Luke Mangan

By Franz Scheurer

Luke Mangan, chef, restaurateur, consultant and bon vivant flits across the world looking after his restaurants, not just in Sydney, but also in Japan and the USA, as well as consultant duties whipping the food into shape on Virgin America’s 1st Class. He is indeed a busy man, focused, success driven and his own best PR person. No one can sell Luke Mangan the way Luke Mangan can. This is a rare gift in a chef and he made the most of it.

It was not always like this, though. Mangan was kicked out of school at the age of fifteen, and having a stern, bank-manager father he knew he’d better come up with an alternative, quickly. Thankfully Mangan did a 2-week work experience stint with Herman Schneider, organized by Mangan’s brother, who was a chef there, so he went back to Two Faces, Schneider’s restaurant, and asked for an apprenticeship place. He did talk his way into the job and went back to his dad: “Dad, I got kicked out of school, but I managed to get an apprenticeship in the best restaurant in Australia, starting immediately’. Dad really had nowhere to go and the five years he spent with Herman Schneider and his three restaurants, turned Mangan into an innovative cook with solid technique and it cemented Mangan’s career. “I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here with you if it weren’t for Herman Schneider and his amazing training and discipline”.

After five years Mangan had itchy feet and he wrote to both Mr. Roux and Frédy Girardet. Roux told him that there was a 2-year waiting list and Girardet made it clear that work visas in Switzerland were rather difficult to obtain. Not being easily deterred, Mangan called Roux (and actually managed to get through!) and offered to work free for a month for Roux to evaluate his skills. Roux’s answer: “Ok, see you in a fortnight”. “So I packed up my stuff into a rucksack and made my way over to London to work at the Waterside Inn, a 3 Michelin Star restaurant. I lived above the restaurant, sharing the room with four Frenchmen who were united in their hatred of Australians. They thought only the French could cook. It was hard, physically and mentally. We worked from 7.00am to 1.00am every day and all we could do on our day off was sleep. After my month’s trial was up we had a meeting with Roux and the head chef and I told them that I really enjoyed being there and they gave me a job as a commis. It was a great start and I slowly was promoted to first commis then junior chef de partie. It was extremely educational as I did fish butchery, meat butchery, sauce and meat cookery. I lasted 2 years then worked for a further 2 years for Rowley Leigh (an ex Roux chef) at Kensington Place, a 200-seater Brasserie, before coming back to Australia.

I thought I was King of the Castle and far too cocky for my own good. I managed to get three successive head-chef jobs and all three places went broke within 6 months of me starting to work there”.

Luck would have it that Mr. Roux happened to be in Australia, dining at Rockpool and he mentioned Mangan to Neil Perry who tracked Mangan down and hired him for the opening of Rogues. The night before Rogues closed down, a well-dressed gentlemen in his suit came into the kitchen and asked ‘who is cooking here?” Immediately on the defensive I admitted to being in charge and the stranger said: “This is the best meal I had in Sydney in 10 years; should you ever need anything, contact me” and he handed me his card and left. I knocked on his door two days later, it was John Hemmes. Mr. Hemmes told Mangan that CBD was to open in about 8 months and he would be perfect for the job. Mangan worked in various Hemmes’ establishments and when the opening of CBD approached he had to cook for the Hemmes’ family before he was given the head chef job at the new restaurant. The CBD / Mangan partnership was a great success, a case of the right place at the right time and the right kind of food. It was bistro food with a casual feel, using quality ingredients and solid flavours. “I spend 4 great years at CBD then we decided to do our own thing and after a year’s break opened Salt in Darlinghurst. Salt was a great success and we opened Lulu in Paddington and Moorish at Bondi Beach (which was probably a bit ‘out there’ for Bondi, at the time). The Hilton contacted Mangan (he did open the Auckland Hilton for them) but as he didn’t want to be a consultant, but an owner-operator the negotiations went nowhere at the time. After the closure of Moorish (Mangan’s financial backer went broke) the Hilton again contacted him with plans to have Mangan take over glass brasserie at the new, refurbished Hilton. Jean-Luc Fourrier was instrumental in setting up the initial concept and the Hilton management and Mangan eventually came to an agreement that suited everyone, and the rest is history. Luke Mangan and glass brasserie really are a Sydney institution by now and its good to see that a restaurant inside a hotel can be successful, even in Sydney.

In the meantime, Salt closed in Sydney and Mangan sold a 50% stake in the brand ‘Salt’ to a Japanese company and he opened in Tokyo nearly 3 years ago. Lulu’s lease was not renewed and Moorish was of course already closed. Joe Pavlovic moved from Lulu to glass brasserie, being with Mangan for 8 years, Shannon, who worked with Mangan at CBD is now running the burners at Salt Tokyo and has been with Mangan for 10 years, and a couple of years ago Mangan opened South in San Francisco, a 50-seater, casual brasserie / wine bar, specializing in Australian produce and Australian and New Zealand wines. Mangan’s latest project is organizing the food in 1st Class of Virgin America, a domestic carrier in the USA and with this comes the privilege to cook for Sir Richard Branson every now and then in one of his private hotels.

I asked Mangan what, on a day-to-day basis, holds his attention? His answer: “Managing people, that’s really what I do. I am good at selecting the right people and I believe in them. I delegate and it would never occur to me to interfere. I am in Sydney probably about 30 weeks a year and the rest of the year I am travelling. If I put a chef in charge of a kitchen, then as far as I’m concerned, he or she runs that kitchen. Thankfully for me, this works. I am also grateful that Joe in Sydney, Shannon in Tokyo and Josh in San Francisco are not ego driven and quite happy for me to be the front man.”

To wrap up, I asked Mangan what the future hold and what plans he might have? “Who knows what will happen? I would like to open a branch of South in Los Angeles but the timing is probably not right at the moment and we will expand Salt in the future. I can tell you that we will announce some pretty exciting news in late August.”

Have a look at Luke Mangan’s Web Site