D
avid McMillan never leaves you
wondering. The co-chef and co-
owner of Montréal restaurant Joe
Beef, in Australia for the first time
for the Melbourne Food and Wine
Festival, is a man of strong and
blunt opinions that he’s not shy about sharing.
There is, for instance, his take on The World’s
50 Best Restaurants. “It’s something I have a problem
with,” he says. “It’s highly élitist restaurants for the
richest, most well-travelled, most sophisticated one
per cent of the world. That’s not my goal; I don’t
want that to be my life. I want to enjoy cooking –
I don’t want a chef in a white vest screaming at
me or working for me. I don’t want to work in even
a top 1,000 restaurant. I don’t abide by that system.”
“I want to work in a very good restaurant that
has very close ties with the winemakers and the
cheese-makers it has on its lists. I want to speak to my
oyster guy while he’s on his boat. I can’t be a farmer- I’m not, I’m a cook. But I’ll practise agriculture
in downtown Montréal in a 10-square-metre kitchen
vicariously, through the farmers who surround us.”➤
Joe Beef, the groundbreaking
Montréal restaurant, is going on
the road. Ahead of his first-ever
appearance at Melbourne Food and
Wine Festival, straight-talking chef
David McMillan tells us what’s what,
writesMICHAEL HARDEN.
Beef
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