Kia Ora Sept Issue

Business Enterprise
Clockwise from left:
Gordon has a laugh
with the team; the jawdropping
view from the
restaurant; and Gordon
on his Brompton bike.
Looking back, he puts it down to exhaustion,
after having fewer than four months to
complete his book, Savour: Salads for all
Seasons, during which he had two full-on
working trips back to New Zealand.
“It was the most stressful time. Chaos.
Almost unbelievable.
“As we shot the book’s last photo I was
vomiting in the bathroom upstairs.”
Then came the doubts. “A big mid-life
crisis; a period where I thought, ‘Is Peter
Gordon relevant on the food scene any
more? Is my food really boring?’ In the old
Sugar Club days I knew I was relevant. In the
Dine days I knew I was relevant. But then I
had a moment when I thought, ‘What is the
point of me these days?’ It was quite healthy,
but it was unexpected.”
The cure, as is so often the case in life,
was a great meal with old friends. To
celebrate the 15th anniversary of The
Providores and Tapa Room there was a
get-together of some of the restaurants’
“alumni”, including impressive talent such
as Brad Farmerie, the Michelin-starred
executive chef of PUBLIC restaurant in
New York; Kiwi Miles Kirby co-founder of
London’s popular, award-winning
restaurant group Caravan; Selin Kiazim,
restaurateur, cookbook author and Great
British Menu 2017 contestant; and Kiwi
Anna Hansen, chef and owner of The
Modern Pantry.
“It turned out to be a big love-fest,” says
Gordon. “We all cooked, and people talked
about their time at The Providores, what it
meant to them and how it helped them on
their way. It was like a marker of many
people’s careers.”
——
‘In the old Sugar Club days
I knew I was relevant. In the
Dine days I knew I was
relevant. But then I had a
moment when I thought,
“What is the point of me
these days?” ’
——
And his new book was a triumph. “I’m really
proud of the book. But I can’t believe I did it.
The book, the alumni dinner, it was all lovely
and it all suddenly seemed quite relevant.”
As if to emphasise the point, recently
Matt Tebbutt, the host of UK cooking show
Saturday Kitchen had to publicly apologise
for admiring Gordon. Newspapers reported
that the show’s guest chef, Anna Hansen,
declared Gordon the “godfather of fusion”.
Tebbutt agreed, a bit too strongly for live
television: “I think he’s a genius. I think
he’s (expletive) brilliant.”
Gordon grins when I mention the story.
“That was quite good wasn’t it,” he says,
with a wicked laugh.
A couple of days later, during our photo
shoot, the revered chef is acting the goat.
He’s taken his cherished Brompton folding
bicycle to the Sugar Club kitchen to show it
to staff before opening. But that’s not quite
enough. He climbs on and suddenly he’s
whizzing through the upmarket restaurant,
really rather close to impeccably dressed
tables and fragile, expensive-looking objets
d’art. Everyone’s falling about laughing and,
of course, everyone has to have a go too.
Fifteen minutes later, they’re all back in
the kitchen, hard at work.
It’s classic Peter Gordon fusion, be it in the
kitchen, boardroom or on a bike: take a cool
idea, put it in a new and unexpected context
and get everybody on board for the ride.
90 Kia Ora