Meet The Chef Behind the Bar – Scott Thomas
Creating a gastropub at home
Media release
The Chef Behind The Bar by Scott Thomas
Chef and publican Scott Thomas shares his vision of the modern pub dining room with creative cuisine using carefully selected seasonal produce, making for pub food that is beyond the ordinary.
Thomas is the chef and proprietor behind award-winning Melbourne pubs The Courthouse and The Montague Hotel. The book covers the rise of modern pub cooking predominantly based around the creative side of the dining room but with a big nod the food served in the front bar.
Pubs are different from restaurants due to the community atmosphere that is created and the personal regular contact that is established with customers.
Featuring more than 60 recipes - from bar snacks, gourmet entrees and mains, to Sunday lunches, desserts and cheese - the atmosphere of a cosy gastro pub can be captured at home. The Chef Behind the Bar gives a gourmet twist to old favourites such as burgers, Sunday roasts and traditional puddings.
Scott Thomas’ love affair with pubs inspired him to bring the stylish gastro pubs of London to the Australian shores, where his Melbourne pubs The Courthouse and The Montague Hotel have found award-winning success.
His penchant for modern pub dining is shared vibrantly on the pages of The Chef Behind The Bar. Thomas explains how to entertain with gourmet finesse and fashion, using quality seasonal produce.
‘I have always felt professionally comfortable working in pubs; there is a freedom to the work that I have never quite felt in a restaurant.’
Pub culture is part of the Australian way of life. Whether it’s a dinner party or casual drinks among friends, Thomas’ burgers and Sunday roasts together with the friendly philosophy of the bar, make a captivating home entertainment experience.
Recipes we like: tamarind chicken wings, peppered steak and ale pie, ginger-cured kingfish, char-grilled calamari with chorizo, fillet of blue eye with saffron tagliatelle, rabbit cannelloni, overnight shoulder of lamb, Weber roasted chicken and potatoes, mango and pineapple crumble, Stilton with pear and red wine puree.
The Chef Behind the Bar by Scott Thomas is published by New Holland Publishers (Sydney NSW 2010; hc 224 pp) and retails for A$40.
VisitVineyards.com and WinePros Archive subscribers and Members can purchase The Chef Behind the Bar from our book partners Seekbooks at 12.5% discount off RRP here (postage extra).
Regions
- Melbourne (VIC)
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