Jonathan Barthelmess
Jonathan Barthelmess comes from a family whose conversation was always about what they were going to eat next. His grandfather was a chef and the original owner of Pruniers in Woollahra.
Jonathan didn’t complete a formal apprenticeship, but worked his way up through the kitchen ranks, starting as a kitchen hand/dishwasher, before moving on to short order cook and discovering that a career in cooking was what he wanted to do with his life. He started cooking seriously at his cousin’s restaurant Da Adolfo in Sydney, and landed his first Head Chef role at 21 at Guilio’s in Broad Beach, Queensland. Returning to Sydney in 2003 he cooked at Mod-Asian diner Mu Shu, before settling into Italian flavours at Coast under Stefano Manfredi. When Manfredi moved on, Jonathan remained behind as Executive Chef.
He says:
“I’ve developed my own style which, given my Greek heritage and training under Steve (Manfredi), leans to the Mediterranean with a strong Italian influence. If you strip everything else away it all comes back to the raw ingredients; if you don’t source the best produce, how can you work towards achieving excellence on the plate? I use and respect tradition, learning from previous generations, their trial and error and successes and the way they've learnt to make food that tastes good from the resources they had on hand. We are lucky today to have such a large variety of great produce at our doorstep. My inspiration comes from memories of past meals and the great produce and people that are in my life.”