Founder and executive chef, Alex Houssos is a born food lover with over 20 years of professional culinary experience. His passion for food was first ignited as a young boy, helping his grandmother tend to their small family farm in Southern Europe where he learned first-hand about the journey fresh food takes from paddock to plate. Working closely with food every single day, Alex developed a deep respect for the value of unadulterated natural ingredients, and began to marvel at how simple produce can be transformed into a feast. He came to understand the health and flavour benefits of allowing seasonal crops to dictate meals, rather than eating the same foods all year-round. It wasn’t until he grew older and began to work in restaurants around the world that Alex realised just how important these lessons were.
As he grew older, Alex worked in his father’s restaurant before following in the footsteps of countless family members before him by undertaking culinary training to become a professional chef. His grandfather, Bob Fenn is considered by many to be an Australian pioneer in the food industry and has been a source of inspiration for Alex throughout his career. Determined to reach the highest standards of culinary accomplishment, Alex travelled to France – the home of haute cuisine – to be trained by the very best, as well as undertaking further training in Australia. He has since worked alongside many of the world’s greatest chefs in some of the finest establishments around the globe before opening and running five successful restaurants of his own. As a restaurateur and chef, Alex loves being able to provide ordinary people with extraordinary food.
Alex strongly believes that everybody deserves to experience the simple joy of eating good, honest food every single day. His mission is to help ordinary people fall back in love with food, no matter how little time or cooking expertise they have.