Profile

With more than 30 years of experience as a Chef, I bring strengths in identifying and creating new trends, developing concepts, invigorating existing operations as well as building strong teams from the ground up.

My culinary knowledge from working the best part of 10 years with the international catering Company, Delaware North as their Corporate Executive Chef. In this role, I have been responsible for revitalising over 50 existing and new sites, across a wide range of hospitality venues in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. I insist each and every site is seen as an individual enterprise, with its own identity and plan, meaning every venue can realise its full potential. I have learnt that in the world of hospitality, nothing stands still and my role is a crucial element in maintaining a freshness of approach and a vitality in delivery to each site.

As Executive Chef for Melbourne & Olympic Parks. A precinct of venues that host premium sporting events such as the Australian Open, with more than 700 thousand visitors. The demands of that role, require a high-level organisational ability, imagination and creative vision, not to mention the stamina in keeping up-to-date with the knowledge of food safety, flexibility and the drive to energise teams.

My earlier experiences includes being the Executive Chef at Crown, Melbourne where I had a brigade of 200+ Chefs reporting into me, with ultimately the responsibility for the culinary operation of Crown.

Other positions I have held to date include:

• Executive Sous Chef at Burswood Entertainment Complex (now known as Crown Perth)
• Corporate Executive, South Australian Restaurant Associates 
• General Manager Golf and Function Resort Sunset Cove, South Australia
• Executive Chef Radisson Plaza Cairns (now known as Shangri-La resort )

My passion for the “paddock to plate” concept, born from the training days as a Chef in a small restaurant in Germany. Here, I learnt the importance of building very close relationships and connections with the producers and farmers. This value of thoughtful sourcing, cooking and serving the best possible products, together with ensuring the wellbeing of my guests and the environment, even at scale, has formed a large part of my career.

As a certified Master Chef in both Australia and Germany, my passion for the industry has never waived during my 30-year career. Other key skills to highlight are:

• Culinary excellence in any aspect, especially proud to bring high-end hospitality to any kind of event
• Passion for products, sourcing, holding and producing at large and small scale 
• High understanding of all financial aspects relating to the industry 
• Kitchen design, workflows and creating efficiencies in all aspects of Hospitality 
• Menu writing, recipe data, rostering 
• Food safety, data entry, dietary requirement knowledge and HACCP trained

This industry is my passion and my life. I continually change and innovate, making it so interesting. In this demanding industry, my belief is that “You’re only as good as the last meal you served”.

Culinary greetings,

Markus Werner