- Restaurant: IDES Melbourne
- Role: Chef & Owner
- Hats: 2
New Zealand born, two-hatted head chef, Peter Gunn has had an incredible journey to get him where he is today. Peter stumbled into the world of food at the age of 16, where he started working at a local Chinese takeaway in New Zealand in the early hours of Friday and Saturday nights.
In order to earn a bit more money, he also picked up two shifts over the weekend at the local swimming pool cafe, toasting sandwiches and cooking hot chips.
While these small jobs may seem insignificant now, it was in these formative years that Peter cultivated a strong work ethic that he still holds to this day.
Peter left school (we don’t think by choice) and completed his culinary training at the TAFE equivalent, Polytech.
Peter then decided to leave New Zealand, leaving it to chance he flipped a coin to decide whether to choose Melbourne and Sydney… Melbourne won and he has never left.
Peter has held positions at some of Melbournes most prestigious establishments. Including his first job at Ezard, followed by a short spell at the Royal Mail with Chef Dan Hunter and then went on to work with his friend and countryman Ben Shewry as Sous chef at Attica. It was at Attica where he achieved the award of 2015 San Pellegrino’s Best Young Chef in Asia Pacific.
In 2013, whilst working at Attica, Peter opened a monthly pop-up restaurant called Ides, after just a couple of months it was fully booked and he was turning people away.
After five years at Attica and couple of them jugging long hours he decided to focus on Ides, he left Attica and opened a restaurant on Smith Street in Collingwood and in 2016 it became a two hatted dining institution.
Producing technique-driven dishes packed full of flavour Peter enjoys the process of ordering and systemising things and empowering his team
to learn and grow within the industry.
Peter describes what he does like working on a Rubik’s Cube – he is constantly shuffling food, wine, service and ambiance to all line up. Peter mentions “at some point – I don’t know when – we’ll get those four colours all in line, and then we’ll just mess it all up again and
start fresh.”
Away from the pass, Peter is a devoted father of two and husband to Nirvalla.
Ides Melbourne
92 Smith St, Collingwood, VIC
idesmelbourne.com.au
Phone: +61 3 9939 9542
