngster of about nine he remembers having cook ups in his mother’s kitchen, burning her pots then throwing them over the fence into the neighbour’s long grass beside the

family chook house. “The family would eventually run out of pots and ask where they were and I’d have to go search for them in the long grass.”

For Rob every day in the kitchen is new and exciting, whether that’s working with beautiful kingfish supplied by Yellow Brick Road, which he loves to cure and smoke into kingfish ham or pastrami, or fresh Wairarapa produce.

He’s most relaxed when he’s hunting, fishing or diving, always with a focus on how he can create a beautiful plate. Foraging finds and discovering new boutique food producers always brings a fresh smile from Rob. He’s champion of the artisan, paying homage to those smaller producers who put their heart and soul into what they produce. For Rob it’s sacrilege to waste any part an animal or fish.

Rob does all he can to retain the ‘soul’ of thefood he serves, says Wharekauhau Country Estate general manager Richard Rooney. “He’ll hop on the quad bike and head down to the beach with a big bucket and a rope, returning with a bucket of sea water, which he then boils and dehydrates,” says Richard.

“Simple things like salt, which is straight out of Palliser Bay. It’s these little details that bring our food story to life.”

Expect to see details, such as Rob’s delicious peppered fallow deer served on a little river stone from the river valley it likely grew up in.

A relationship forged with South Island foraging specialist Peter Langlands, while Rob and wife Rosie owned the successful Old Kaikoura Winery in Kaikoura, continues to provide him with plenty of exciting foraged finds as well.

the king’s high profile guests and government officials. “One day you could be cooking for the Pope and the next President Trump, or whatever,” he says. “Boom, all of a sudden you’d be gone on a state visit somewhere to the other side of the world. It was great.”

While at the moment he commutes home to Kaikoura every three weeks, that wasn’t possible from Jordan so Rosie and the kids eventually joined him after several years, which was a wonderful family experience. The family moved into a home next to the palace where the kids went to the international school inside the compound. Rosie and the kids eventually returned to the open spaces of home in 2017 and Rob followed a few years later.

Cooking in Jordan was quite challenging. “We followed the seasons, following the globe to ensure we had different items available year round,” says Rob.

Now happy back at Wharekauhau, Rob is about to take on another challenge. The American businessman owner of Wharekauhau Country Estate, Bill Foley, is launching his Foley Wines hospitality destination project near the lodge in November this year. It’ll be a new hospitality destination, home to Te Kairanga Wines, Martinborough Vineyard and The Lighthouse Gin, bringing all of

Bill’s products under one brand. Rob will oversee a new restaurant, private dining room, tasting room, underground barrel hall and distillery.

There’ll be a culinary crossover between Wharekauhau Country Estate and the new hospitality destination project with Rob heading up the food across both venues. Someone who’s keen to ‘give back’ to hospitality and pass on to the next generation, Rob says he’s looking forward to helping guide and grow Wharekauhau current head chef Shane Gravatt as part of that role.

“I’m getting on and I think it’s important to pass on what I’ve learned to the younger ones coming through,” he says. “We’ll be celebrating local seasonal food right on the edge of beautiful Martinborough Terrace.” It’s a far cry from the bustle of Shanghai, Vietnam and rebranding missions in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu for top hotel chains, but it’s home and where he’s happy after a decorated career spanning almost 30 years.

His greatest inspiration throughout those three decades has not been any of the top echelon of chefs he’s worked for, but his wife, Rosie. Experienced in front of house, it’s always been Rosie who’s been his biggest encourager and the one who’s stretched him to do better. “It’s her I vent to,” says Rob. “She lets me do what I’m passionate about. She listens and understands,” he says. “She’s stuck with me through thick and thin. I couldn’t do it without her.” n

EDITOR’S NOTE: We love to hear about great Chefs working in the New Zealand hospitality industry! Tell us if you know of a Chef who’s skills and craftsman ship is worth sharing!

Contact me at - kdixon@intermedianz.co.nz