Peter Gilmore

Peter Gilmore is the Executive Chef at two of Australia’s most exciting and dynamic restaurants; Bennelong at the Sydney Opera House and Quay restaurant across the harbour in The Rocks. Peter was born and bred in Sydney. He was inspired to cook at a young age and started his apprenticeship at 16, then spent his twenties working in kitchens overseas and in country New South Wales, developing his own style.

Peter is now one of the most awarded chefs in Australia taking the helm of the kitchen at Quay in 2001. Quay has been awarded Three Chefs Hats for an unprecedented 18 consecutive years and named Restaurant of the Year six times in The Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. Quay has also been awarded three stars in the national Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant Guide for 18 years. Quay was listed for five years on the World’s 50 Best Restaurant list and held the title of Best Restaurant in Australasia for three of those years.

Peter, along with Fink, reopened Bennelong restaurant in the Sydney Opera House in July 2015 to critical acclaim taking out the title for ‘Best New Restaurant’ at all three major Australian Restaurant Awards.

Across both restaurants, Peter describes his cuisine as food inspired by nature and as a passionate gardener himself, he was one of the first chefs in Australia to embrace heirloom varieties of vegetables and continues to work in partnership with small producers who cultivate produce exclusively for both Quay and Bennelong. Peter collaborates with a range of producers across Australia, from the fishermen who hand dive and line catch the seafood he serves to the farmers who rear rare breed animals with superior flavour and texture for the table. Peter’s appreciation of nature’s diversity and his endless experimentation in the kitchen and garden are the driving forces in his cooking.

Peter has released three cookbooks, Quay: Food Inspired by Nature published in 2010, Organum: nature, texture, intensity, purity in 2014, and From The Earth: World’s Great, Rare and Almost Forgotten Vegetables in October 2018.

Peter and his cuisine are held in the highest regard within Australia and around the world. Peter is regularly invited to attend international festivals and seminars. He is proud to be an ambassador for Tourism Australia working in pivotal roles for the Restaurant Australia campaign.

Peter has been a regular guest chef and judge on Australian MasterChef most famously creating the Snow Egg which set the final challenge in the second season; to date one of the most highly watched shows in Australian television history. Peter is a regular guest on various cooking shows including The Restaurant Australia Documentary currently showing on Netflix.